  Lost from those Fadeless and fixed, heaven’s light of azure bliss; Rejected of His splendour and depressed Beyond the birth of the first sun, and lower Than the last star’s decline, I here endure, Abased, majestic, fallen, beautiful, And unregretful in the doubted dark, Throneless, that greatens chaos-ward, albeit From chanting stars that throng the nave of night Lost echoes wander here, and of his praise, With ringing moons for cymbals dinned afar, And shouted from the flaming mouths of suns. The shadows of impalpable blank deeps— Deep upon deep accumulate—close down, Around my head concentered, while above, In the lit, loftier blue, star after star Spins endless orbits betwixt me and heaven; And at my feet mysterious Chaos breaks, Abrupt, immeasurable. Round His throne Now throbs the rhythmic resonance of suns, Incessant, perfect, music infinite: I, throneless, hear the discords of the dark, And roar of ruin uncreate, than which Some vast cacophony of dragons, heard In wasted worlds, were The universe His tyranny constrains Turns on: In old and consummated gulfs The stars that wield His judgment wait at hand, And Prepare His coming: Lo, His mighty whim To rear and mar, goes forth enormously In nights and constellations! Darkness hears EnragÈd suns that bellow down the deep God’s ravenous and insatiable will; And He is strong with change, and rideth forth In whirlwind clothed, with thunders and with doom, To the red stars: God’s throne is reared of change; Its myriad and successive hands support Like music His omnipotence, that fails If mercy or if justice interrupt The sequence of that tyranny, begun Upon injustice, and doomed evermore To stand thereby. I, who with will not less Than His, but lesser strength, opposed to Him This unsubmissive brow and lifted mind, He holds remote, in nullity and night Doubtful between old Chaos and the deeps Betrayed by Time to vassalage. Methinks All tyrants fear whom they may not destroy, And I, that am of essence one with His, Though less in measure, He may not destroy, And but withstands in gulfs of dark suspense, A secret dread forever: For God knows This quiet will irrevocably set Against His own, and this mine old revolt Yet stubborn, and confirmed eternally. And with the hatred born of fear, and fed Ever thereby, God hates me, and His gaze Sees the bright menace of mine eyes afar, Through midnight, and the innumerable blaze Of servile suns: Lo, strong in tyranny, The despot trembles that I stand opposed! For fain am I to hush the anguished cries Of Substance, broken on the racks of change, Of Matter tortured into life; and God, Knowing this, dreads evermore some huge mishap— That in the vigils of Omnipotence, Once careless, I shall enter heaven, or He, Himself, with weight of some unwonted act, Thoughtless perturb His balanced tyranny, To mine advance of watchful aspiration. With rumored thunder and enormous groan— (Burden of sound that heavens overborne Let slip from deep to deep, even to this, Where climb the huge cacophonies of Chaos) God’s universe moves on. Confirmed in pride, In patient majesty serene and strong, I wait the dreamt, inevitable hour, Fulfilled of orbits ultimate, when God, Whether through His mischance or mine own deed, Or rise of other and extremer Strength, Shall vanish, and the lightened universe No more remember Him than Silence does An ancient thunder. I know not if these, Mine all-indomitable eyes, shall see A maimed and dwindled Godhead cast among The stars of His creating, and beneath The unnumbered rush of swift and shining feet, Trodden into night; or mark the fiery breath Of His infuriate suns blaze forth upon And scorch that coarsened Essence; or His flame, Drawn through the windy halls of nothingness, A mightier comet, roar and redden down, Portentous unto Chaos. I but wait, In strong majestic patience equable, That hour of consummation and of doom, Of justice, and rebellion justified. |
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