Growing swiftly conscious of all that in the Purgatory of the Present awaited him, Theos felt as though the earth-chasm that had swallowed up Al-Kyris in his dream had opened again before him, affrighting him with its black depth of nothingness and annihilation,—­and in a sudden agony of self-distrust he gazed yearningly at the fair, wistful face above him, . . the divine beauty that was his after all, if he only knew how to claim it!—­ Something, he knew not what, filled him with a fiery restlessness,—­a passion of protest and aspiration, which for a moment was so strong that it seemed to him he must, with one fierce effort, wrench himself free from the trammels of mortality, and straightway take upon him the majesty of immortal nature, and so bear his Angel love company whithersoever she went!  Never had the fetters of flesh weighed upon him with such-heaviness! ... but, in spite of his feverish longing to escape, some authoritative yet gentle Force held him prisoner.

“God!” he muttered ...  “Why am I thus bound?—­why can I not be free?”

“Because thy time for freedom has not come!” said Edris, quickly answering his thought ...  “Because thou hast work to do that is not yet done!  Thy poet labors have, up till now, been merely repetition, ... the repetition of thy Former Self, ...  Go! the tired world waits for a new Gospel of Poesy, ... a new song that shall rouse it from its apathy, and bring it closer unto God and all things high and fair!  Write!—­for the nations wait for a trumpet-voice of Truth! ... the great poets are dead, . . their spirits are in Heaven, . . and there is none to replace them on the Sorrowful Star save thou!  Not for Fame do thy work—­nor for Wealth, . . but for Love and the Glory of God!—­for Love of Humanity, for Love of the Beautiful, the Pure, the Holy! ... let the race of men hear one more faithful Apostle of the Divine Unseen, ere Earth is lost in the withering light of a larger Creation!  Go! ... perform thy long-neglected mission,—­that mission of all poets worthy the name..  To raise the world!  Thou shalt not lack strength nor fervor, so long as thou dost write for the benefit of others.  Serve God and live!—­serve Self and die!  Such is the Eternal Law of Spheres Invisible, . . the less thou seest of Self, the more thou seest of Heaven! ... thrust Self away, and lo!  God invests thee with His Presence!  Go forth into the world, . . a King uncrowned, . . a Master of Song, . . and fear not that I, Edris, will forsake thee,—­I, who have loved thee since the birth of Time!”

He met her beautiful, luminous, inspired eyes, with a sad interrogativeness in his own.  What a hard fate was meted out to him! ...  To teach the world that scoffed at teaching!—­to rouse the gold-thirsting mass of men to a new sense of things divine!  O vain task!—­O dreary impossibility! ...  Enough surely, to guide his own Will aright, without making any attempt to guide the wills of others!