12.

Straight to the brazen bridge and gate
The self-moved Chariot bears its mortal load.
At sight of Carmala,

On either side the Giant guards divide,
And give the chariot way.

Up yonder winding road it rolls along,
Swift as the bittern soars on spiral wing,
And lo! the Palace of the Infernal King!

13.

Two forms inseparable in unity
Hath Yamen; even as with hope or fear
The Soul regardeth him doth he appear;
For hope and fear

At that dread hour, from ominous conscience spring,

And err not in their bodings.

Therefore some,

They who polluted with offences come,
Behold him as the King

Of Terrors, black of aspect, red of eye, Reflecting back upon the sinful mind, Heighten'd with vengeance, and with wrath divine, Its own inborn deformity.

But to the righteous Spirit how benign
His aweful countenance,

Where, tempering justice with parental love,
Goodness and heavenly grace

And sweetest mercy shine! Yet is he still Himself the same, one form, one face, one will; And these his twofold aspects are but one; And change is none

In him, for change in Yamen could not be,

The Immutable is he.

14.

He sat upon a marble sepulchre

Massive and huge, where at the Monarch's feet, The righteous Baly had his Judgement-seat. A Golden Throne before them vacant stood; Three human forms sustain'd its ponderous weight, With lifted hands outspread, and shoulders bow'd Bending beneath the load.

A fourth was wanting. They were of the hue Of coals of fire; yet were they flesh and blood, And living breath they drew ;

And their red eye-balls roll'd with ghastly stare, As thus, for their misdeeds, they stood tormented there.

15.

On steps of gold those living Statues stood, Who bore the Golden Throne. A cloud behind Immovable was spread; not all the light Of all the flames and fires of Padalon Could pierce its depth of night. There Azyoruca veil'd her aweful form In those eternal shadows: there she sate, And as the trembling Souls, who crowd around The Judgement-seat, received the doom of fate, Her giant arms, extending from the cloud, Drew them within the darkness. Moving out Το grasp and bear away the innumerous rout,

For ever and for ever thus were seen The thousand mighty arms of that dread Queen.

16.

Here, issuing from the car, the Glendoveer Did homage to the God, then raised his head. Suppliants we come, he said,

I need not tell thee by what wrongs opprest, For nought can pass on earth to thee unknown; Sufferers from tyranny we seek for rest, And Seeva bade us go to Yamen's throne ; Here, he hath said, all wrongs shall be redrest. Yamen replied, Even now the hour draws near, When Fate its hidden ways will manifest. Not for light purpose would the Wisest send His suppliants here, when we, in doubt and fear, The awful issue of the hour attend.

Wait ye in patience and in faith the end!

XXIV.

THE AMREETA.

1.

So spake the King of Padalon, when, lo!
The voice of lamentation ceas'd in Hell,
And sudden silence all around them fell,
Silence more wild and terrible

Than all the infernal dissonance before. Through that portentous stillness, far away, Unwonted sounds were heard, advancing on And deepening on their way;

For now the inexorable hour

Was come, and, in the fullness of his power, Now that the dreadful rites had all been done, Kehama from the Swerga hastened down, To seize upon the throne of Padalon.

2.

He came in all his might and majesty, With all his terrors clad, and all his pride; And, by the attribute of Deity, Which he had won from Heaven, self-multiplied, The Almighty Man appear'd on every side. In the same indivisible point of time,

At the eight Gates he stood at once, and beat The Warden-Gods of Hell beneath his feet; Then, in his brazen Cars of triumph, straight, At the same moment, drove through every gate. By Aullays, hugest of created kind, Fiercest, and fleeter than the viewless wind, His Cars were drawn, ten yokes of ten abreast, What less sufficed for such almighty weight?

Eight bridges from the fiery flood arose Growing before his way; and on he goes, And drives the thundering Chariot-wheels along, At once o'er all the roads of Padalon.

3.

Silent and motionless remain

The Asuras on their bed of pain, Waiting, with breathless hope, the great event. All Hell was hush'd in dread,

Such awe that omnipresent coming spread; Nor had its voice been heard, though all its rout Innumerable had lifted up one shout; Nor if the infernal firmament Had in one unimaginable burst

Spent its collected thunders, had the sound Been audible, such louder terrors went Before his forms substantial. Round about The presence scattered lightnings far and wide, That quench'd on every side,

With their intensest blaze, the feebler fire
Of Padalon, even as the stars go out,
When, with prodigious light,

Some blazing meteor fills the astonish'd night.