Black Beetles in Amber - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 53

A VISION OF RESURRECTION

I had a dream. The habitable earth—Its continents and islands, all were bareOf cities and of forests. Naught remainedOf its old aspect, and I only knew(As men know things in dreams, unknowing how)That this was earth and that all men were dead.On every side I saw the barren land,Even to the distant sky's inclosing blue,Thick-pitted all with graves; and all the gravesSave one were open—not as newly dug,But rather as by some internal forceRiven for egress. Tombs of stone were splitAnd wide agape, and in their iron decayThe massive mausoleums stood in halves.With mildewed linen all the ground was white.Discarded shrouds upon memorial stonesHung without motion in the soulless air.While greatly marveling how this should beI heard, or fancied that I heard, a voice,Low like an angel's, delicately strong,And sweet as music. —"Spirit," it said, "beholdThe burial place of universal Man!A million years have rolled away since hereHis sheeted multitudes (save only someWhose dark misdeeds required a separateAnd individual arraignment) roseTo judgment at the trumpet's summoningAnd passed into the sky for their award,Leaving behind these perishable thingsWhich yet, preserved by miracle, endureTill all are up. Then they and all of earth,Rock-hearted mountain and storm-breasted sea,River and wilderness and sites of deadAnd vanished capitals of men, shall springTo flame, and naught shall be for evermore!When all are risen that wonder will occur.'Twas but ten centuries ago the lastBut one came forth—a soul so black with sin,Against whose name so many crimes were setThat only now his trial is at end.But one remains."Straight, as the voice was stilled—That single rounded mound cracked lengthliwiseAnd one came forth in grave-clothes. For a spaceHe stood and gazed about him with a smileSuperior; then laying off his shroudDisclosed his two attenuated legsWhich, like parentheses, bent outwardlyAs by the weight of saintliness above,And so sprang upward and was lost to viewNoting his headstone overthrown, I read:"Sacred to memory of George K. Fitch,Deacon and Editor—a holy manWho fell asleep in Jesus, full of yearsAnd blessedness. The dead in Christ rise first."