The windows were each one a double plate Of spacious crystal, sliding from the touch Each side in golden frames. The portico Hung o’er a flight of alabaster steps, Extending to a lawn of delicate moss, Where browsed a flock of innocent, white lambs, That little children garlanded with flowers. Around the palace, orchard-trees were seen, Laden with fruit celestial, that hung down Like gems among the gold and silver leaves. Majestic vines, heavy with clustering grapes, In large festoons swung gorgeously between The opulent boughs that dropped with nectarines.
’Twas on a mountain’s summit, high and broad, Commanding a magnificent expanse, Where Art, in its essential excellence, Glowed in potential forms, where Nature, too, Un-ultimated in terrestrial things, Bloomed in angelic beauty. To the east A river, brinked luxuriantly with flowers, Lapsed silently. The deep-enameled dome, Whose measureless horizon knew no bounds, Was draped with clouds that broke celestial rays, Shining down shadowless. Turning, I saw A pair of Consorts, whose exalted home Was in this paradise. No forms of earth, No mortal lineaments—no reach of thought Poetic, when imagination wings Homeward to Heaven, could in the least compare With their angelic radiance;—they were Beauty itself in form,—two, and yet one,— One angel male and female—a true Man. He was her Understanding, she his Will; Thence, but one mind in heavenly marriage formed. Her love was cradled in his thought, that loved Her love and nursed it—as the tender drops Clasp the warm sunbeams, while the smile of Heaven Breaks in the rainbow. Such is genuine love. He in his form more radiantly shone Than that sublime achievement of fine art, That shows the power of luminous Truth to kill Sinuous Error;—she, than Guido’s gem More beautiful, more human, and more true.
I saw, and lo! two dromedaries, each Bearing a golden basket, one of bread, The other of ripe fruit; they came and knelt. Each took and gave the other,—he the bread, She the ripe fruit. The dromedaries then Rose and departed. I beheld them kneeling Beside the river, and when they had drunk I saw them rise again and kiss each other, And then depart. I looked again, and lo! The consorts had withdrawn. They were the first Of the new birth of Marriage here on earth— A promise for the future, when a Time, And Times, and half a Time shall be fulfilled.