Have fastened cruel death; or any's blood,
His body reft by birds, unhid have lain:
155 Yet shall they not wrest from the mighty Lord
His latest dues. Need is that men appear
Quickened from death 'fore God, and at His bar
Stand in their shapes resumed. Thus arid seeds
Are drops into the vacant lands, and deep
160 In the fixt furrows die and rot: and hence
Is not their surface [1304] animated soon
With stalks repaired? and do they [1305] not grow strong
And yellow with the living grains? and, rich
With various usury, [1306] new harvests rise
165 In mass? The stars all set, and, born again,
Renew their sheen; and day dies with its light
Lost in dense night; and now night wanes herself
As light unveils creation presently;
And now another and another day
170 Rises from its own stars; and the sun sets,
Bright as it is with splendour--bearing light;
Light perishes when by the coming eve
The world [1307] is shaded; and the phoenix lives
By her own soot [1308] renewed, and presently
175 Rises, again a bird, O wondrous sight!
After her burnings! The bare tree in time
Shoots with her leaves; and once more are her boughs
Curved by the germen of the fruits.
While then
The world [1309] throughout is trembling at God's voice,
180 And deeply moved are the high air's powers, [1310]
Then comes a crash unwonted, then ensue
Heaven's mightiest murmurs, on the approach of God,
The whole world's [1311] Judge! His countless ministers
Forthwith conjoin their rushing march, and God
185 With majesty supernal fence around.
Angelic bands will from the heaven descend
To earth; all, God's host, whose is faculty
Divine; in form and visage spirits all
Of virtue: in them fiery vigour is;
190 Rutilant are their bodies; heaven's might
Divine about them flashes; the whole orb
Hence murmurs; and earth, trembling to her depths
(Or whatsoe'er her bulk is [1312] ), echoes back
The roar, parturient of men, whom she,
195 Being bidden, will with grief upyield. [1313] All stand
In wonderment. At last disturbed are
The clouds, and the stars move and quake from height
Of sudden power. [1314] When thus God comes, with voice
Of potent sound, at once throughout all realms
200 The sepulchres are burst, and every ground
Outpours bones from wide chasms, and opening sand
Outbelches living peoples; to the hair [1315]
The members cleave; the bones inwoven are
With marrow; the entwined sinews rule
205 The breathing bodies; and the veins 'gin throb
With simultaneously infused blood:
And, from their caves dismissed, to open day
Souls are restored, and seek to find again
Each its own organs, as at their own place
210 They rise. O wondrous faith! Hence every age
Shoots forth; forth shoots from ancient dust the host
Of dead. Regaining light, there rise again
Mothers, and sires, and high-souled youths, and boys,
And maids unwedded; and deceased old men
215 Stand by with living souls; and with the cries
Of babes the groaning orb resounds. [1316] Then tribes
Various from their lowest seats will come:
Bands of the Easterns; those which earth's extreme
Sees; those which dwell in the downsloping clime
220 Of the mid-world, and hold the frosty star's
Riphæan citadels. Every colonist
Of every land stands frighted here: the boor;
The son of Atreus [1317] with his diadem
Of royalty put off; the rich man mixt
225 Coequally in line with pauper peers.
Deep tremor everywhere: then groans the orb
With prayers; and peoples stretching forth their hands
Grow stupid with the din!
The Lord Himself
Seated, is bright with light sublime; and fire
230 Potent in all the Virtues [1318] flashing shines.
And on His high-raised throne the Heavenly One
Coruscates from His seat; with martyrs hemmed
(A dazzling troop of men), and by His seers
Elect accompanied (whose bodies bright
235 Effulgent are with snowy stoles), He towers
Above them. And now priests in lustrous robes
Attend, who wear upon their marked [1319] front
Wreaths golden-red; and all submissive kneel
And reverently adore. The cry of all
240 Is one: "O Holy, Holy Holy, God!"
To these [1320] the Lord will mandate give, to range
The people in twin lines; and orders them
To set apart by number the depraved;
While such as have His biddings followed
245 With placid words He calls, and bids them, clad
With vigour--death quite conquered--ever dwell
Amid light's inextinguishable airs,
Stroll through the ancients' ever blooming realm,
Through promised wealth, through ever sunny swards,
250 And in bright body spend perpetual life.
A place there is, beloved of the Lord,
In Eastern coasts, where light is bright and clear,
And healthier blows the breeze; day is eterne,
Time changeless: 'tis a region set apart
255 By God, most rich in plains, and passing blest,
In the meridian [1321] of His cloudless seat.
There gladsome the air, and is in light
Ever to be; soft is the wind, and breathes
Life-giving blasts; earth, fruitful with a soil
260 Luxuriant, bears all things; in the meads
Flowers shed their fragrance; and upon the plains
The purple--not in envy--mingles all
With golden-ruddy light. One gladsome flower,
With its own lustre clad, another clothes;
265 And here with many a seed the dewy fields
Are dappled, and the snowy tilths are crisped
With rosy flowers. No region happier
Is known in other spots; none which in look
Is fairer, or in honour more excels.
270 Never in flowery gardens are there born
Such lilies, nor do such upon our plains
Outbloom; nor does the rose so blush, what time,
New-born, 'tis opened by the breeze; nor is
The purple with such hue by Tyrian dye
275 Imbued. With coloured pebbles beauteous gleams
The gem: here shines the prasinus; [1322] there glows
The carbuncle; and giant-emerald
Is green with grassy light. Here too are born
The cinnamons, with odoriferous twigs;
280 And with dense leaf gladsome amomum joins
Its fragrance. Here, a native, lies the gold
Of radiant sheen; and lofty groves reach heaven
In blooming time, and germens fruitfullest
Burden the living boughs. No glades like these
285 Hath Ind herself forth-stretcht; no tops so dense
Rears on her mount the pine; nor with a shade
So lofty-leaved is her cypress crisped;
Nor better in its season blooms her bough
In spring-tide. Here black firs on lofty peak
290 Bloom; and the only woods that know no hail
Are green eternally: no foliage falls;
At no time fails the flower. There, too, there blooms
A flower as red as Tarsine purple is:
A rose, I ween, it is (red hue it has,
295 An odour keen); such aspect on its leaves
It wears, such odour breathes. A tree it [1323] stands,
With a new flower, fairest in fruits; a crop
Life-giving, dense, its happy strength does yield.
Rich honies with green cane their fragrance join,
300 And milk flows potable in runners full;
And with whate'er that sacred earth is green,
It all breathes life; and there Crete's healing gift [1324]
Is sweetly redolent. There, with smooth tide,
Flows in the placid plains a fount: four floods
305 Thence water parted lands. [1325] The garden robed
With flowers, I wot, keeps ever spring; no cold
Of wintry star varies the breeze; and earth,
After her birth-throes, with a kindlier blast
Repairs. Night there is none; the stars maintain
310 Their darkness; angers, envies, and dire greed
Are absent; and out-shut is fear, and cares
Driven from the threshold. Here the Evil One
Is homeless; he is into worthy courts
Out-gone, nor is't e'er granted him to touch
315 The glades forbidden. But here ancient faith
Rests in elect abode; and life here treads,
Joying in an eternal covenant;
And health [1326] without a care is gladsome here
In placid tilths, ever to live and be
320 Ever in light.
Here whosoe'er hath lived
Pious, and cultivant of equity
And goodness; who hath feared the thundering God
With mind sincere; with sacred duteousness
Tended his parents; and his other life [1327]
325 Spent ever crimeless; or who hath consoled
With faithful help a friend in indigence;
Succoured the over-toiling needy one,
As orphans' patron, and the poor man's aid;
Rescued the innocent, and succoured them
330 When press with accusation; hath to guests
His ample table's pledges given; hath done
All things divinely; pious offices
Enjoined; done hurt to none; ne'er coveted
Another's: such as these, exulting all
335 In divine praises, and themselves at once
Exhorting, raise their voices to the stars;
Thanksgivings to the Lord in joyous wise
They psalming celebrate; and they shall go
Their harmless way with comrade messengers.
340 When ended hath the Lord these happy gifts,
And likewise sent away to realms eterne
The just, then comes a pitiable crowd
Wailing its crimes; with parching tears it pours
All groans effusely, and attests [1328] in acts
345 With frequent ululations. At the sight
Of flames, their merit's due, and stagnant pools
Of fire, wrath's weapons, they 'gin tremble all. [1329]
Them an angelic host, upsnatching them,
Forbids to pray, forbids to pour their cries
350 (Too late!) with clamour loud: pardon withheld,
Into the lowest bottom they are hurled!
O miserable men! how oft to you
Hath Majesty divine made itself known!
The sounds of heaven ye have heard; have seen
355 Its lightnings; have experienced its rains
Assiduous; its ires of winds and hail!
How often nights and days serene do make
Your seasons--God's gifts--fruitful with fair yields!
Roses were vernal; the grain's summer-tide
360 Failed not; the autumn variously poured
Its mellow fruits; the rugged winter brake
The olives, icy though they were: 'twas God
Who granted all, nor did His goodness fail.
At God earth trembled; on His voice the deep
365 Hung, and the rivers trembling fled and left
Sands dry; and every creature everywhere
Confesses God! Ye (miserable men!)
Have heaven's Lord and earth's denied; and oft
(Horrible!) have God's heralds put to flight; [1330]
370 And rather slain the just with slaughter fell;
And, after crime, fraud ever hath in you
Inhered. Ye then shall reap the natural fruit
Of your iniquitous sowing. That God is
Ye know; yet are ye wont to laugh at Him.
375 Into deep darkness ye shall go of fire
And brimstone; doomed to suffer glowing ires
In torments just. [1331] God bids your bones descend
To [1332] penalty eternal; go beneath
The ardour of an endless raging hell; [1333]
380 Be urged, a seething mass, through rotant pools
Of flame; and into threatening flame He bids
The elements convert; and all heaven's fire
Descend in clouds.
Then greedy Tartarus
With rapid fire enclosed is; and flame
385 Is fluctuant within with tempest waves;
And the whole earth her whirling embers blends!
There is a flamy furrow; teeth acute
Are turned to plough it, and for all the years [1334]
The fiery torrent will be armed: with force
390 Tartarean will the conflagrations gnash
Their teeth upon the world. [1335] There are they scorched
In seething tide with course precipitate;
Hence flee; thence back are borne in sharp career;
The savage flame's ire meets them fugitive!
395 And now at length they own the penalty
Their own, the natural issue of their crime.
And now the reeling earth, by not a swain
Possest, is by the sea's profundity
Prest, at her farthest limit, where the sun
400 (His ray out-measured) divides the orb,
And where, when traversed is the world, [1336] the stars
Are hidden. Ether thickens. O'er the light
Spreads sable darkness; and the latest flames
Stagnate in secret rills. A place there is
405 Whose nature is with sealed penalties
Fiery, and a dreadful marsh white-hot
With heats infernal, where, in furnaces
Horrific, penal deed roars loud, and seethes,
And, rushing into torments, is up-caught
410 By the flame's vortex wide; by savage wave
And surge the turbid sand all mingled is
With miry bottom. Hither will be sent,
Groaning, the captive crowd of evil ones,
And wickedness (the sinful body's train)
415 To burn! Great is the beating there of breasts,
By bellowing of grief accompanied;
Wild is the hissing of the flames, and thence
The ululation of the sufferers!
And flames, and limbs sonorous, [1337] will outrise
420 Afar: more fierce will the fire burn; and up
To th' upper air the groaning will be borne.
Then human progeny its bygone deeds
Of ill will weigh; and will begin to stretch
Heavenward its palms; and then will wish to know
425 The Lord, whom erst it would not know, what time
To know Him had proved useful to them. There,
His life's excesses, handiworks unjust,
And crimes of savage mind, each will confess,
And at the knowledge of the impious deeds
430 Of his own life will shudder. And now first,
Whoe'er erewhile cherished ill thoughts of God;
Had worshipped stones unsteady, lyingly
Pretending to divinity; hath e'er
Made sacred to gore-stained images
435 Altars; hath voiceless pictured figures feared;
Hath slender shades of false divinity
Revered; whome'er ill error onward hath
Seduced; whoe'er was an adulterer,
Or with the sword had slain his sons; whoe'er