ary
depth and force. And so Our Lady, shocked and weeping, falls before the
throne of God and begs for mercy for all in hell--for all she has seen
there, indiscriminately. Her conversation with God is immensely
interesting. She beseeches Him, she will not desist, and when God points
to the hands and feet of her Son, nailed to the Cross, and asks, 'How can
I forgive His tormentors?' she bids all the saints, all the martyrs, all
the angels and archangels to fall down with her and pray for mercy on all
without distinction. It ends by her winning from God a respite of
suffering every year from Good Friday till Trinity Day, and the sinners at
once raise a cry of thankfulness from hell, chanting, 'Thou art just, O
Lord, in this judgment.' Well, my poem would have been of that kind if it
had appeared at that time. He comes on the scene in my poem, but He says
nothing, only appears and passes on. Fifteen centuries have passed since
He promised to come in His glory, fifteen centuries since His prophet
wrote, 'Behold, I come quickly'; 'Of that day and that hour knoweth no
man, neither the Son, but the Father,' as He Himself predicted on earth.
But humanity awaits him with the same faith and with the same love. Oh,
with greater faith, for it is fifteen centuries since man has ceased to
see signs from heaven.

No signs from heaven come to-day
To add to what the heart doth say.

There was nothing left but faith in what the heart doth say. It is true
there were many miracles in those days. There were saints who performed
miraculous cures; some holy people, according to their biographies, were
visited by the Queen of Heaven herself. But the devil did not slumber, and
doubts were already arising among men of the truth of these miracles. And
just then there appeared in the north of Germany a terrible new heresy. "A
huge star like to a torch" (that is, to a church) "fell on the sources of
the waters and they became bitter." These heretics began blasphemously
denying miracles. But those who remained faithful were all the more ardent
in their faith. The tears of humanity rose up to Him as before, awaited
His coming, loved Him, hoped for Him, yearned to suffer and die for Him as
before. And so many ages mankind had prayed with faith and fervor, "O Lord
our God, hasten Thy coming," so many ages called upon Him, that in His
infinite mercy He deigned to come down to His servants. Before that day He
had come down, He had visited so