Poetical Works Volume 5 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHRISTUS: A MYSTERY INTROITUS The Angel (bearing the Prophet Habakkuk through the air) PROPHET Why dost thou bear me aloft O Angel of God, on thy pinions O'er realms and dominions ? Softly I float as a cloud In air, for thy right hand upholds me, Thy garment enfolds me Angel Lo as I passed on my way In the harvest-field I beheld thee, When no man compelled thee, Bearing with thine own hands This food to the famishing reapers, A flock without keepers The fragrant sheaves of the wheat Made the air above them sweet; Sweeter and more divine Was the scent of the scattered grain, That the reaper's hand let fall To be gathered again By the hand of the gleaner Sweetest, divinest of all, Was the humble deed of thine, And the meekness of thy demeanor Prophet Angel of Light, I cannot gainsay thee, I can but obey thee ANGEL Beautiful was it in the Lord's sight, To behold his Prophet Feeding those that toil, The tillers of the soil. But why should the reapers eat of it And not the Prophet of Zion In the den of the lion ? The Prophet should feed the Prophet Therefore I thee have uplifted, And bear thee aloft by the hair Of thy head, like a cloud that is drifted Through the vast unknown of the air Five days hath the Prophet been lying In Babylon, in the den Of the lions, death-defying, Defying hunger and thirst; But the worst Is the mockery of men Alas how full of fear Is the fate of Prophet and Ser Forevermore, forevermore, ITTNAH ' ISA1AH HABAK.KVK 1 pr, .-.- I It shall be as it hath been heretofore; The age in which they live Will not forgive The splendor of the everlasting light, That makes their foreheads bright, Nor the sublime ..