With the stern, resistless shock, Which shall rend the world asunder Other stars the night shall know, And from ruin beauty grow. "Vainly shall the faithful Nornen For the wrathful, restless dragon Hörder's eyes be dark with night, Till the day of re-creation Brings the buried Truth to light: Then a greater god than Odin, Over all the worlds shall reign, And my Saga's mystic meaning, REESE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY THE PROPHECY OF VALACALIPOTON There came a voice as of thunder, with a gleam of lurid light, And the mystic Vala vanished like a meteor of the night; Then I saw that the truth of the present is but the truth of the past, But each phase is greater, and grander, and mightier than the last That the past is ever prophetic of that which is yet to be, And that God reveals his glory by slow and distinct degree; Yet still are the nations weeping o'er the graves of the Truth and Right: Lo! I summon another Vala let her prophesy to-night. With the amaranth, and the myrtle, and the aspho del on her brow, Still wet with the dew of the kingdom, doth she stand before you now: "Not with sound of many thunders, Not with miracles and wonders, Would I herald forth my coming from the peaceful spirit-shore ; But in God's own love descending, With your aspirations blending, I would teach you of the future, that you watch and weep no more. "God is God from the creation; Truth, alone, is man's salvation: But the God that now you worship soon shall be 1 your God no more; For the soul, in its unfolding, Evermore its thought remoulding, Learns more truly, in its progress, how to love and to adore!' "Evil is of Good, twin brother, Born of God, and of none other: And though Truth seems slain of Error, through the ills that men deplore, Yet, still nearer to perfection, She shall know a resurrection, Passing on from ceaseless glory, unto glory ever more. "From the truths of former ages, From the world's close-lettered pages, Man shall learn to meet more bravely all the life that lies before; For the day of retribution Is the final restitution Of the good, the true, the holy, which shall live forevermore! 'Understand you this, or no? Fare you well! I go I go!"" THE KINGDOM. [Given under the inspiration of Poe.] "And I saw no temple therein." Rev. 21:22. "Twas the ominous month of October How the memories rise in my soul! How they swell like a sea in my soul! When a spirit, sad, silent, and sober, Whose glance was a word of control, Drew me down to the dark Lake Avernus, In the desolate Kingdom of Death To the mist-covered Lake of Avernus, In the ghoul-haunted Kingdom of Death. And there, as I shivered and waited, I talked with the Souls of the Dead With those whom the living call dead; The lawless, the lone, and the hated, |