Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 133.djvu/565

Rh despair, but Apollyon is full of hope and daring. Raphael, in an agony of regret, and with a breaking heart, remains on the scene, while the Luciferists rush to battle. To him the chorus of good angels enters, and they with him join in a hymn of passionate entreaty to God even now, if it be not too late, to exercise the glorious privilege of pardon.

So closes the fourth act; and when the fifth opens, Raphael is discovered at some distance from the field of battle, giving rapturous thanks for its victorious issue. He has not fought in it himself, but he has been watching from far off, and now he sees the shields of good angels returning, and glittering like suns, each shield-sun streaming triumphant day. Uriel comes to him out of the ranks, and as he crosses the plain of heaven he swings his flaming sword till its rays are flashed back from the facets of his diamond helmet. Called upon by Raphael to describe the fight, Uriel tells how God commanded Michael, the prince of his army, and faithful Gabriel, next to him in command, to lead forth the invincible ranks of the angels against the rebellious godless army, and to sweep them from the pure azure of heaven into the gulf

Straightway the heavenly army flew to victory like an arrow from the bow. Unnumbered multitudes of celestial warriors, well marshalled, they progressed in a three-cornered phalanx, a triangle of advance, a unity in a three-pointed light. Michael, with the lightning in his hand, led the van. Meanwhile the rebel host was speeding to meet them with no less velocity.

One horn is led by Belial and one by Belzebub, while Lucifer brings on the van. The, description of the apostate, though with barocco details omitted by the purer taste of Milton, is closely parallel to the celebrated analogous passage in the sixth book of "Paradise Lost." Encircled by his staff-bearers and green liveries, in golden harness, on which his coat of arms shone in glowing purple, he sat in his sun-bright chariot, the wheels of which were thickly inlaid with rubies. Like a lion or fell dragon he raged for the fight, and his soul flamed athirst for destruction; nor, as he flashed through the field, could any foe see his back, sown all over with stars. With his battle-axe in his hand, and on his left arm a buckler engraved with the morning star, he rushed into the fray. Raphael interrupts again to mourn over the beauty of this phœnix, now doomed to endless flame, but bids Uriel proceed. The latter describes how the battle burst in a hail of burning darts, and the whole air was thunder. After this artillery had expended its force the armies met on closer terms, and, lighting down from their chariots, met hand to hand with club and halbert, sabre, spear, and dagger. The plumes of the angels were singed with lightning, and all their gorgeous panoplies were mingled in undistinguishable confusion, so that one saw turquoise-blue and gold, diamond and pearl, mixed and jarred together, nor knew which splendor belonged to which angel. Again and again repulsed, still Lucifer brought back his shattered army, still only to break like a wave on the iron ranks of the blessed. At last from a height he poured his forces on them; and Vondel, in describing the charge, adds a figure of speech which may have been inspired by one of the landscapes which Jacob Ruysdael was just beginning to exhibit at Amsterdam, but which can hardly be drawn from the home-staying poet's own experience, -

Then the battle raged more than ever; the vaults of heaven were deafened with 'the roar of an angel onset;' but the point of Michael's array pierced the half-moon of Lucifer's with a lurid blaze of red and blue sulphurous flame, and with blow on blow, like thunder-clap on thunder-clap, in spite of all Lucifer's fierce endeavor, struck it apart and divided it. Then, soaring high above the fight in his bright steel array, Lucifer gloomed like a blue dragon, poisoning the whole air with his split tongue and blowing odious vapors through his nostrils. At last Michael and he were face to face, and around them half the battle paused to watch the 