Stedman and Hutchinson, comps. A Library of American Literature:
An Anthology in Eleven Volumes. 1891.
Vols. IX–XI: Literature of the Republic, Part IV., 1861–1889
The Dying Archangel
By Edgar Fawcett (1847–1904)B
In heights or deeps where time and space are one
And either as the mote that specks a ray;
At fountain-head of mystery, force and rule
Whose funds of calm are causes of all worlds,
Ended, begun or yet to roll and shine,—
A being, a child of light and majesty,
Did evil, sinned a terrible sin, and felt
His immortality tremble, while a Voice
Whose mandate was creation and whose wrath
Extinction, spake the doom he feared must fall.
That almost thou wert I, as I was thou;
And hence the incomparable deed devised
Of thee, sin’s primal enemy, hath sent
A shudder among the voids where systems wheel
And made the soul of order rock with threat.
Great is thy sin, as thou, bright subaltern,
Art great; and therefore great must be thy shame.
Death is that shame; and yet a loftier death
Should take thee, as befits thy place and power.
So shall thy passing into emptiness
Be archangelic for its dignity,
As thou, archangel, shouldst in grandeur die.”
Dark as two seas in storm, yet dared not speak.
And while he stood, with glory and ruin each
Blent in his mien, like some wild shattered cloud
That lightning rends and leaves, once more the Voice:
One beautifully beamed for centuries, yet
Hath aged at last, and nears its fated close.
That star I love as I loved thee; for both
Served me in radiance as my vassals, both
Shone the exemplars of obedience, both
With memories of proud loyalty shall haunt
Eternity through all its domes and zones.
Go, therefore, thou, imperial in thy pain
Of exile and of punishment, to lay
The shadowed splendor of thy limbs and brows
Dying upon that dying star! A world
Of melancholy as mighty as thine own
Shall compass thee, and while it fades and dims,
Thy spirit in unison shall wane. Farewell!”
This ancient star whose orb should be his tomb.
Once its wide continents had swarmed with man,
But now the torpid life of toad or worm
Reigned sole among nude fields and spectral woods.
No beast was left, no hint of leaf on bough,
No delicate wraith of flower, no glimpse of vine,
Or yet, through many a year, no trill of bird;
But all was dreariness and desuetude,
Fatigue, affliction, languor and decay!
The star had been a planet, allegiant
To a vast sun that glimmered at this hour
Wan as a wasted ember from its heaven.
In bends of rivers that had shrunk to streams,
On coasts of seas that flashed a glassy gray,
Phantoms of cities reared their roofs and towers,
With streets that swept by mouldering palaces,
With monstrous parks, where crumbling statues loomed,
With temples, mausoleums and monuments
In pathos of debasement; with long wharves
Where sick, monotonous ripples ever lapped
On towering hulls of rotted ships that once
Had scorned the ire of tempests,—nay, with all
To attest a race of such magnificence,
Dominion, empire and supremacy
As knowledge wed to wisdom nobly breeds.
“O star, I knew thee in thy luminous prime,
And loved thee not alone that thou wert fair,
But for the attainments and the victories
Wrought of thy peoples till they rose like gods!
For slowly did they climb, while æons passed,
From brutish aims to deeds of golden worth.
I watched and loved their leaders of high thought,
Their stealthy change of laws from vile to pure,
Their conquests over tyrannies and wrongs,
Their agonies, hopes, rebellious, and at last
The white dawn of their peace! But most of all
I loved, O star, the poets upon thy sphere,
And found in these melodious prophecy
Of dreams thy future waited to fulfil….
But now thy future and thy past are one,
And I, who am fallen from immortality,
Shall rob thy dissolution, to my joy,
Of death’s worst pang, being come to lay myself
In thee as in a sepulchre sublime!”
That had no morning shrouded these lone lands,
The Archangel bowed his head and screened his face,
And died in silence with the dying star!