"I who was sent to charm their souls to love,
Could only vex them to worse hate and scorn;
And yet I swear, O Raphael, that I strove
With all my power to mend their state forlorn:
By every pang they felt my heart was torn,[1]
And wounded worse by their unkindly spurning:
I love them with a love of infinite yearning.
"Lo, I have failed: but God, He cannot fail.
He speeds a shaft against Hell's Dragon-King,
And it falls shivered from the iron mail;—
There let it rot, the weak and worthless thing!
I dare to triumph in my perishing:
His quiver lacks not many a nobler dart
Equal to pierce the Monster to the heart!"
But Raphael raised the Seraph from his kneeling,
And prest him heart to heart in long embrace;
Then stood erect, to all the heights revealing
The fulgent beauty of his solemn face;
And flung abroad his voice to swell through space
And thrill on all the ever-rolling spheres
Triumphant music for celestial ears.
"I call to witness all the angel-quires
Sphering the heavens with their eternal hymn,
I call to witness all the orbed fires
Bearing the light of life through Æther dim;
The Saints, the Cherubim, the Seraphim,
All armies of the Servants of our Lord,
I call to witness to my just award.
- ↑ "Me, who am as a nerve o'er which do creep
The else-unfelt oppressions of the earth."
"Julian and Maddalo."
