A DRAMA OF EXILE.
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Did follow softly, plucking us behind Back to the gradual banks and vernal bowers And fourfold river-courses:—by all these, I bless thee to the contraries of these; I bless thee to the desert and the thorns, To the elemental change and turbulence, And to the roar of the estranged beasts, And to the solemn dignities of grief,—To each one of these ends,—and to this endOf Death and the hereafter! Eve.I accept For me and for my daughters this high part, Which lowly shall be counted. Noble work Shall hold me in the place of garden-rest; And in the place of Eden's lost delight, Worthy endurance of permitted pain; While on my longest patience there shall wait Death's speechless angel, smiling in the east Whence cometh the cold wind. I bow myself Humbly henceforward on the ill I did, That humbleness may keep it in the shade. Shall it be so? Shall I smile, saying so? O seed! O King! O God, who shalt be seed,—What shall I say? As Eden's fountains swelled Brightly betwixt their banks, so swells my soul Betwixt Thy love and power! And, sweetest thoughts Of foregone Eden! now, for the first time Since God said "Adam," walking through the trees, I dare to pluck you, as I plucked erewhile The lily or pink, the rose or heliotrope, So pluck I you—so largely—with both hands,—And throw you forward on the outer earth Wherein we are cast out, to sweeten it. Adam. As Thou, Christ, to illume it, boldest Heaven Broadly above our heads. [The Christ is gradually transfigured during the following phrases of dialogue, into humanity and suffering.
