4. A Strain of the Judgment of the Lord.
(Author Uncertain.) [1281]
Who will for me in fitting strain adapt Field-haunting muses? and with flowers will grace The spring-tide's rosy gales? And who will give The summer harvest's heavy stalks mature? 5 And to the autumn's vines their swollen grapes? Or who in winter's honour will commend The olives, ever-peaceful? and will ope Waters renewed, even at their fountainheads? And cut from waving grass the leafy flowers? 10 Forthwith the breezes of celestial light I will attune. Now be it granted me To meet the lightsome [1282] muses! to disclose The secret rivers on the fluvial top Of Helicon, [1283] and gladsome woods that grow 15 'Neath other star. [1284] And simultaneously I will attune in song the eternal flames; Whence the sea fluctuates with wave immense: What power [1285] moves the solid lands to quake; And whence the golden light first shot its rays 20 On the new world; or who from gladsome clay Could man have moulded; whence in empty world [1286] Our race could have upgrown; and what the greed Of living which each people so inspires; What things for ill created are; or what 25 Death's propagation; whence have rosy wreaths Sweet smell and ruddy hue; what makes the vine Ferment in gladsome grapes away; and makes Full granaries by fruit of slender stalks distended be; or makes the tree grow ripe 30 'Mid ice, with olives black; who gives to seeds Their increments of vigour various; And with her young's soft shadowings protects The mother. Good it is all things to know Which wondrous are in nature, that it may 35 Be granted us to recognise through all The true Lord, who light, seas, sky, earth prepared, And decked with varied star the new-made world; [1287] And first bade beasts and birds to issue forth; And gave the ocean's waters to be stocked 40 With fish; and gathered in a mass the sands, With living creatures fertilized. Such strains With stately [1288] muses will I spin, and waves Healthful will from their fountainheads disclose: And may this strain of mine the gladsome shower 45 Catch, which from placid clouds doth come, and flows Deeply and all unsought into men's souls, And guide it into our new-fumed lands In copious rills. [1289] Now come: if any one Still ignorant of God, and knowing naught 50 Of life to come, [1290] would fain attain to touch The care-effacing living nymph, and through The swift waves' virtue his lost life repair, And 'scape the penalties of flame eterne, [1291] And rather win the guerdons of the life 55 To come, let such remember God is One, Alone the object of our prayers; who 'neath His threshold hath the whole world poised; Himself Eternally abiding, and to be Alway for aye; holding the ages [1292] all; 60 Alone, before all ages; [1293] unbegotten, Limitless God; who holds alone His seat Supernal; supereminent alone Above high heavens; omnipotent alone; Whom all things do obey; who for Himself 65 Formed, when it pleased Him, man for aye; and gave Him to be pastor of beasts tame, and lord Of wild; who by a word [1294] could stretch forth heaven; And with a word could solid earth suspend; And quicklier than word [1295] had the seas wave 70 Disjoined; [1296] and man's dear form with His own hands Did love to mould; and furthermore did will His own fair likeness [1297] to exist in him; And by His Spirit on his countenance The breath [1298] of life did breathe. Unmindful he 75 Of God, such guilt rashly t' incur! Beyond The warning's range he was not ought to touch. [1299] One fruit illicit, whence he was to know Forthwith how to discriminate alike Evil and equity, God him forbade 80 To touch. What functions of the world [1300] did God Permit to man, and sealed the sweet sweet pledge Of His own love! and jurisdiction gave O'er birds, and granted him both deep and soil To tame, and mandates useful did impart 85 Of dear salvation! 'Neath his sway He gave The lands, the souls of flying things, the race Feathered, and every race, or tame or wild, Of beasts, and the sea's race, and monsterforms Shapeless of swimming things. But since so soon 90 The primal man by primal crime transgressed The law, and left the mandates of the Lord (Led by a wife who counselled all the ills), By death he 'gan to perish. Woman 'twas Who sin's first ill committed, and (the law 95 Transgressed) deceived her husband. Eve, induced By guile, the thresholds oped to death, and proved To her own self, with her whole race as well, A procreatrix of funereal woes. Hence unanticipated wickedness, 100 Hence death, like seed, for aye, is scattered. Then More frequent grew atrocious deed; and toil More savage set the corrupt orb astir: (This lure the crafty serpent spread, inspired By envy's self:) then peoples more invent 105 Practices of ill deeds; and by ill deeds Gave birth to seeds of wickedness. And so The only Lord, whose is the power supreme. Who o'er the heights the summits holds of heaven Supreme, and in exalted regions dwells 110 In lofty light for ages, mindful too Of present time, and of futurity Prescient beforehand, keeps the progeny Of ill-desert, and all the souls which move By reason's force much-erring man--nor less 115 Their tardy bodies governs He--against The age decreed, so soon as, stretched in death, Men lay aside their ponderous limbs, and light As air, shall go, their earthly bonds undone, And take in diverse parts their proper spheres 120 (But some He bids be forthwith by glad gales Recalled to life, and be in secret kept To wait the decreed law's awards, until Their bodies with resuscitated limbs Revive. [1301] ) Then shall men 'gin to weigh the awards 125 Of their first life, and on their crime and faults To think, and keep them for their penalties Which will be far from death; and mindful grow Of pious duties, by God's judgments taught; To wait expectant for their penalty 130 And their descendants', fruit of their own crime; Or else to live wholly the life of sheep, [1302] Without a name; and in God's ear, now deaf, Pour unavailing weeping. Shall not God Almighty, 'neath whose law are all things ruled, 135 Be able after death life to restore? Or is there ought which the creation's Lord Unable seems to do? If, darkness chased, He could outstretch the light, and could compound All the world's mass by a word suddenly, 140 And raise by potent voice all things from nought, Why out of somewhat [1303] could He not compound The well-known shape which erst had been, which He Had moulded formerly; and bid the form Arise assimilated to Himself 145 Again? Since God's are all things, earth the more Gives Him all back; for she will, when He bids, Unweave whate'er she woven had before. If one, perhaps, laid on sepulchral pyre, The flame consumed; or one in its blind waves 150 The ocean have dismembered; if of one The entrails have, in hunger, satisfied The fishes; or on any's limbs wild beasts 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 440 Had stalked in robbery; whoe'er by fraud His clients had deferred; whoe'er with mind Unfriendly had behaved himself, or stained His palms with blood of men, or poison mixt Wherein death lurked, or robed with wicked guise 445 His breast, or at his neighbour's ill, or gain Iniquitous, was wont to joy; whoe'er Committed whatsoever wickedness Of evil deeds: him mighty heat shall rack, And bitter fire; and these all shall endure, 450 In passing painful death, their punishment. Thus shall the vast crowd lie of mourning men! This oft as holy prophets sang of old, And (by God's inspiration warned) oft told The future, none ('tis pity!) none (alas!) 455 Did lend his ears. But God Almighty willed His guerdons to be known, and His law's threats 'Mid multitudes of such like signs promulged. He 'stablished them [1338] by sending prophets more, These likewise uttering words divine; and some, 460 Roused from their sleep, He bids go from their tombs Forth with Himself, when He, His own tomb burst, Had risen. Many 'wildered were, indeed, To see the tombs agape, and in clear light Corpses long dead appear; and, wondering 465 At their discourses pious, dulcet words! Starward they stretch their palms at the mere sound, [1339] And offer God and so--victorious Christ Their gratulating homage. Certain 'tis That these no more re-sought their silent graves, 470 Nor were retained within earth's bowels shut; [1340] But the remaining host reposes now In lowliest beds, until--time's circuit run-- That great day do arrive. Now all of you Own the true Lord, who alone makes this soul 475 Of ours to see His light [1341] and can the same (To Tartarus sent) subject to penalties; And to whom all the power of life and death Is open. Learn that God can do whate'er He list; for 'tis enough for Him to will, 480 And by mere speaking He achieves the deed; And Him nought plainly, by withstanding, checks. He is my God alone, to whom I trust With deepest senses. But, since death concludes Every career, let whoe'er is to-day 485 Bethink him over all things in his mind. And thus, while life remains, while 'tis allowed To see the light and change your life, before The limit of allotted age o'ertake You unawares, and that last day, which [1342] is 490 By death's law fixt, your senseless eyes do glaze, Seek what remains worth seeking: watchful be For dear salvation; and run down with ease And certainty the good course. Wipe away By pious sacred rites your past misdeeds 495 Which expiation need; and shun the storms, The too uncertain tempests, of the world. [1343] Then turn to right paths, and keep sanctities. Hence from your gladsome minds depraved crime Quite banish; and let long-inveterate fault 500 Be washed forth from your breast; and do away Wicked ill-stains contracted; and appease Dread God by prayers eternal; and let all Most evil mortal things to living good Give way: and now at once a new life keep 505 Without a crime; and let your minds begin To use themselves to good things and to true: And render ready voices to God's praise. Thus shall your piety find better things All growing to a flame; thus shall ye, too, 510 Receive the gifts of the celestial life; [1344] And, to long age, shall ever live with God, Seeing the starry kingdom's golden joys.