XXI. THE WORLD’S END.
1.
Swift as an arrow in its flight
The Ship shot through the incumbent night;
And they have left behind
The raging billows and the roaring wind,
The storm, the darkness, and all mortal fears;
And lo! another light
To guide their way appears,
The light of other spheres.
2.
That instant, from Ladurlad’s heart and brain
The Curse was gone; he feels again
Fresh as in Youth’s fair morning, and the Maid
Hath lost her leprous stain.
The dreadful Man hath no dominion here,
Starting she cried; O happy, happy hour!
We are beyond his power!
Then raising to the Glendoveer,
With heavenly beauty bright, her angel face,
Turn’d not reluctant now, and met his dear embrace.
3.
Swift glides the Ship, with gentle motion,
Across that calm and quiet ocean;
That glassy sea, which seem’d to be
The mirror of tranquillity.
Their pleasant passage soon was o’er,
The Ship hath reach’d its destin’d shore;
A level belt of ice which bound,
As with an adamantine mound,
The waters of the sleeping Ocean round.
Strange forms were on the strand
Of earth-born spirits slain before their time;
Who, wandering over sea and sky and land,
Had so fulfill’d their term; and now were met
Upon this icy belt, a motley band,
Waiting their summons, at the appointed hour
When each before the judgement-seat must stand,
And hear his doom from Baly’s righteous power.
4.
Foul with habitual crimes, a hideous crew
Were there, the race of rapine and of blood.
Now, having overpast the mortal flood,
Their own deformity they knew,
And knew the meed that to their deeds was due.
Therefore in fear and agony they stood,
Expecting when the evil Messenger
Among them should appear. But with their fear
A hope was mingled now;
O’er the dark shade of guilt a deeper hue
It threw, and gave a fiercer character
To the wild eye and lip and sinful brow.
They hop’d that soon Kehama would subdue
The inexorable God, and seize his throne,
Reduce the infernal World to his command,
And, with his irresistible right hand,
Redeem them from the vaults of Padalon.
5.
Apart from these a milder company,
The victims of offences not their own,
Look’d when the appointed Messenger should come;
Gathered together some, and some alone
Brooding in silence on their future doom.
Widows whom, to their husbands’ funeral fire,
Force or strong error led, to share the pyre,
As to their everlasting marriage-bed:
And babes, by sin unstain’d,
Whom erring parents vow’d
To Ganges, and the holy stream profan’d
With that strange sacrifice, rite unordain’d
By Law, by sacred Nature unallow’d:
Others more hapless in their destiny,
Scarce having first inhaled this vital breath,
Whose cradles from some tree
Unnatural hands suspended,
Then left, till gentle Death,
Coming like Sleep, their feeble moanings ended;
Or for his prey the ravenous Kite descended;
Or, marching like an army from their caves,
The Pismires blacken’d o’er, then bleach’d and bare
Left their unharden’d bones to fall asunder there.
6.
Innocent Souls! thus set so early free
From sin and sorrow and mortality,
Their spotless spirits all-creating Love
Receiv’d into its universal breast.
Yon blue serene above
Was their domain; clouds pillowed them to rest;
The Elements on them like nurses tended,
And with their growth etherial substance blended.
Less pure than these is that strange Indian bird
Who never dips in earthly streams her bill,
But, when the sound of coming showers is heard,
Looks up, and from the clouds receives her fill.
Less pure the footless fowl of Heaven, that never
Rest upon earth, but on the wing for ever
Hovering o’er flowers, their fragrant food inhale,
Drink the descending dew upon its way,
And sleep aloft while floating on the gale.
And thus these innocents in yonder sky
Grow and are strengthen’d, while the allotted years
Perform their course, then hitherward they fly,
Being free from mortal taint, so free from fears,
A joyous band, expecting soon to soar
To Indra’s happy spheres,
And mingle with the blessed company
Of heavenly spirits there for evermore.
7.
A Gulph profound surrounded
This icy belt; the opposite side
With highest rocks was bounded;
But where their heads they hide,
Or where their base is founded,
None could espy. Above all reach of sight
They rose, the second Earth was on their height,
Their feet were fix’d in everlasting night.
8.
So deep the Gulph, no eye
Could plum its dark profundity,
Yet all its depth must try; for this the road
To Padalon, and Yamen’s dread abode.
And from below continually
Ministrant Demons rose and caught
The Souls whose hour was come;
Then, with their burthen fraught,
Plunged down, and bore them to receive their doom.
9.
Then might be seen who went in hope, and who
Trembled to meet the meed
Of many a foul misdeed, as wild they threw
Their arms retorted from the Demons’ grasp,
And look’d around, all eagerly, to seek
For help, where help was none; and strove for aid
To clasp the nearest shade;
Yea, with imploring looks and horrent shriek,
Even from one Demon to another bending,
With hands extending,
Their mercy they essay’d.
Still from the verge they strain,
And from the dreadful gulph avert their eyes,
In vain; down plunge the Demons, and their cries
Feebly, as down they sink, from that profound arise.
10.
What heart of living man could, undisturb’d,
Bear sight so sad as this! What wonder there
If Kailyal’s lip were blanch’d with inmost dread!
The chill which from that icy belt
Struck through her, was less keen than what she felt
With her heart’s-blood through every limb dispread.
Close to the Glendoveer she clung,
And clasping round his neck her trembling hands,
She clos’d her eyes, and there in silence hung.
11.
Then to Ladurlad said the Glendoveer,
These Demons, whom thou seest, the ministers
Of Yamen, wonder to behold us here;
But for the dead they come, and not for us:
Therefore, albeit they gaze upon thee thus,
Have thou no fear.
A little while thou must be left alone,
Till I have borne thy Daughter down,
And placed her safely by the throne
Of him who keeps the Gate of Padalon.
12.
Then taking Kailyal in his arms, he said,
Be of good heart, Beloved! it is I
Who bear thee. Saying this, his wings he spread,
Sprung upward in the sky, and pois’d his flight,
Then plunged into the Gulph, and sought the World of Night.
