hope remains.

Henceforth with her that holy gift and guide,
Truth's high revealer and interpreter;
Henceforth with her the Father and the Son, 770
Absent, yet present by the Comforter;
Of great lights twain, the lesser, ruling night,
Moon to that Sun, whose realm the rounded Day.

Resplendent night, while flame those fluent stars[16],
That still a spotless brow bediadem;
Circling forever round their central Light,
And, Him withdrawn, repeating from afar,
And gladdening with His rays a gloom-hung world.

As set that Sun, sinking in seas of blood,
Sinking to soar above a mightier morrow, 780
Follow the lingering stars, save haply one[17],
Through mystic night of ages sparkling lone,
And speaking in high splendor things to come.
Most lustrous of the living lamps of God,
'Mid human lights, divinely luminant.
Rarest of twelve, remaining oracle,
Reserved unto a wondrous destiny;
Pilot of peoples, nations, tribes and tongues,
Leading the lost[18] ones from captivity.
Beloved of Love—life's King, death's Conqueror, 790
Tarrying by will of Him through troubled time,
Lighting the way unto eternity.

And thou, e'en thou, O Woman Wonderful!
Safe for a season from the She-Wolf's maw,
Far borne, east, west, on power's imperial wings,
Nourished 'neath Caesar's shield, till Caesar's sword
Hath turned upon and made thee desolate.
Thou too must pass—not perish—in thy time.
Betrayed to foes without, by false within,
E'en as thy Lord thou sufferest martyrdom. 800

But what avails to baffle Him or bind?
Vain, dragon, vain thy deluge of deceit,
Thy flood of lies, thou false one from of old!
Vain, wrath of devils and of men combined,
Bent to defile the sacred Bride of Christ.
Triumphs the Man-Child[19], heaven now summons home;
Triumphs the Woman in the wilderness,
'Scaping the jaws, the hungering gates of hell,
That 'gainst the mortal part alone prevail;
Body, not spirit, crushed and all o'ercome. 810

Throned upon higher worlds, she reigneth still;
And here shall rise unto the regnant place,
When rolls the stone upon the image doomed,
When God hath fanned with fire His threshing floor.

Till then proud Japheth sways[20], while Jacob mourns,
Fainting 'neath yokes and fardels, prostrate, prone,
With Judah undermost, the last of all
The trampled tribes to taste of liberty.
Haply ordained a lesser power to wield,
Antaeus-like[21], from touching of the ground; 820
Bent, curst, yet clutching, and by might of gold
Conquering his dust-adoring conqueror[22].

For God, through all, remembers Abraham,
Ordained of old His lineal house to be.
Came not the Christ their covenant to fulfill?
Who but an Israel might offer Him?
Whose hand than Judah's might Jehovah slay?
"His blood be on our head"—Ay, rests it there!
Weightier than worlds by that high death redeemed.

World-wandering Saul! Was this thy symboling: 830
The Jew struck blind that Gentile hosts might see[23]?

Predestined Israel, martyred, immolate[24],
That nations, blood-besprent, might look and live;
A burden-bearer for the universe,
Outcast and homeless for humanity,
Descending like his Lord all else below,
And yet with Him to rise all else above,
Extremes of woe and weal encompassing,
Wisdom by sweet and bitter made more wise.

From blight springs blessing, and from darkness day; 840
E'en Canaan's neck from 'neath the yoke[25] shall come.
Japheth shall feel the Spirit minister,
And Jacob see and hear his risen Lord[26].

Departed now the Woman Wonderful,
Gone with the spirit gift and guiding power;
O'ercome, world-conquered, sinks degenerate
The washed one to his wallowing in the mire[27];
A drowsy dreamer of the self-same dreams
Dispelled erewhile by lightnings of her eye;

The heaven-lit torch[28] that made the pathway plain 850
O'er rugged mount, through mazy catacomb,
Now dimmed with incense from Diana's shrine[29],
And dashed in pieces 'gainst a pagan throne,
Where prematurely changed was cross for crown,
And Christ's flock fleeced by shearing compromise[30].

God still with man, though not with man's misrule;
Still with the just, though Christian-pagan turn
His prurient ear to fables, from the truth,
And, virtueless as Judah's pharisee,
And graceless as Iscariot, self-hung, 860
Parts in the midst, as wide as East from West[31],
False church and faithless empire, faction-torn,
Twain as the imaged legs of Babel's dream,
A split colossus, fallen 'twixt Greece and Rome.

God still with man, though not with man's misrule,
Never with thee, daughter of force and fraud,
Mother of guile—thy refuge and thy shame!
Never with thee, thou wanton by the way,
Roaming tradition's tangled wilderness,
Lost in a night that seemeth to thee day; 870
In crooked paths that fain would straight appear;
Warming thy withered fingers o'er the coals
Alive 'mid ashes of the ancient fires,
Where She was wont[32] to kindle faith, hope, love,
And flash the beacon o'er a wandering world.
There holding to thy heart an empty urn,
There cherishing a name, a memory,
Mumbling vain prayers, "Lord, Lord," protesting still,
And still forgetful of thy Lord's command!

Nay, not with thee, thou crimson courtesan[33], 880
Robed in the horrid hue of countless crimes!
Fierce dragon's maw, thrice-cruel murderess,
Thy hands a-reek with blood of innocence,
With blood of prophets, blood of priests and kings,
Whose martyred souls sue vengeance, judgment-sworn!
Vengeance on thee, thou slaughterer of saints,
Vengeance on him, thy sceptered paramour,
Whose princes ten (while Mammon's host shall wail),
Loathing where once they loved all lustfully,
And lived, as thou hast lived, deliciously, 890
When found no more God's wheat 'mid Satan's tares,
When thou art saltless, saintless, savorless,
When thou art ripened unto rottenness,
Shall give thy crumbling body to be burned.

Nay, Anti-Christ, presuming tyranny,
Never with thee, usurping power of sin!
Plotting to sway Jehovah's sovereignty,
To rear thy throne where His alone shall stand;
Perdition, warring 'gainst the Saints of God,
And overcoming till the Judgment sits[34], 900
When swift-winged morn shall overtake the night,
And glory lift the gloom[35] of centuries.

Meanwhile the mission of the Moonlike One[36],
Brooding above the waters of the world,
Stronger than storms, mightier than wind or wave,
Moving on mortal seas, on human souls;
Dynamic impulse of Divinity,
Impelling to all action[37] wise, sublime.

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