Of this busy scene Rafael, meanwhile, has been a silent but interested spectator. Now alone in his sorrow, he melts into a compassionate monologue; and, joined by the chorus, gives utterance to that beautiful lyric of grief, that tender prayer so full of the sweet melody of appeal, at the end of the fourth act. Amid the jarring clamor and the frenzied shout of the departing squadrons, this anthem of mercy rises to God like a benediction. Over the passion waves of the tumultuous hell of rebellion around them, their voices tremble like the echoes of a heaven forever lost.
Surely, the emotion of forgiving compassion was never combined with a more musical sorrow. Here, as in all of Vondel's lyrics, there is a perfect harmony between the form and the thought.
At the opening of the last act, Rafael is discovered on the battlements of Heaven. He is in a fever of anxiety to learn the result of the contest, and peers into the empyrean for some sign of a messenger from the field,
"Where armies reel on slopes with lightning crowned."
The glad sounds of approaching triumph fall on his ear. Across the pure hyaline now dart meteoric flashes of light. Each shield of the victorious legions dazzles like a sun:
"Each shield-sun streams a day of triumph forth."
Far in advance of the returning battalions speeds Uriel, "Angel with swiftest wing," bearing the message of victory. With incredible velocity--for he is winged with good news--he flashes through the air, in his "aery wheels" exultingly waving his "flaming, keen, two-edged sword." He has reached the serene altitude of Heaven. He has gained the farthest wall. He is at hand.
Rafael is full of eagerness to hear the details of the fight, the particulars of "this the first campaign in Heaven." Uriel then, "with sequence just," gives a vivid account of the preparations for battle, beginning with the moment when Gabriel first informed Michael of the defection of the Stadtholder.
He tells how the countless loyal legions, at their chief's command, deploy themselves in battle line until they form in serried rank
"One firm Trilateral host that like a triangle Thrust out its edges sharp upon the eye."
Michael, the Field-marshal, stands in the heart of this triangle, towering high above his fellows, the personification of judgment,