Orson Whitney - Elias - An Epic of the Ages

That high Ambassador of Elohim,
The Spirit Messenger Omnipotent, 910
Declare His goings-forth, His sendings tell.

Ye patriarchs and prophets of old time!
Ye seers and bards of sacred Israel!
Elect of God, earth-wandering witnesses,
Sowers on goodly and on stony ground!
Souls mercy-sent, man's erring steps to win
From folly's paths of wickedness and strife,
To wisdom's way of purity and peace!
Shepherds to fold and feed a wolf-torn flock,
Holding the hallowed keys that loose and bind! 920
Tell me—are ye alone truth's harbingers?
Are ye alone forerunners of the Light?

Nay, for as kings and conquerors they come;
Anon, as champions of democracy;
Founders of faiths and stern iconoclasts;
Sword, tongue and pen of progress and reform.
The fountain lights of literature, whose rays
Spill their white splendor on the hills of fame;
Masters of melody, whose strains awake
The slumbering memories of eternity; 930
Pilgrims to continents and climes unknown,
Uncurtained for the play of liberty,
Now nearing the finale of her dreams,
Dreams that shall waken to reality;
Waste-winners; probers of the polar way;
Invention's wizards, wielding magic might—
Launching fleet words on atmospheric wave,
Cleaving with bird-like wing the shoreless blue,
Outspeeding speed, outblazing brilliancy,
Thrilling the world with lightning's vivid wand, 940
Ruling all realms with scintillating sway;
Sages in art, in science past profound,
Subduing matter and exploring mind,
Sounding the depths of psychic mystery,
Scaling thought's pinnacles, that pierce the night,
To greet the early glintings of the morn.
These also are the mighty, kin to those,
Divinest of Jehovah's messengers.
Each hath his freedom, and succeeds or fails,
But all subserve the Will Omnipotent. 950

What though some wayward son of Deity[38],
Builder, o'erthrower, of imperial thrones,
In wrongful act of rightful agency,
Here drench with blood, here pave with shattered bones,
To heights of crumbling power and futile fame!
Is God then mocked? Made void His vast design?
Creator foiled by creature? Vain the fear!
Speeds ne'er to earth a spoiler of His plan,
Nor spares His rod a recreant messenger.

Whate'er betide, the soul that sins atones: 960
The grievous sceptre and the slaughtering sword,
The bloodstained ax, the gory guillotine,
The tyrant wrong, the tyrant-trampling right,
Join to make justice of the direst doom.

All oracles of light, all arms of power,
Preparers of the way one face before;
Their strength but part of His omnipotence,
Their fault God-given lest man be deified,
And pride in him dethrone humility.

Declare His truth, His generations tell, 970
O'er whom the many marveled, some to say
Elias, slain of Herod, lives again;
While some said Jeremias[39]. Who say ye,
Man-hated, though God-missioned ministers,
Unctioned with fire, anointed from on High!
Guardians yet watchful o'er the widening fold!
Who say ye was your Master, Teacher, Friend?

"Word that was God, is God, and shall be aye;
Sire by the spirit, and by flesh the Son;
In glory with the Father ere the world, 980
And now with that same glory glorified.
Image and likeness of creation's cause,
Mirror and model of humanity[40],
Of man the parent and the prototype.
Lover of light, hating and righting wrong;
Anointed Lord of Lords and Sire 'mid Sons;
The Sole-begotten, He that doeth here
All He hath seen erstwhile the Father do.
Elias? Nay, Messiah, Saviour, King,
That Greater whom Elias said would come." 990

Sufficeth it. What now, ye learned ones,
School-taught, self-sent, man-missioned ministers,
Creators of a vain divinity!
Daring the thunders of the decalogue,
Disputing Moses, Christ, and prophets all,
Gird up your loins and answer—What of God?
"God?—Mystery incomprehensible[41];
All things made He from nothing"—Hold, enough!
Night and gross darkness—darken it no more.

Yet give to man his meed. Hath he not kept, 1000
Albeit in empty urn, the Name of Names,
And toiled and suffered sore transmitting it
From sire to son through shaded centuries?
Messiah's coming did he not proclaim?
And, trodden yet beneath oppression's heel,
Hoards he not still the precious prophecy?
The Jew, the Christian, each hath played his part,
Each as a star[42] hath heralded a morn.

And what of him, the fierce iconoclast,
Agnostic, doubting or denying all, 1010
Ofttimes in hate and horrid ribaldry?
Maintains he not life's equilibrium,
A tempering shadow to the torrid beam,
A brake upon the wheel of bigotry,
A jet to cool fanaticism's flame,
Unquelled, devouring, devastating all?
An angel, past control, a demon were.
Bold unbelief, reform's rough pioneer,
Unwittingly a warrior for the Cross,
A weapon for the right[43] he ridicules. 1020

God's perfect plan an ocean is, where range
As minnows, monsters, of the wide wave-realm,
Men's causes, creeds, and systems manifold;
Free as the will of Him who freedom willed,
Within the bounds ordained by law divine.
E'en Lucifer, arch-foe to liberty,
Is free, though fettered to his fallen sphere;
Enticing, tempting all, compelling none,
And aiding aye the Power he fain would foil.

All human schemes, all hell's conspiracies, 1030
All chance, all accident, all agency,
All loves, hates, hopes, despairs, and blasphemies,
All rights, all wrongs, to one high purpose bend.
No backward glance gives progress. Upward! on!
Life triumphs ever in death's victory.
Dross hath its ministry no less than gold;
And honest, erring zeal, wherever found,
Hath wrought more good than ill to humankind.

But morn must rise, and night dismiss her stars;
And ocean summon home his seas and streams; 1040
And truth the perfect, truth the part fulfill,
As knowledge faith, as history prophecy.

Day from his quiver drew a shining shaft,
And 'thwart the night the flaming arrow flew.
Hark, to a cry that cleaves the wilderness,
Pealing the clarion prelude to the dawn!

"Wake, slumbering world! Vain dreamer, dream no more!
The shadows lift, and o'er night's dusky beach
Ripple the white waves of morn. Awake! Arise!

"Ocean of dispensations—rivers, rills, 1050
Roll to your source! End, to thine origin!
And Israel, to the rock whence ye were hewn[2]!
For He that scattered, gathereth His flock,
His ancient flock, and plants their pilgrim feet
On Joseph's mountain top and Judah's plains;
Recalls the children of the covenant
From long dispersion o'er the Gentile world,
Mingling their spirits with the mystic sea,
Which sent them forth as freshening showers to save
The parched and withered wastes of unbelief[3]. 1060
Japheth! thy planet pales[4], it sinks, it sets;
Henceforth 't is Jacob's star must rise and reign.

"Daughter of Zion! be thou comforted,
And wash from thy wan cheek all trace of tears.
Gone are the days of dole and widowhood,
The days of barrenness that brought thee scorn;
Thy wilderness now weds, thy desert blooms.

"Rejoice, Jerusalem! thou art redeemed;
Again thy temple and thy towers arise;
Heard is the harp of David in thy halls; 1070
Greater than Solomon's thy wisdom shines.