Systems and Universes overpast, The Seraph came upon the Four, at last, Guiding and guarding with devoted mind The tedious generations of mankind Who lent at most unwilling ear and eye When they could not escape the ministry.... Yet, patient, faithful, firm, persistent, just Toward all that gross, indifferent, facile dust, The Archangels laboured to discharge their trust By precept and example, prayer and law, Advice, reproof, and rule, but, labouring, saw Each in his fellow's countenance confessed, The Doubt that sickens: 'Have I done my best?' Even as they sighed and turned to toil anew, The Seraph hailed them with observance due; And after some fit talk of higher things Touched tentative on mundane happenings. This they permitting, he, emboldened thus, Prolused of humankind promiscuous. And, since the large contention less avails Than instances observed, he told them tales--Tales of the shop, the bed, the court, the street, Intimate, elemental, indiscreet: Occasions where Confusion smiting swift Piles jest on jest as snow-slides pile the drift. Whence, one by one, beneath derisive skies, The victims bare, bewildered heads arise: Tales of the passing of the spirit, graced With humour blinding as the doom it faced: Stark tales of ribaldry that broke aside To tears, by laughter swallowed ere they dried: Tales to which neither grace nor gain accrue, But only (Allah be exalted!) true, And only, as the Seraph showed that night, Delighting to the limits of delight. These he rehearsed with artful pause and halt, And such pretence of memory at fault, That soon the Four--so well the bait was thrown-- Came to his aid with memories of their own-- Matters dismissed long since as small or vain, Whereof the high significance had lain Hid, till the ungirt glosses made it plain. Then as enlightenment came broad and fast, Each marvelled at his own oblivious past Until--the Gates of Laughter opened wide-- The Four, with that bland Seraph at their side, While they recalled, compared, and amplified, In utter mirth forgot both zeal and pride. High over Heaven the lamps of midnight burned Ere, weak with merriment, the Four returned, Not in that order they were wont to keep-- Pinion to pinion answering, sweep for sweep, In awful diapason heard afar, But shoutingly adrift 'twixt star and star. Reeling a planet's orbit left or right As laughter took them in the abysmal Night; Or, by the point of some remembered jest, Winged and brought helpless down through gulfs unguessed, Where the blank worlds that gather to the birth Leaped in the womb of Darkness at their mirth, And e'en Gehenna's bondsmen understood. They were not damned from human brotherhood.