No More Learning

FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI. 1, 2.

"And it came to pass . . . that the sons of God saw
the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them
wives of all which they chose. "



"And woman wailing for her demon lover. "
Coleridge [_Kubla Khan_, line 16]




INTRODUCTION TO _HEAVEN AND EARTH_.


_Heaven and Earth_ was begun at Ravenna October 9, 1821. "It occupied
about fourteen days" (Medwin's _Conversations_, 1824, p. 231), and was
forwarded to Murray, November 9, 1821. "You will find _it_," wrote Byron
(_Letters_, 1901, v. 474), "_pious_ enough, I trust--at least some of
the Chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves
for that, and perhaps for the melody. " It was on "a scriptural
subject"--"less speculative than _Cain_, and very pious" (_Letters_,
1901, v. 475; vi. 31). It was to be published, he insists, at the same
time, and, if possible, in the same volume with the "others"
(_Sardanapalus_, etc. ), and would serve, so he seems to have _reflected_
("The moment he reflects, he is a child," said Goethe), as an antidote
to the audacities, or, as some would have it, the impieties of _Cain_!

He reckoned without his publisher, who understood the temper of the
public and of the Government, and was naturally loth to awaken any more
"reasonable doubts" in the mind of the Chancellor with regard to whether
a "scriptural drama" was irreverent or profane. The new "Mystery" was
revised by Gifford and printed, but withheld from month to month, till,
at length, "the fire kindled," and, on the last day of October, 1821,
Byron instructed John Hunt to "obtain from Mr. Murray _Werner: a Drama_,
and another dramatic poem called _Heaven and Earth_. " It was published
in the second number of _The Liberal_ (pp. 165-206), January 1, 1823.

The same subject, the unequal union of angelic lovers with the daughters
of men, had taken Moore's fancy a year before Byron had begun to
"dramatize the Old Testament. " He had designed a long poem, but having
discovered that Byron was at work on the same theme, he resolved to
restrict himself to the production of an "episode," to "give himself the
chance of . . . an _heliacal rising_," before he was outshone by the
advent of a greater luminary. Thanks to Murray's scruples, and the
"translation" of MSS. to Hunt, the "episode" took the lead of the
"Mystery" by eight days. The _Loves of the Angels_ (see _Memoirs_, etc. ,
1853, iv. 28) was published December 23, 1822. None the less, lyric and
drama were destined to run in double harness. Critics found it
convenient to review the two poems in the same article, and were at
pains to draw a series of more or less pointed and pungent comparisons
between the unwilling though not unwitting rivals.

Wilson, in _Blackwood_, writes, "The first [the _Loves, etc. _] is all
glitter and point like a piece of Derbyshire spar, and the other is dark
and massy like a block of marble. . . . Moore writes with a crow-quill, . . .
Byron writes with an eagle's plume;" while Jeffrey, in the _Edinburgh_,
likens Moore to "an _aurora borealis_" and Byron to "an eruption of
Mount Vesuvius"!

There is, indeed, apart from the subject, nothing in common between
Moore's tender and alluring lyric and Byron's gloomy and tumultuous
rhapsody, while contrast is to be sought rather in the poets than in
their poems. The _Loves of the Angels_ is the finished composition of an
accomplished designer of Amoretti, one of the best of his kind, _Heaven
and Earth_ is the rough and unpromising sketch thrown off by a great
master.

Both the one and the other have passed out of the ken of readers of
poetry, but, on the whole, the _Loves of the Angels_ has suffered the
greater injustice. It is opined that there may be possibilities in a
half-forgotten work of Byron, but it is taken for granted that nothing
worthy of attention is to be found in Moore. At the time, however, Moore
scored a success, and Byron hardly escaped a failure. It is to be noted
that within a month of publication (January 18, 1823) Moore was at work
upon a revise for a fifth edition--consulting D'Herbelot "for the
project of turning the poor 'Angels' into Turks," and so "getting rid of
that connection with the Scriptures," which, so the Longmans feared,
would "in the long run be a drag on the popularity of the poem"
(_Memoirs, etc. _, 1853, iv. 41). It was no wonder that Murray was
"timorous" with regard to Byron and his "scriptural dramas," when the
Longmans started at the shadow of a scriptural allusion.

Byron, in his innocence, had taken for his motto the verse in _Genesis_
(ch. vi. 2), which records the intermarriage of the "sons of God" with
the "daughters of men. " In _Heaven and Earth_ the angels _are_ angels,
members, though erring members, of Jehovah's "thundering choir," and the
daughters of men are the descendants of Cain. The question had come up
for debate owing to the recent appearance of a translation of the _Book
of Enoch_ (by Richard Laurence, LL. D. , Oxford, 1821); and Moore, by way
of safeguarding himself against any suspicion of theological
irregularity, is careful to assure his readers ("Preface" to _Loves of
the Angels_, 1823, p. viii. and note, pp. 125-127) that the "sons of
God" were the descendants of Seth, and not beings of a supernatural
order, as a mis-translation by the LXX. , assisted by Philo and the
"rhapsodical fictions of the _Book of Enoch_" had induced the ignorant
or the profane to suppose. Nothing is so dangerous as innocence, and a
little more of that _empeiria_ of which Goethe accused him, would have
saved Byron from straying from the path of orthodoxy.

It is impossible to say for certain whether Laurence's translation of
the whole of the _Book of Enoch_ had come under Byron's notice before he
planned his new "Mystery," but it is plain that he was, at any rate,
familiar with the well-known fragment, "Concerning the 'Watchers'" [? ? ? ?
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? [Peri\ ton E)grego/ron]], which is preserved in the
_Chronographia_ of Georgius Syncellus, and was first printed by J. J.
Scaliger in _Thes. temp. Euseb. _ in 1606. In the prophecy of the Deluge
to which he alludes (_vide post_, p. 302, note 1), the names of the
delinquent seraphs (Semjaza and Azazel), and of the archangelic monitor
Raphael, are to be found in the fragment. The germ of _Heaven and Earth_
is not in the _Book of Genesis_, but in the _Book of Enoch_.

Medwin, who prints (_Conversations_, 1824, pp. 234-238) what purports to
be the prose sketch of a Second Part of _Heaven and Earth_ (he says that
Byron compared it to Coleridge's promised conclusion of
_Christabel_--"that, and nothing more! "), detects two other strains in
the composition of the "Mystery," an echo of Goethe's Faust and a
"movement" which recalls the _Eumenides_ of AEschylus. Byron told Murray
that his fourth tragedy was "more lyrical and Greek" than he at first
intended, and there is no doubt that with the _Prometheus Vinctus_ he
was familiar, if not at first hand, at least through the medium of
Shelley's rendering. But apart from the "Greek choruses," which "Shelley
made such a fuss about," Byron was acquainted with, and was not
untouched by, the metrical peculiarities of the _Curse of Kehama_, and
might have traced a kinship between his "angels" and Southey's
"Glendoveers," to say nothing of _their_ collaterals, the "glumms" and
"gawreys" of _Peter Wilkins_ (see notes to Southey's _Curse of Kehama_,
Canto VI. , _Poetical Works_, 1838, viii. 231-233).

Goethe was interested in _Heaven and Earth_. "He preferred it," says
Crabb Robinson (_Diary_, 1869, ii. 434), "to all the other serious
poems of Byron. . . . 'A bishop,' he exclaimed, though it sounded almost
like satire, 'might have written it. ' Goethe must have been thinking of
a _German_ bishop! " (For his daughter-in-law's translation of the
speeches of Anah and Aholibamah with their seraph-lovers, see
_Goethe-Jahrbuch_, 1899, pp. 18-21 [Letters, 1901, v. Appendix II. p.
518]. )

_Heaven and Earth_ was reviewed by Jeffrey in the _Edinburgh Review_,
February, 1823, vol. 38, pp. 42-48; by Wilson in _Blackwood's Edinburgh
Magazine_, January, 1823, vol. xiii. pp. 71, 72; and in the _New Monthly
Magazine_, N. S. , 1823, vol. 7, pp. 353-358.





DRAMATIS PERSONAE.

ANGELS.

SAMIASA.

AZAZIEL.

RAPHAEL, THE ARCHANGEL.


MEN.

NOAH AND HIS SONS.

IRAD.

JAPHET.


WOMEN.

ANAH.

AHOLIBAMAH.


_Chorus of Spirits of the Earth. --Chorus of Mortals_.




HEAVEN AND EARTH.


PART I.

SCENE I. --_A woody and mountainous district near Mount
Ararat. --Time, midnight_.

_Enter_ ANAH _and_ AHOLIBAMAH. [138]

_Anah_. OUR father sleeps: it is the hour when they
Who love us are accustomed to descend
Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat:--
How my heart beats!

_Aho. _ Let us proceed upon
Our invocation.

_Anah_. But the stars are hidden.
I tremble.

_Aho. _ So do I, but not with fear
Of aught save their delay.

_Anah_. My sister, though
I love Azaziel more than----oh, too much!
What was I going to say? my heart grows impious.

_Aho. _ And where is the impiety of loving 10
Celestial natures?

_Anah_. But, Aholibamah,
I love our God less since his angel loved me:
This cannot be of good; and though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears
Which are not ominous of right.

_Aho. _ Then wed thee
Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin!
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long:
Marry, and bring forth dust!

_Anah_. I should have loved
Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet
I am glad he is not. I cannot outlive him. 20
And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre
Of the poor child of clay[139] which so adored him,
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:
His grief will be of ages, or at least
Mine would be such for him, were I the Seraph,
And he the perishable.

_Aho. _ Rather say,
That he will single forth some other daughter
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah. 30

_Anah_. And if it should be so, and she loved him,
Better thus than that he should weep for me.

_Aho. _ If I thought thus of Samiasa's love,
All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me.
But to our invocation! --'Tis the hour.

_Anah_.
Seraph!
From thy sphere!
Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven
Albeit thou watchest with "the seven,"[140] 40
Though through space infinite and hoary
Before thy bright wings worlds be driven,
Yet hear!
Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!
And though she nothing is to thee,
Yet think that thou art all to her.
Thou canst not tell,--and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,--
The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thine years, 50
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathise,
Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne'er wept beneath the skies.
Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least
Of those cast out from Eden's gate:
Yet, Seraph dear! 60
Oh hear!
For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forget'st in thine eternity
Her whose heart Death could not keep from o'er-flowing
For thee, immortal essence as thou art!
Great is their love who love in sin and fear;
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart
A war unworthy: to an Adamite
Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear, 70
For sorrow is our element;
Delight
An Eden kept afar from sight,
Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near
Which tells me we are not abandoned quite. --
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!
My own Azaziel! be but here,
And leave the stars to their own light! 80

_Aho. _
Samiasa!
Wheresoe'er
Thou rulest in the upper air--
Or warring with the spirits who may dare
Dispute with him
Who made all empires, empire; or recalling
Some wandering star, which shoots through the abyss,
Whose tenants dying, while their world is falling,
Share the dim destiny of clay in this;
Or joining with the inferior cherubim, 90
Thou deignest to partake their hymn--
Samiasa!
I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!
Though I be formed of clay,
And thou of beams
More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams, 100
Thine immortality can not repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray
In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine,
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine.
It may be hidden long: death and decay
Our mother Eve bequeathed us--but my heart
Defies it: though this life must pass away,
Is _that_ a cause for thee and me to part?
Thou art immortal--so am I: I feel-- 110
I feel my immortality o'ersweep
All pains, all tears, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth--"Thou liv'st for ever! "
But if it be in joy
I know not, nor would know;
That secret rests with the Almighty giver,
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are 120
Of as eternal essence, and must war
With him if he will war with us; with _thee_
I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;
For thou hast ventured to share life with _me_,
And shall _I_ shrink from thine eternity?
No! though the serpent's sting should pierce me thorough,
And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil
Around me still! and I will smile,
And curse thee not; but hold
Thee in as warm a fold 130
As----but descend, and prove
A mortal's love
For an immortal. If the skies contain
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain!

_Anah_. Sister! sister! I view them winging
Their bright way through the parted night.

_Aho. _ The clouds from off their pinions flinging,
As though they bore to-morrow's light.

_Anah_. But if our father see the sight!

_Aho. _ He would but deem it was the moon 140
Rising unto some sorcerer's tune
An hour too soon. [141]

_Anah_. They come! _he_ comes! --Azaziel!

_Aho. _ Haste
To meet them! Oh! for wings to bear
My spirit, while they hover there,
To Samiasa's breast!

_Anah_. Lo! they have kindled all the west,
Like a returning sunset;--lo!
On Ararat's late secret crest
A mild and many-coloured bow, 150
The remnant of their flashing path,
Now shines! and now, behold! it hath
Returned to night, as rippling foam,
Which the Leviathan hath lashed
From his unfathomable home,
When sporting on the face of the calm deep,
Subsides soon after he again hath dashed
Down, down, to where the Ocean's fountains sleep.

_Aho. _ 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?