_Zerah._ Shall it need be so? Awake, thou Earth! behold. Thou, uttered forth of old In all thy life-emotion, In all thy vernal noises, In the rollings of thine ocean, Leaping founts, and rivers running,-- In thy woods' prophetic heaving Ere the rains a stroke have given, In thy winds' exultant voices When they feel the hills anear,-- In the firmamental sunning, And the tempest which rejoices Thy full heart with an awful cheer. Thou, uttered forth of old And with all thy music rolled In a breath abroad By the breathing God,-- Awake! He is here! behold! Even _thou_-- beseems it good To thy vacant vision dim, That the deadly ruin should, For thy sake, encompass him? That the Master-word should lie A mere silence, while his own Processive harmony, The faintest echo of his lightest tone, Is sweeping in a choral triumph by? Awake! emit a cry! And say, albeit used From Adam's ancient years To falls of acrid tears, To frequent sighs unloosed, Caught back to press again On bosoms zoned with pain-- To corses still and sullen The shine and music dulling With closèd eyes and ears That nothing sweet can enter, Commoving thee no less With that forced quietness Than the earthquake in thy centre-- Thou hast not learnt to bear This new divine despair! These tears that sink into thee, These dying eyes that view thee, This dropping blood from lifted rood, They darken and undo thee. Thou canst not presently sustain this corse-- Cry, cry, thou hast not force! Cry, thou wouldst fainer keep Thy hopeless charnels deep, Thyself a general tomb Where the first and the second Death Sit gazing face to face And mar each other's breath, While silent bones through all the place 'Neath sun and moon do faintly glisten And seem to lie and listen For the tramp of the coming Doom. Is it not meet That they who erst the Eden fruit did eat, Should champ the ashes? That they who wrap them in the thunder-cloud Should wear it as a shroud, Perishing by its flashes? That they who vexed the lion should be rent? Cry, cry "I will sustain my punishment, The sin being mine; but take away from me This visioned Dread--this man--this Deity!"