en?--the granite of the Night, is it not crumbled low?--the
ice of Death, is it not molten?

She blooms in her resurrection; her voice is lifted in the
universal litany to Life. She rolls in her golden garniture of
beams, circling with the singing sister-spheres. Her rondure
floats against the distant cohorts of the constellations.

The ancient Spirit of Chaos swings her pitchy cressets, and
sinks down the starless deep on her tall catafalque of Death.

Rejoice, O orb vestured in beauty! Put forth thy wings, thy
coronals of Love, wrap thee with fluctuant Winds and exulting Seas!

Shall thy offspring feel dismay, knowing what light shall burst
from dark, what life leap from Death, what flowers blow from dust?

So the anointed and belted spheres, re-risen from their
bath of silence and their sleep of time, move on companioned
with eternal hope.

The fingers of the Sun stroke forth a glorious strain; the
worlds are shawns and cymbals for his minstrelsy. The Spirit
of Creation pours forth her victorious baptismal harmonies.

Triumphantly her music daunts the firmament and echoes against
the dusks of the Unapproachable.

SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF CREATION

ONCE more the soft, terraqueous chaunt I hear
In choral, and the nuptial planet-dance
I mark. With puissant sceptre o'er each sphere,
Life thrones in music and in wonder's trance.
Hail! vessels solar and terrestrial, hail!
Whose prows shall cross the dim, celestial bars
With helm sidereal and cloudy sail,
Bannered with youth and lanterned with the stars.
What fates for ballast? by what voices grim
And laughters urged, your astral course I mark,--
Warped to what ports remote your hulks shall swim
Or anchor silent in what stagnant dark?
Mine arms have raised you from the cosmic deep;
Now Fire hath sprent his jewelled drops and sown
Marvellous seeds whence beauty's plants shall creep
Season to season weaving, zone to zone.
Now sacerdotal Love shall shape and dye
His forms within the house of joy and tears,
And Birth shall bless and Death shall sanctify
Earth's passion and her pageant through the years.

Down the everlasting, unchangeable cope the hymnal of Life is
reft away.

But its music is showered over Earth.

It is prisoned in the sea-shells; the flowers garner it in
their chalices.

It stirs in the heart of Man.

End of Project Gutenberg's The Masque of the Elements, by Herman Scheffauer

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