ye
exulting
demons of the waste!
Byron
_ They have touched earth!
Samiasa!
_Anah_. My Azaziel!
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE II. --_Enter_ IRAD _and_ JAPHET.
_Irad_. Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus
To add thy silence to the silent night,
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars?
They cannot aid thee.
_Japh. _ But they soothe me--now
Perhaps she looks upon them as I look.
Methinks a being that is beautiful
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty,
The eternal beauty of undying things.
Oh, Anah!
_Irad_. But she loves thee not.
_Japh. _ Alas!
_Irad_. And proud Aholibamah spurns me also. 10
_Japh. _ I feel for thee too.
_Irad_. Let her keep her pride,
Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn:
It may be, time too will avenge it.
_Japh. _ Canst thou
Find joy in such a thought?
_Irad_. Nor joy nor sorrow.
I loved her well; I would have loved her better,
Had love been met with love: as 'tis, I leave her
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them.
_Japh. _ What destinies?
_Irad_. I have some cause to think
She loves another.
_Japh. _ Anah!
_Irad_. No; her sister.
_Japh. _ What other?
_Irad_. That I know not; but her air, 20
If not her words, tells me she loves another.
_Japh. _ Aye, but not Anah: she but loves her God.
_Irad_. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not,
What can it profit thee?
_Japh. _ True, nothing; but
I love.
_Irad_. And so did I.
_Japh. _ And now thou lov'st not,
Or think'st thou lov'st not, art thou happier?
_Irad_. Yes.
_Japh. _ I pity thee.
_Irad_. Me! why?
_Japh. _ For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
_Irad_. I take thy taunt as part of thy distemper,
And would not feel as thou dost for more shekels 30
Than all our father's herds would bring, if weighed
Against the metal of the sons of Cain--[142]
The yellow dust they try to barter with us,
As if such useless and discoloured trash,
The refuse of the earth, could be received
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, and all
Our flocks and wilderness afford. --Go, Japhet,
Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the moon--
I must back to my rest.
_Japh. _ And so would I
If I could rest.
_Irad_. Thou wilt not to our tents then? 40
_Japh. _ No, Irad; I will to the cavern,[143] whose
Mouth they say opens from the internal world,
To let the inner spirits of the earth
Forth when they walk its surface.
_Irad_. Wherefore so?
What wouldst thou there?
_Japh. _ Soothe further my sad spirit
With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,
And I am hopeless.
_Irad_. But 'tis dangerous;
Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors.
I must go with thee.
_Japh. _ Irad, no; believe me
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil. 50
_Irad_. But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.
_Japh. _ No, neither, Irad;
I must proceed alone.
_Irad_. Then peace be with thee!
[_Exit_ IRAD.
_Japh. _ (_solus_).
Peace! I have sought it where it should be found,
In love--with love, too, which perhaps deserved it;
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart,
A weakness of the spirit, listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm 60
Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by
The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs;
Such is the sullen or the fitful state
Of my mind overworn. The Earth's grown wicked,
And many signs and portents have proclaimed
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah!
When the dread hour denounced shall open wide
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou 70
Have lain within this bosom, folded from
The elements; this bosom, which in vain
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vainly,
While thine--Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amidst the failing
As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench,
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anah!
How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst not;
And still would I redeem thee--see thee live
When Ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed 80
By rock or shallow, the Leviathan,
Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world,
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of realm. [_Exit_ JAPHET.
_Enter_ NOAH _and_ SHEM.
_Noah_. Where is thy brother Japhet?
_Shem_. He went forth,
According to his wont, to meet with Irad,
He said; but, as I fear, to bend his steps
Towards Anah's tents, round which he hovers nightly,
Like a dove round and round its pillaged nest;
Or else he walks the wild up to the cavern
Which opens to the heart of Ararat. 90
_Noah_. What doth he there? It is an evil spot
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Than even wicked men resort there: he
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she loved him,
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts
Of men! that one of my blood, knowing well
The destiny and evil of these days,
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge
In such forbidden yearnings! Lead the way; 100
He must be sought for!
_Shem_. Go not forward, father:
I will seek Japhet.
_Noah_. Do not fear for me:
All evil things are powerless on the man
Selected by Jehovah. --Let us on.
_Shem_. To the tents of the father of the sisters?
_Noah_. No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.
[_Exeunt_ NOAH _and_ SHEM.
SCENE III. --_The mountains. --A cavern,[144] and the rocks
of Caucasus_.
_Japh. _ (_solus_). Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,
Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
So varied and so terrible in beauty;
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks
And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone[145]
In perpendicular places, where the foot
Of man would tremble, could he reach them--yes,
Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurled
Before the mass of waters; and yon cave, 10
Which seems to lead into a lower world,
Shall have its depths searched by the sweeping wave,
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!
And man----Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
Shall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
Alas! what am I better than ye are,
That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
While I had hope? or the more savage haunts, 20
Scarce less beloved, where I despaired for her?
And can it be! --Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
And scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
Leaving it with a crown of many hues?
No more to be the beacon of the world, 30
For angels to alight on, as the spot
Nearest the stars? And can those words "_no more_"
Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
_He_ preserve _them_, and I _not_ have the power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his mate,
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolonged,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world, 40
Reeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until
The salt morass subside into a sphere
Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguished sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be stilled at once! All beauteous world!
So young, so marked out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy numbered days and nights. 50
I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but as
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think
Upon thy coming doom without a feeling
Such as--Oh God! and canst thou-- [_He pauses_.
[_A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts
of laughter--afterwards a Spirit passes_.
_Japh. _ In the name
Of the Most High, what art thou?
_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha! ha! [146]
_Japh. _ By all that earth holds holiest, speak!
_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha!
_Japh. _ By the approaching deluge! by the earth
Which will be strangled by the ocean! by
The deep which will lay open all her fountains! 60
The heaven which will convert her clouds to seas,
And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes!
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct,
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me!
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh?
_Spirit_. Why weep'st thou?
_Japh. _ For earth and all her children.
_Spirit_. Ha! ha! ha!
[_Spirit vanishes_.
_Japh. _ How the fiend mocks the tortures of a world,
The coming desolation of an orb,
On which the sun shall rise and warm no life!
How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is 70
Sleep too upon the very eve of death!
Why should they wake to meet it? What are here,
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!
[_Various Spirits pass from the cavern_.
_Spirit_.
Rejoice!
The abhorred race
Which could not keep in Eden their high place,
But listened to the voice
Of knowledge without power,
Are nigh the hour, 80
Of Death!
Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,
Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion,
Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!
Earth shall be Ocean!
And no breath,
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save, 90
Or show the place where strong Despair hath died,
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not:
All shall be void,
Destroyed! [147]
Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorred
Children of dust be quenched; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain 100
Shall nought remain
Unchanged, or of the level plain;
Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain:
All merged within the universal fountain,
Man, earth, and fire, shall die,
And sea and sky
Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye.
Upon the foam
Who shall erect a home?
_Japh. _ (_coming forward_).
My sire! 110
Earth's seed shall not expire;
Only the evil shall be put away
From day.
Avaunt!
ye exulting demons of the waste!
Who howl your hideous joy
When God destroys whom you dare not destroy:
Hence! haste!
Back to your inner caves!
Until the waves
Shall search you in your secret place, 120
And drive your sullen race
Forth, to be rolled upon the tossing winds,
In restless wretchedness along all space!
_Spirit_.
Son of the saved!
When thou and thine have braved
The wide and warring element;
When the great barrier of the deep is rent,
Shall thou and thine be good or happy? --No!
Thy new world and new race shall be of woe--
Less goodly in their aspect, in their years 130
Less than the glorious giants, who
Yet walk the world in pride,
The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride.
Thine shall be nothing of the past, save tears!
And art thou not ashamed
Thus to survive,
And eat, and drink, and wive?
With a base heart so far subdued and tamed,
As even to hear this wide destruction named,
Without such grief and courage, as should rather 140
Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave,
Than seek a shelter with thy favoured father,
And build thy city o'er the drowned earth's grave?
Who would outlive their kind,
Except the base and blind?
Mine
Hateth thine
As of a different order in the sphere,
But not our own.
There is not one who hath not left a throne 150
Vacant in heaven to dwell in darkness here,
Rather than see his mates endure alone.
Go, wretch! and give
A life like thine to other wretches--live!
And when the annihilating waters roar
Above what they have done,
Envy the giant patriarchs then no more,
And scorn thy sire as the surviving one!
Thyself for being his son!
_Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cavern_.
Rejoice! 160
No more the human voice
Shall vex our joys in middle air
With prayer;
No more
Shall they adore;
And we, who ne'er for ages have adored
The prayer-exacting Lord,
To whom the omission of a sacrifice
Is vice;
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources poured 170
Until one element shall do the work
Of all in chaos; until they,
The creatures proud of their poor clay,
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk
In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where
The deep shall follow to their latest lair;
Where even the brutes, in their despair,
Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,
And the striped tiger shall lie down to die
Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother; 180
Till all things shall be as they were,
Silent and uncreated, save the sky:
While a brief truce
Is made with Death, who shall forbear
The little remnant of the past creation,
To generate new nations for his use;
This remnant, floating o'er the undulation
Of the subsiding deluge, from its slime,
When the hot sun hath baked the reeking soil
Into a world, shall give again to Time 190
New beings--years, diseases, sorrow, crime--
With all companionship of hate and toil,
Until----
_Japh. _ (_Interrupting them_).
The eternal Will
Shall deign to expound this dream
Of good and evil; and redeem
Unto himself all times, all things;
And, gathered under his almighty wings,
Abolish Hell!
And to the expiated Earth
Restore the beauty of her birth, 200
Her Eden in an endless paradise,
Where man no more can fall as once he fell,
And even the very demons shall do well!
_Spirits_. And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?
_Japh. _ When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain,
And then in glory.
_Spirit_. Meantime still struggle in the mortal chain,
Till Earth wax hoary;
War with yourselves, and Hell, and Heaven, in vain,
Until the clouds look gory 210
With the blood reeking from each battle-plain;
New times, new climes, new arts, new men; but still,
The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill,
Shall be amongst your race in different forms;
But the same moral storms
Shall oversweep the future, as the waves
In a few hours the glorious giants' graves[148].
_Chorus of Spirits_.
Brethren, rejoice!
Mortal, farewell!
Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice 220
Of growing Ocean's gloomy swell;
The winds, too, plume their piercing wings;
The clouds have nearly filled their springs;
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken,
And heaven set wide her windows[149]; while mankind
View, unacknowledged, each tremendous token--
Still, as they were from the beginning, blind.
We hear the sound they cannot hear,
The mustering thunders of the threatening sphere;
Yet a few hours their coming is delayed; 230
Their flashing banners, folded still on high,
Yet undisplayed,
Save to the Spirit's all-pervading eye.
Howl! howl! oh Earth!
Thy death is nearer than thy recent birth;
Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink below
The Ocean's overflow!
The wave shall break upon your cliffs; and shells,
The little shells, of ocean's least things be
Deposed where now the eagle's offspring dwells[150]-- 240
How shall he shriek o'er the remorseless sea!
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,
Unanswered, save by the encroaching swell;--
While man shall long in vain for his broad wings,
The wings which could not save:--
Where could he rest them, while the whole space brings
Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his grave?
Brethren, rejoice!
And loudly lift each superhuman voice--
All die, 250
Save the slight remnant of Seth's seed--
The seed of Seth,
Exempt for future sorrow's sake from death.
But of the sons of Cain
None shall remain;
And all his goodly daughters
Must lie beneath the desolating waters;
Or, floating upward, with their long hair laid
Along the wave, the cruel heaven upbraid,
Which would not spare 260
Beings even in death so fair.
It is decreed,
All die!
And to the universal human cry
The universal silence shall succeed!
Fly, brethren, fly!
But still rejoice!
We fell!
They fall!
So perish all 270
These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from Hell!
[_The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards_.
_Japh. _ (_solus_).
God hath proclaimed the destiny of earth;
My father's ark of safety hath announced it;
The very demons shriek it from their caves;
The scroll[151] of Enoch prophesied it long
In silent books, which, in their silence, say
More to the mind than thunder to the ear:
And yet men listened not, nor listen; but
Walk darkling to their doom: which, though so nigh,
Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief, 280
Than their last cries shall shake the Almighty purpose,
Or deaf obedient Ocean, which fulfils it.
No sign yet hangs its banner in the air;
The clouds are few, and of their wonted texture;
The Sun will rise upon the Earth's last day
As on the fourth day of creation, when
God said unto him, "Shine! " and he broke forth
Into the dawn, which lighted not the yet
Unformed forefather of mankind--but roused
Before the human orison the earlier 290
Made and far sweeter voices of the birds,
Which in the open firmament of heaven
Have wings like angels, and like them salute
Heaven first each day before the Adamites:
Their matins now draw nigh--the east is kindling--
And they will sing! and day will break! Both near,
So near the awful close! For these must drop
Their outworn pinions on the deep; and day,
After the bright course of a few brief morrows,--
Aye, day will rise; but upon what? --a chaos, 300
Which was ere day; and which, renewed, makes Time
Nothing! for, without life, what are the hours?
No more to dust than is Eternity
Unto Jehovah, who created both.
Without him, even Eternity would be
A void: without man, Time, as made for man,
Dies with man, and is swallowed in that deep
Which has no fountain; as his race will be
Devoured by that which drowns his infant world. --
What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air? 310
No--_all_ of heaven, they are so beautiful.
I cannot trace their features; but their forms,
How lovelily they move along the side
Of the grey mountain, scattering its mist!
And after the swart savage spirits, whose
Infernal immortality poured forth
Their impious hymn of triumph, they shall be
Welcome as Eden. It may be they come
To tell me the reprieve of our young world,
For which I have so often prayed. --They come! 320
Anah! oh, God! and with her----
_Enter_ SAMIASA, AZAZIEL, ANAH, _and_ AHOLIBAMAH.
_Anah_. Japhet!
_Sam. _ Lo!
A son of Adam!
_Aza. _ What doth the earth-born here,
While all his race are slumbering?
_Japh. _ Angel! what
Dost thou on earth when thou should'st be on high?
_Aza. _ Know'st thou not, or forget'st thou, that a part
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?
_Japh. _ But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemned; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved! 330
Why walk'st thou with this Spirit, in those hours
When no good Spirit longer lights below?
_Anah_. Japhet, I cannot answer thee; yet, yet
Forgive me----
_Japh. _ May the Heaven, which soon no more
Will pardon, do so! for thou art greatly tempted.
_Aho. _ Back to thy tents, insulting son of Noah!
We know thee not.
_Japh. _ The hour may come when thou
May'st know me better; and thy sister know
Me still the same which I have ever been.
_Sam. _ Son of the patriarch, who hath ever been 340
Upright before his God, whate'er thy gifts,
And thy words seem of sorrow, mixed with wrath,
How have Azaziel, or myself, brought on thee
Wrong?
_Japh. _ Wrong! the greatest of all wrongs! but, thou
Say'st well, though she be dust--I did not, could not,
Deserve her. Farewell, Anah! I have said
That word so often! but now say it, ne'er
To be repeated. Angel! or whate'er
Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou the power
To save this beautiful--_these_ beautiful 350
Children of Cain?
_Aza. _ From what?
_Japh. _ And is it so,
That ye too know not? Angels! angels! ye
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, now must
Partake his punishment; or, at the least,
My sorrow.
_Sam. _ Sorrow! I ne'er thought till now
To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me.
_Japh. _ And hath not the Most High expounded them?
Then ye are lost as they are lost.
_Aho. _ So be it!
If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink
More to be mortal, than I would to dare 360
An immortality of agonies
With Samiasa!
_Anah_. Sister! sister! speak not
Thus.
_Aza. _ Fearest thou, my Anah?
_Anah_. Yes, for thee:
I would resign the greater remnant of
This little life of mine, before one hour
Of thine eternity should know a pang.
_Japh. _ It is for _him_, then! for the Seraph thou
Hast left me! That is nothing, if thou hast not
Left thy God too! for unions like to these,
Between a mortal and an immortal, cannot 370
Be happy or be hallowed. We are sent
Upon the earth to toil and die; and they
Are made to minister on high unto
The Highest: but if he can _save_ thee, soon
The hour will come in which celestial aid
Alone can do so.
_Anah_. Ah! he speaks of Death.
_Sam. _ Of death to _us_! and those who are with us!
But that the man seems full of sorrow, I
Could smile.
_Japh. _ I grieve not for myself, nor fear.
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those 380
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found
Righteous enough to save his children. Would
His power was greater of redemption! or
That by exchanging my own life for hers,
Who could alone have made mine happy, she,
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share
The ark which shall receive a remnant of
The seed of Seth!
_Aho. _ And dost thou think that we,
With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood
Warm in our veins,--strong Cain! who was begotten 390
In Paradise[152],--would mingle with Seth's children?
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's dotage?
No, not to save all Earth, were Earth in peril!
Our race hath always dwelt apart from thine
From the beginning, and shall do so ever.
_Japh. _ I did not speak to thee, Aholibamah!
Too much of the forefather whom thou vauntest
Has come down in that haughty blood which springs
From him who shed the first, and that a brother's!
But thou, my Anah! let me call thee mine, 400
Albeit thou art not; 'tis a word I cannot
Part with, although I must from thee. My Anah!
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Abel
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art
The rest of the stem Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour----
_Aho. _ (_interrupting him_).
And would'st thou have her like our father's foe
In mind, in soul? If _I_ partook thy thought,
And dreamed that aught of _Abel_ was in _her_! -- 410
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou makest strife.
_Japh. _ Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!
_Aho. _ But
He slew not Seth: and what hast thou to do
With other deeds between his God and him?
_Japh. _ Thou speakest well: his God hath judged him, and
I had not named his deed, but that thyself
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink
From what he had done.
_Aho. _ He was our father's father;
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring:--Shall I blush for him 420
From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behold their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days----
_Japh. _ They are numbered.
_Aho. _ Be it so! but while yet their hours endure,
I glory in my brethren and our fathers.
_Japh. _ My sire and race but glory in their God,
Anah! and thou? ----
_Anah_. Whate'er our God decrees,
The God of Seth as Cain, I must obey,
And will endeavour patiently to obey.
But could I dare to pray in his dread hour 430
Of universal vengeance (if such should be),
It would not be to live, alone exempt
Of all my house. My sister! oh, my sister!
What were the world, or other worlds, or all
The brightest future, without the sweet past--
Thy love, my father's, all the life, and all
The things which sprang up with me, like the stars,
Making my dim existence radiant with
Soft lights which were not mine? Aholibamah!
Oh! if there should be mercy--seek it, find it: 440
I abhor Death, because that thou must die.
_Aho.
_Anah_. My Azaziel!
[_Exeunt_.
SCENE II. --_Enter_ IRAD _and_ JAPHET.
_Irad_. Despond not: wherefore wilt thou wander thus
To add thy silence to the silent night,
And lift thy tearful eye unto the stars?
They cannot aid thee.
_Japh. _ But they soothe me--now
Perhaps she looks upon them as I look.
Methinks a being that is beautiful
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty,
The eternal beauty of undying things.
Oh, Anah!
_Irad_. But she loves thee not.
_Japh. _ Alas!
_Irad_. And proud Aholibamah spurns me also. 10
_Japh. _ I feel for thee too.
_Irad_. Let her keep her pride,
Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn:
It may be, time too will avenge it.
_Japh. _ Canst thou
Find joy in such a thought?
_Irad_. Nor joy nor sorrow.
I loved her well; I would have loved her better,
Had love been met with love: as 'tis, I leave her
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them.
_Japh. _ What destinies?
_Irad_. I have some cause to think
She loves another.
_Japh. _ Anah!
_Irad_. No; her sister.
_Japh. _ What other?
_Irad_. That I know not; but her air, 20
If not her words, tells me she loves another.
_Japh. _ Aye, but not Anah: she but loves her God.
_Irad_. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not,
What can it profit thee?
_Japh. _ True, nothing; but
I love.
_Irad_. And so did I.
_Japh. _ And now thou lov'st not,
Or think'st thou lov'st not, art thou happier?
_Irad_. Yes.
_Japh. _ I pity thee.
_Irad_. Me! why?
_Japh. _ For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
_Irad_. I take thy taunt as part of thy distemper,
And would not feel as thou dost for more shekels 30
Than all our father's herds would bring, if weighed
Against the metal of the sons of Cain--[142]
The yellow dust they try to barter with us,
As if such useless and discoloured trash,
The refuse of the earth, could be received
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, and all
Our flocks and wilderness afford. --Go, Japhet,
Sigh to the stars, as wolves howl to the moon--
I must back to my rest.
_Japh. _ And so would I
If I could rest.
_Irad_. Thou wilt not to our tents then? 40
_Japh. _ No, Irad; I will to the cavern,[143] whose
Mouth they say opens from the internal world,
To let the inner spirits of the earth
Forth when they walk its surface.
_Irad_. Wherefore so?
What wouldst thou there?
_Japh. _ Soothe further my sad spirit
With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,
And I am hopeless.
_Irad_. But 'tis dangerous;
Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors.
I must go with thee.
_Japh. _ Irad, no; believe me
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil. 50
_Irad_. But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.
_Japh. _ No, neither, Irad;
I must proceed alone.
_Irad_. Then peace be with thee!
[_Exit_ IRAD.
_Japh. _ (_solus_).
Peace! I have sought it where it should be found,
In love--with love, too, which perhaps deserved it;
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart,
A weakness of the spirit, listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm 60
Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by
The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs;
Such is the sullen or the fitful state
Of my mind overworn. The Earth's grown wicked,
And many signs and portents have proclaimed
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah!
When the dread hour denounced shall open wide
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou 70
Have lain within this bosom, folded from
The elements; this bosom, which in vain
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vainly,
While thine--Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amidst the failing
As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench,
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anah!
How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst not;
And still would I redeem thee--see thee live
When Ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed 80
By rock or shallow, the Leviathan,
Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world,
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of realm. [_Exit_ JAPHET.
_Enter_ NOAH _and_ SHEM.
_Noah_. Where is thy brother Japhet?
_Shem_. He went forth,
According to his wont, to meet with Irad,
He said; but, as I fear, to bend his steps
Towards Anah's tents, round which he hovers nightly,
Like a dove round and round its pillaged nest;
Or else he walks the wild up to the cavern
Which opens to the heart of Ararat. 90
_Noah_. What doth he there? It is an evil spot
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Than even wicked men resort there: he
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she loved him,
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts
Of men! that one of my blood, knowing well
The destiny and evil of these days,
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge
In such forbidden yearnings! Lead the way; 100
He must be sought for!
_Shem_. Go not forward, father:
I will seek Japhet.
_Noah_. Do not fear for me:
All evil things are powerless on the man
Selected by Jehovah. --Let us on.
_Shem_. To the tents of the father of the sisters?
_Noah_. No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.
[_Exeunt_ NOAH _and_ SHEM.
SCENE III. --_The mountains. --A cavern,[144] and the rocks
of Caucasus_.
_Japh. _ (_solus_). Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,
Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
So varied and so terrible in beauty;
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks
And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone[145]
In perpendicular places, where the foot
Of man would tremble, could he reach them--yes,
Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurled
Before the mass of waters; and yon cave, 10
Which seems to lead into a lower world,
Shall have its depths searched by the sweeping wave,
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!
And man----Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
Shall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
Alas! what am I better than ye are,
That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
While I had hope? or the more savage haunts, 20
Scarce less beloved, where I despaired for her?
And can it be! --Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
And scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
Leaving it with a crown of many hues?
No more to be the beacon of the world, 30
For angels to alight on, as the spot
Nearest the stars? And can those words "_no more_"
Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
_He_ preserve _them_, and I _not_ have the power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his mate,
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolonged,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world, 40
Reeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until
The salt morass subside into a sphere
Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguished sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be stilled at once! All beauteous world!
So young, so marked out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy numbered days and nights. 50
I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but as
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think
Upon thy coming doom without a feeling
Such as--Oh God! and canst thou-- [_He pauses_.
[_A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts
of laughter--afterwards a Spirit passes_.
_Japh. _ In the name
Of the Most High, what art thou?
_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha! ha! [146]
_Japh. _ By all that earth holds holiest, speak!
_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha!
_Japh. _ By the approaching deluge! by the earth
Which will be strangled by the ocean! by
The deep which will lay open all her fountains! 60
The heaven which will convert her clouds to seas,
And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes!
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct,
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me!
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh?
_Spirit_. Why weep'st thou?
_Japh. _ For earth and all her children.
_Spirit_. Ha! ha! ha!
[_Spirit vanishes_.
_Japh. _ How the fiend mocks the tortures of a world,
The coming desolation of an orb,
On which the sun shall rise and warm no life!
How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is 70
Sleep too upon the very eve of death!
Why should they wake to meet it? What are here,
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!
[_Various Spirits pass from the cavern_.
_Spirit_.
Rejoice!
The abhorred race
Which could not keep in Eden their high place,
But listened to the voice
Of knowledge without power,
Are nigh the hour, 80
Of Death!
Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,
Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion,
Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!
Earth shall be Ocean!
And no breath,
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save, 90
Or show the place where strong Despair hath died,
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not:
All shall be void,
Destroyed! [147]
Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorred
Children of dust be quenched; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain 100
Shall nought remain
Unchanged, or of the level plain;
Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain:
All merged within the universal fountain,
Man, earth, and fire, shall die,
And sea and sky
Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye.
Upon the foam
Who shall erect a home?
_Japh. _ (_coming forward_).
My sire! 110
Earth's seed shall not expire;
Only the evil shall be put away
From day.
Avaunt!
ye exulting demons of the waste!
Who howl your hideous joy
When God destroys whom you dare not destroy:
Hence! haste!
Back to your inner caves!
Until the waves
Shall search you in your secret place, 120
And drive your sullen race
Forth, to be rolled upon the tossing winds,
In restless wretchedness along all space!
_Spirit_.
Son of the saved!
When thou and thine have braved
The wide and warring element;
When the great barrier of the deep is rent,
Shall thou and thine be good or happy? --No!
Thy new world and new race shall be of woe--
Less goodly in their aspect, in their years 130
Less than the glorious giants, who
Yet walk the world in pride,
The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride.
Thine shall be nothing of the past, save tears!
And art thou not ashamed
Thus to survive,
And eat, and drink, and wive?
With a base heart so far subdued and tamed,
As even to hear this wide destruction named,
Without such grief and courage, as should rather 140
Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave,
Than seek a shelter with thy favoured father,
And build thy city o'er the drowned earth's grave?
Who would outlive their kind,
Except the base and blind?
Mine
Hateth thine
As of a different order in the sphere,
But not our own.
There is not one who hath not left a throne 150
Vacant in heaven to dwell in darkness here,
Rather than see his mates endure alone.
Go, wretch! and give
A life like thine to other wretches--live!
And when the annihilating waters roar
Above what they have done,
Envy the giant patriarchs then no more,
And scorn thy sire as the surviving one!
Thyself for being his son!
_Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cavern_.
Rejoice! 160
No more the human voice
Shall vex our joys in middle air
With prayer;
No more
Shall they adore;
And we, who ne'er for ages have adored
The prayer-exacting Lord,
To whom the omission of a sacrifice
Is vice;
We, we shall view the deep's salt sources poured 170
Until one element shall do the work
Of all in chaos; until they,
The creatures proud of their poor clay,
Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk
In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where
The deep shall follow to their latest lair;
Where even the brutes, in their despair,
Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,
And the striped tiger shall lie down to die
Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother; 180
Till all things shall be as they were,
Silent and uncreated, save the sky:
While a brief truce
Is made with Death, who shall forbear
The little remnant of the past creation,
To generate new nations for his use;
This remnant, floating o'er the undulation
Of the subsiding deluge, from its slime,
When the hot sun hath baked the reeking soil
Into a world, shall give again to Time 190
New beings--years, diseases, sorrow, crime--
With all companionship of hate and toil,
Until----
_Japh. _ (_Interrupting them_).
The eternal Will
Shall deign to expound this dream
Of good and evil; and redeem
Unto himself all times, all things;
And, gathered under his almighty wings,
Abolish Hell!
And to the expiated Earth
Restore the beauty of her birth, 200
Her Eden in an endless paradise,
Where man no more can fall as once he fell,
And even the very demons shall do well!
_Spirits_. And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?
_Japh. _ When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain,
And then in glory.
_Spirit_. Meantime still struggle in the mortal chain,
Till Earth wax hoary;
War with yourselves, and Hell, and Heaven, in vain,
Until the clouds look gory 210
With the blood reeking from each battle-plain;
New times, new climes, new arts, new men; but still,
The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill,
Shall be amongst your race in different forms;
But the same moral storms
Shall oversweep the future, as the waves
In a few hours the glorious giants' graves[148].
_Chorus of Spirits_.
Brethren, rejoice!
Mortal, farewell!
Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice 220
Of growing Ocean's gloomy swell;
The winds, too, plume their piercing wings;
The clouds have nearly filled their springs;
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken,
And heaven set wide her windows[149]; while mankind
View, unacknowledged, each tremendous token--
Still, as they were from the beginning, blind.
We hear the sound they cannot hear,
The mustering thunders of the threatening sphere;
Yet a few hours their coming is delayed; 230
Their flashing banners, folded still on high,
Yet undisplayed,
Save to the Spirit's all-pervading eye.
Howl! howl! oh Earth!
Thy death is nearer than thy recent birth;
Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink below
The Ocean's overflow!
The wave shall break upon your cliffs; and shells,
The little shells, of ocean's least things be
Deposed where now the eagle's offspring dwells[150]-- 240
How shall he shriek o'er the remorseless sea!
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,
Unanswered, save by the encroaching swell;--
While man shall long in vain for his broad wings,
The wings which could not save:--
Where could he rest them, while the whole space brings
Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his grave?
Brethren, rejoice!
And loudly lift each superhuman voice--
All die, 250
Save the slight remnant of Seth's seed--
The seed of Seth,
Exempt for future sorrow's sake from death.
But of the sons of Cain
None shall remain;
And all his goodly daughters
Must lie beneath the desolating waters;
Or, floating upward, with their long hair laid
Along the wave, the cruel heaven upbraid,
Which would not spare 260
Beings even in death so fair.
It is decreed,
All die!
And to the universal human cry
The universal silence shall succeed!
Fly, brethren, fly!
But still rejoice!
We fell!
They fall!
So perish all 270
These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from Hell!
[_The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards_.
_Japh. _ (_solus_).
God hath proclaimed the destiny of earth;
My father's ark of safety hath announced it;
The very demons shriek it from their caves;
The scroll[151] of Enoch prophesied it long
In silent books, which, in their silence, say
More to the mind than thunder to the ear:
And yet men listened not, nor listen; but
Walk darkling to their doom: which, though so nigh,
Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief, 280
Than their last cries shall shake the Almighty purpose,
Or deaf obedient Ocean, which fulfils it.
No sign yet hangs its banner in the air;
The clouds are few, and of their wonted texture;
The Sun will rise upon the Earth's last day
As on the fourth day of creation, when
God said unto him, "Shine! " and he broke forth
Into the dawn, which lighted not the yet
Unformed forefather of mankind--but roused
Before the human orison the earlier 290
Made and far sweeter voices of the birds,
Which in the open firmament of heaven
Have wings like angels, and like them salute
Heaven first each day before the Adamites:
Their matins now draw nigh--the east is kindling--
And they will sing! and day will break! Both near,
So near the awful close! For these must drop
Their outworn pinions on the deep; and day,
After the bright course of a few brief morrows,--
Aye, day will rise; but upon what? --a chaos, 300
Which was ere day; and which, renewed, makes Time
Nothing! for, without life, what are the hours?
No more to dust than is Eternity
Unto Jehovah, who created both.
Without him, even Eternity would be
A void: without man, Time, as made for man,
Dies with man, and is swallowed in that deep
Which has no fountain; as his race will be
Devoured by that which drowns his infant world. --
What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air? 310
No--_all_ of heaven, they are so beautiful.
I cannot trace their features; but their forms,
How lovelily they move along the side
Of the grey mountain, scattering its mist!
And after the swart savage spirits, whose
Infernal immortality poured forth
Their impious hymn of triumph, they shall be
Welcome as Eden. It may be they come
To tell me the reprieve of our young world,
For which I have so often prayed. --They come! 320
Anah! oh, God! and with her----
_Enter_ SAMIASA, AZAZIEL, ANAH, _and_ AHOLIBAMAH.
_Anah_. Japhet!
_Sam. _ Lo!
A son of Adam!
_Aza. _ What doth the earth-born here,
While all his race are slumbering?
_Japh. _ Angel! what
Dost thou on earth when thou should'st be on high?
_Aza. _ Know'st thou not, or forget'st thou, that a part
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?
_Japh. _ But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemned; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved! 330
Why walk'st thou with this Spirit, in those hours
When no good Spirit longer lights below?
_Anah_. Japhet, I cannot answer thee; yet, yet
Forgive me----
_Japh. _ May the Heaven, which soon no more
Will pardon, do so! for thou art greatly tempted.
_Aho. _ Back to thy tents, insulting son of Noah!
We know thee not.
_Japh. _ The hour may come when thou
May'st know me better; and thy sister know
Me still the same which I have ever been.
_Sam. _ Son of the patriarch, who hath ever been 340
Upright before his God, whate'er thy gifts,
And thy words seem of sorrow, mixed with wrath,
How have Azaziel, or myself, brought on thee
Wrong?
_Japh. _ Wrong! the greatest of all wrongs! but, thou
Say'st well, though she be dust--I did not, could not,
Deserve her. Farewell, Anah! I have said
That word so often! but now say it, ne'er
To be repeated. Angel! or whate'er
Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou the power
To save this beautiful--_these_ beautiful 350
Children of Cain?
_Aza. _ From what?
_Japh. _ And is it so,
That ye too know not? Angels! angels! ye
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, now must
Partake his punishment; or, at the least,
My sorrow.
_Sam. _ Sorrow! I ne'er thought till now
To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me.
_Japh. _ And hath not the Most High expounded them?
Then ye are lost as they are lost.
_Aho. _ So be it!
If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink
More to be mortal, than I would to dare 360
An immortality of agonies
With Samiasa!
_Anah_. Sister! sister! speak not
Thus.
_Aza. _ Fearest thou, my Anah?
_Anah_. Yes, for thee:
I would resign the greater remnant of
This little life of mine, before one hour
Of thine eternity should know a pang.
_Japh. _ It is for _him_, then! for the Seraph thou
Hast left me! That is nothing, if thou hast not
Left thy God too! for unions like to these,
Between a mortal and an immortal, cannot 370
Be happy or be hallowed. We are sent
Upon the earth to toil and die; and they
Are made to minister on high unto
The Highest: but if he can _save_ thee, soon
The hour will come in which celestial aid
Alone can do so.
_Anah_. Ah! he speaks of Death.
_Sam. _ Of death to _us_! and those who are with us!
But that the man seems full of sorrow, I
Could smile.
_Japh. _ I grieve not for myself, nor fear.
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those 380
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found
Righteous enough to save his children. Would
His power was greater of redemption! or
That by exchanging my own life for hers,
Who could alone have made mine happy, she,
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share
The ark which shall receive a remnant of
The seed of Seth!
_Aho. _ And dost thou think that we,
With Cain's, the eldest born of Adam's, blood
Warm in our veins,--strong Cain! who was begotten 390
In Paradise[152],--would mingle with Seth's children?
Seth, the last offspring of old Adam's dotage?
No, not to save all Earth, were Earth in peril!
Our race hath always dwelt apart from thine
From the beginning, and shall do so ever.
_Japh. _ I did not speak to thee, Aholibamah!
Too much of the forefather whom thou vauntest
Has come down in that haughty blood which springs
From him who shed the first, and that a brother's!
But thou, my Anah! let me call thee mine, 400
Albeit thou art not; 'tis a word I cannot
Part with, although I must from thee. My Anah!
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Abel
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art
The rest of the stem Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour----
_Aho. _ (_interrupting him_).
And would'st thou have her like our father's foe
In mind, in soul? If _I_ partook thy thought,
And dreamed that aught of _Abel_ was in _her_! -- 410
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou makest strife.
_Japh. _ Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!
_Aho. _ But
He slew not Seth: and what hast thou to do
With other deeds between his God and him?
_Japh. _ Thou speakest well: his God hath judged him, and
I had not named his deed, but that thyself
Didst seem to glory in him, nor to shrink
From what he had done.
_Aho. _ He was our father's father;
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring:--Shall I blush for him 420
From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behold their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days----
_Japh. _ They are numbered.
_Aho. _ Be it so! but while yet their hours endure,
I glory in my brethren and our fathers.
_Japh. _ My sire and race but glory in their God,
Anah! and thou? ----
_Anah_. Whate'er our God decrees,
The God of Seth as Cain, I must obey,
And will endeavour patiently to obey.
But could I dare to pray in his dread hour 430
Of universal vengeance (if such should be),
It would not be to live, alone exempt
Of all my house. My sister! oh, my sister!
What were the world, or other worlds, or all
The brightest future, without the sweet past--
Thy love, my father's, all the life, and all
The things which sprang up with me, like the stars,
Making my dim existence radiant with
Soft lights which were not mine? Aholibamah!
Oh! if there should be mercy--seek it, find it: 440
I abhor Death, because that thou must die.
_Aho.
