_ For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
Byron
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?
_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!
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?
_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!
