Rather let break our voices in his praise,
And let each human soul, be safely borne,
Back to his many-chambered paradise.

"Down on his rays man rode into the world,
And if we wander not, the same broad path
Is open for our exit; there is room
In his broad campus for the royal race.
Our bodies are of dust, and will return;
Only the vital spark, the shining way

"Ere traversed; and that alone goes back
To join the maker in the increate,
The golden chambers of eternal light.
Look on these eyes! have they not more than Earth
In their deep glance? I know whereof I speak;
For I was led, in trancehood to the sun,
And in his very chambers have I walked,
And at his very throne have I bent down
To praise him; multitudes were there, who knelt
As I did kneel, in rapturehood and prayer.

"High in the midst, sole source of life and light,
The glowing center of the shining orb
Sat the unchanging god; his face was that
Of manhood magnified; upon his cheek
Was more than woman's beauty deified.
O! once to look and live, is all the soul,
Though it be triply strengthened, can endure,
Till it do pass from this clay tenement
Into the morrow of the upper world;
But we may now and always climb the rays
That spring from his own countenance, and see
The reflex of his face; but of his form,
But little can be printed on our sight.
Enough, to know he lives, and is our life,
And every morning he doth search us out,
And lift the burden from our heavy lids,
That we may rise with him and to our tasks!

"Shall we be hushed, when every bird and flower
Doth herald his approach? Convolvulus
Waits for his coming with its lips apart,
And Philomela will not close his note,
Till he do answer with his smiling face;
Thus the whole earth resolvent into song
Waits for his footsteps—how can we be dumb!

"There was a song
Which flowed, untutored, from the lips of love,
The ransomed ones that knelt before his throne,
No earthly tongues its echo could repeat,
So much there was of love, so much of joy,
So much of tenderness and innocence;
For they were without guile, and not a word
But breathed of faith, dependency and peace.
It praised him for his sufference of earth,
That he did bear its sin, yet did not smite;
And only once, in anger, hid his face,
And oped the heavens, to wash out its filth;
Yet, with his fervent rays, drank up the flood,
And set his bow a witness that again
Never should earth be flooded, while the years
Melt into centuries, till the whole race,
With aching hearts and scalding eyes shall come
Back to his all-embracing fatherhood.

"They thanked him for his witness-watch of man,
That time and time, his face was partly hid,
"To show the hazard of our wandering steps,
That in the early, and the latter rain,
He wept for our refreshment, till his tears
Shut out his fervent glances from our eyes;
And though he mourned our strangerhood of him,
Yet would he teach us that in smiles and tears
Are we begotten, and our lives are lost
If we find not the blessings that are hid
Beneath the rainbow tints of sorrowing.

"Thus much, and more, that I will not essay;
But I was led through fields and garden walks,
And ornate grandeur, which the earth affords
Nor pattern nor approach; and though the mind
Be forced to utmost tension, it cannot
Encompass the bewilderment of sight.
Since my return, I cannot cast it off,
It lingers with me like some raptured dream,
And in my eyes and on my face is drawn
The print of its unspeakable surmount;
And I would call it dream, if I had not
A talisman, that tells me of its truth.
An angel led me to the central throne,
An angel led me back to consciousness;
But ere he passed the confines of the sun,
He handed me a clear, transparent gem,
And called me: 'Uri, thus it shall be said:
The very god commands that it be done;

"'Uri, my light, my fire upon the earth,
Shall build again my altars and restore
With his own hand, the priesthood of the sun.
I will a hundredfold return the scorn
Of Mizraim on himself, for his neglect;
And from the sons of Lud I will raise up
A kingdom that shall shine in righteousness.'

"This said, he handed me the talisman;
Which, when our altars shall have been prepared,
And laden with the choicest of our flock,
Shall claim the pledge of the eternal one,
With fire from his own courts to burn it up.

"I can not say how long, or short a time,
I lingered thus entranced; I only know
I waked to find it real. The precious gem
Is proof of disenchantment; it is here.
I lay no claim on priesthood, but have told
The plain, uncumbered truth; when I did fall,
Prone to the earth in trance, I had no thought,
Of what would come of it; you have it all.
I have the stone, and we will test its power.
If yonder priest, with his enshrouded myth,
Desires to measure lances with the sun,
Then we will each build altars to our gods,
And he that first draws fire from any source,
Not of the earth, shall claim the forfeiture
Of all the other's tenantry to teach.

"I may have said too much; I can not more
Than leave the rest with god, the changeless one,
The bright, all-shining universe of love,
The unfailing source, the broad, unvarying stream,
The very oceanhood of deity."

He ceased; and Kohen, rising to his feet,
Gave back the challenge eagerly; as might
The athlete spring his ready foe to meet;
His, was the conscious power of fearless right:
"Let him lift up his altars to the sun,
And I will call upon the Uncreate,
The hand, that shaped it from chaotic void,
The face, whose look first taught it how to smile.
He may call first, that it may vantage him;
But other than the earth can no man bring,
Fire from the distant realms, except it be
From God, Creator of the sun, the moon and stars.
I am content that he do cry his god,
Till he be hoarse with hardihood of prayer,
This day shall judge between us and the right,
And ye shall see the bare arm of the Lord."

The crowd, impatient of his words, did shout
In Uri's acclamation; as the sun,
Full-faced and warm, gave back his witnesshood;
His ready conquest had been well begun.
How few there be, who see beyond their sight!
Even in our day of peculence and power,
The horizon of man has been his might,
Beyond his ready reach he passes into night;
The world is bounded by its present hour.
No marvel that old Uri swept the field;
His snare was baited for their ready sense,
No effort theirs, a pleasure but to yield;
Theirs but the open book, to them unsealed;
They felt no weight of future recompense;
And so they shouted, high and loud, his praise,
'Till he recalled them, with his magic voice:
"Old Kohen seems in earnest; let us raise
Our altars quickly, that we may rejoice
This day, in our great father's warm