Uriel

IT fell in the ancient periods 
Which the brooding soul surveys  
Or ever the wild Time coin'd itself 
Into calendar months and days.
 

This was the lapse of Uriel 5 
Which in Paradise befell.
 
Once among the Pleiads walking  
Sayd overheard the young gods talking; 
And the treason too long pent  
To his ears was evident.
 10 
The young deities discuss'd 
Laws of form and metre just  
Orb quintessence and sunbeams  
What subsisteth and what seems.
 
One with low tones that decide 15 
And doubt and reverend use defied  
With a look that solved the sphere  
And stirr'd the devils everywhere  
Gave his sentiment divine 
Against the being of a line.
 20 
'Line in nature is not found; 
Unit and universe are round; 
In vain produced all rays return; 
Evil will bless and ice will burn.
' 
As Uriel spoke with piercing eye 25 
A shudder ran around the sky; 
The stern old war-gods shook their heads; 
The seraphs frown'd from myrtle-beds; 
Seem'd to the holy festival 
The rash word boded ill to all; 30 
The balance-beam of Fate was bent; 
The bounds of good and ill were rent; 
Strong Hades could not keep his own  
But all slid to confusion.
 

A sad self-knowledge withering fell 35 
On the beauty of Uriel; 
In heaven once eminent the god 
Withdrew that hour into his cloud; 
Whether doom'd to long gyration 
In the sea of generation 40 
Or by knowledge grown too bright 
To hit the nerve of feebler sight.
 
Straightway a forgetting wind 
Stole over the celestial kind  
And their lips the secret kept 45 
If in ashes the fire-seed slept.
 
But now and then truth-speaking things 
Shamed the angels' veiling wings; 
And shrilling from the solar course  
Or from fruit of chemic force 50 
Procession of a soul in matter  
Or the speeding change of water  
Or out of the good of evil born  
Came Uriel's voice of cherub scorn  
And a blush tinged the upper sky 55 
And the gods shook they knew not why.
 

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