Saturday, January 26, 2013

The Final Judgment (Christ III), part XI

And then the mighty day of the Mighty Lord
shall overmaster the earth-dwellers with fear
in the middle of the night, and with his power
the radiant creation—just as a corrupt harmer,
a bold-coming thief, who often comes in darkness,
in the black night, suddenly seizes those bound in sleep,
sorrowless men, unready earls assailed with evil.
So upon the mountain of Sinai there will come
a great and powerful people, true to the Measurer,
bright and blissful. To them the fruits shall be given! (867-77)

Then from the four corners of the earth,
from the utmost of the earthly realm,
angels all-bright shall blow trumpets
together with one voice. Middle-earth shall tremble,
the ground below men. They shall resonate together,
strong and brilliant, with the course of the stars,
singing and reverberating in the south and the north,
in the east and the west, across all of creation.
The children of the multitude of men shall be awakened
from death, all of mankind terrified from the olden earth,
into their measured fate—by this they will order them
to stand up at once from their fixed sleep. (878-89a)

There one can hear the sorrowing people,
miserable at mind, hurrying harshly,
carefully crying out over the deeds of their lives,
affrighted by fear. That shall be the greatest foretokening
which was ever, before or since, shown to men—
there shall be commingled an entire commotion
of angels and devils, both the brilliant and the black.
There will be a coming together of both white and swart,
just as there are unlike homes made for each,
the angels and the devils. (889b-98)

Then suddenly upon Sion’s peak from the south-east
the light of the sun shall come shining from the Shaper
more brilliant that humans can perceive in their minds,
blazing brightly, when the Child of God is revealed
here through the vaults of heaven.
The wonderful form of Christ shall come,
the Noble-King’s face, eastwards from the skies,
sweetly into the understanding of his own people,
yet bitter to the baleful, marvelously flecked with beauty
to the blessed, yet different altogether to the wretched. (899-909)

No comments: