ose days!
But long and dire shall be the tale of blood;
Let it be hid for ever! Look again:

JOHN.

I see the pillars and the rocky bounds
That gird this inland sea.

STRANGER.

What seest thou more?

JOHN.

I see a ship burst through the narrow frith 210
Into the sea of darkness and of storms,
There lost in boundless solitudes. Oh! no,
There is an island; with its chalky cliffs,
Beauteous it rises from the billowy waste.

STRANGER.

Thither that ship is bound: nor storms, nor seas,
Rocking in more terrific amplitude,
Impede its course. Long years shall roll away, 217
And when deep night shall wrap again the shores,
Of Asia; where the "golden candlestick"
Now gleams, illumining the pagan world;
And where a few poor Christian fishermen
Shall here and there be found; even where thy Church
Of Ephesus stood in the light of heaven,
From that far isle, amid the desert waves,
Back, like the morning on the darkened east,
To lands long hid, in ocean-depths unknown,
The radiance of the gospel shall go forth,
And the Cross float triumphant o'er the world.

JOHN.

Even now, in vision rapt of days to come,
I see her Christian temples, pale in air, 230
Above the smoke of cities; o'er the deep
I see her fleets, innumerable, spread,
Chequering, like shadows, the remotest main;
And, lo! a river, winding in the light,
Silent, amid a vast metropolis,
Beneath the spires, and towers, and glittering domes!
Ah! they are vanished, and a sudden cloud
Hides, from the straining sight, temple, and tower,
And battlement.

STRANGER.

Pray that it pass away. 240

JOHN.

Ah! the pale horse and rider! the pale horse
Is there! silence is in the streets! The ark
Of her majestic polity, the Church--
The temple of the Lord--I see no more!

STRANGER.

Pray that her faith preserve her: the event 245
Is in His hands who bade his angels sound
Their trumps, or pour the avenging vials out.
Let us descend, the wind is fresh and fair,
Direct from the north-east, let us descend.
And they descended, silently and slow,