No More Learning

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. _ What, hath this dreamer, with his father's ark,
The bugbear he hath built to scare the world,
Shaken _my_ sister? Are _we_ not the loved
Of Seraphs? and if we were not, must we
Cling to a son of Noah for our lives?
Rather than thus----But the enthusiast dreams
The worst of dreams, the fantasies engendered
By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth, 450
And bid those clouds and waters take a shape
Distinct from that which we and all our sires
Have seen them wear on their eternal way?
Who shall do this?

_Japh. _ He whose one word produced them.

_Aho. _ Who _heard_ that word?

_Japh. _ The universe, which leaped
To life before it. Ah! smilest thou still in scorn?
Turn to thy Seraphs: if they attest it not,
They are none.

_Sam. _ Aholibamah, own thy God!

_Aho. _ I have ever hailed our Maker, Samiasa,
As thine, and mine: a God of Love, not Sorrow. 460

_Japh. _ Alas! what else is Love but Sorrow? Even
He who made earth in love had soon to grieve
Above its first and best inhabitants.

_Aho. _ 'Tis said so.

_Japh. _ It is even so.

_Enter_ NOAH _and_ SHEM.

_Noah_. Japhet! What
Dost thou here with these children of the wicked?
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom?

_Japh.
_ Father, it cannot be a sin to seek
To save an earth-born being; and behold,
These are not of the sinful, since they have
The fellowship of angels.

_Noah_. These are they, then, 470
Who leave the throne of God, to take them wives
From out the race of Cain; the sons of Heaven,
Who seek Earth's daughters for their beauty?

_Aza. _ Patriarch!
Thou hast said it.

_Noah_. Woe, woe, woe to such communion!
Has not God made a barrier between Earth
And Heaven, and limited each, kind to kind?

_Sam. _ Was not man made in high Jehovah's image?
Did God not love what he had made? And what
Do we but imitate and emulate
His love unto created love?

_Noah_. I am 480
But man, and was not made to judge mankind,
Far less the sons of God; but as our God
Has deigned to commune with me, and reveal
_His_ judgments, I reply, that the descent
Of Seraphs from their everlasting seat
Unto a perishable and perishing,
Even on the very _eve_ of _perishing_[153]? --world,
Cannot be good.

_Aza. _ What! though it were to save?

_Noah_. Not ye in all your glory can redeem
What he who made you glorious hath condemned. 490
Were your immortal mission safety, 'twould
Be general, not for two, though beautiful;
And beautiful they are, but not the less
Condemned.

_Japh. _ Oh, father! say it not.

_Noah_. Son! son!
If that thou wouldst avoid their doom, forget
That they exist: they soon shall cease to be,
While thou shalt be the sire of a new world,
And better.

_Japh. _ Let me die with _this_, and _them_!

_Noah_. Thou _shouldst_ for such a thought, but shalt not: he
Who _can_, redeems thee.

_Sam. _ And why him and thee, 500
More than what he, thy son, prefers to both?

_Noah_. Ask him who made thee greater than myself
And mine, but not less subject to his own
Almightiness. And lo! his mildest and
Least to be tempted messenger appears!

_Enter_ RAPHAEL[154] _the Archangel_.

_Raph. _
Spirits!
Whose seat is near the throne,
What do ye here?
Is thus a Seraph's duty to be shown,
Now that the hour is near 510
When Earth must be alone?
Return!
Adore and burn,
In glorious homage with the elected "Seven. "
Your place is Heaven.

_Sam. _
Raphael!
The first and fairest of the sons of God,
How long hath this been law,
That Earth by angels must be left untrod?
Earth! which oft saw 520
Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her sod!
The world he loved, and made
For love; and oft have we obeyed
His frequent mission with delighted pinions:
Adoring him in his least works displayed;
Watching this youngest star of his dominions;
And, as the latest birth of his great word,
Eager to keep it worthy of our Lord.
Why is thy brow severe?
And wherefore speak'st thou of destruction near? 530

_Raph. _
Had Samiasa and Azaziel been
In their true place, with the angelic choir,
Written in fire
They would have seen
Jehovah's late decree,
And not enquired their Maker's breath of me:
But ignorance must ever be
A part of sin;
And even the Spirits' knowledge shall grow less
As they wax proud within; 540
For Blindness is the first-born of Excess.
When all good angels left the world, ye stayed,
Stung with strange passions, and debased
By mortal feelings for a mortal maid:
But ye are pardoned thus far, and replaced
With your pure equals. Hence! away! away!
Or stay,
And lose Eternity by that delay!

_Aza. _
And thou! if Earth be thus forbidden
In the decree 550
To us until this moment hidden,
Dost thou not err as we
In being here?

_Raph. _
I came to call ye back to your fit sphere,
In the great name and at the word of God,
Dear, dearest in themselves, and scarce less dear--
That which I came to do[155]: till now we trod
Together the eternal space; together
Let us still walk the stars[156]. True, Earth must die!
Her race, returned into her womb, must wither, 560
And much which she inherits: but oh! why
Cannot this Earth be made, or be destroyed,
Without involving ever some vast void
In the immortal ranks? immortal still
In their immeasurable forfeiture.
Our brother Satan fell; his burning will
Rather than longer worship dared endure!
But ye who still are pure!
Seraphs! less mighty than that mightiest one,--
Think how he was undone! 570
And think if tempting man can compensate
For Heaven desired too late?
Long have I warred,
Long must I war
With him who deemed it hard
To be created, and to acknowledge him
Who midst the cherubim
Made him as suns to a dependent star,
Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim.
I loved him--beautiful he was: oh, Heaven! 580
Save _his_ who made, what beauty and what power
Was ever like to Satan's! Would the hour
In which he fell could ever be forgiven!
The wish is impious: but, oh ye!
Yet undestroyed, be warned! Eternity
With him, or with his God, is in your choice:
He hath not tempted you; he cannot tempt
The angels, from his further snares exempt:
But man hath listened to his voice,
And ye to woman's--beautiful she is, 590
The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss.
The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw
A second host from heaven, to break Heaven's law.
Yet, yet, oh fly!
Ye cannot die;
But they
Shall pass away,
While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky
For perishable clay,
Whose memory in your immortality 600
Shall long outlast the Sun which gave them day.
Think how your essence differeth from theirs
In all but suffering! why partake
The agony to which they must be heirs--
Born to be ploughed with years, and sown with cares,
And reaped by Death, lord of the human soil?
Even had their days been left to toil their path
Through time to dust, unshortened by God's wrath,
Still they are Evil's prey, and Sorrow's spoil.

_Aho. _
Let them fly! 610
I hear the voice which says that all must die,
Sooner than our white-bearded patriarchs died;
And that on high
An ocean is prepared,
While from below
The deep shall rise to meet Heaven's overflow--
Few shall be spared,
It seems; and, of that few, the race of Cain
Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in vain.
Sister! since it is so, 620
And the eternal Lord
In vain would be implored
For the remission of one hour of woe,
Let us resign even what we have adored,
And meet the wave, as we would meet the sword,
If not unmoved, yet undismayed,
And wailing less for us than those who shall
Survive in mortal or immortal thrall,
And, when the fatal waters are allayed,
Weep for the myriads who can weep no more. 630
Fly, Seraphs! to your own eternal shore,
Where winds nor howl, nor waters roar.
Our portion is to die,
And yours to live for ever:
But which is best, a dead Eternity,
Or living, is but known to the great Giver.
Obey him, as we shall obey;
I would not keep this life of mine in clay
An hour beyond his will;
Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace, 640
For all the mercy which Seth's race
Find still.
Fly!
And as your pinions bear ye back to Heaven,
Think that my love still mounts with thee on high,
Samiasa!
And if I look up with a tearless eye,
'Tis that an angel's bride disdains to weep,--
Farewell! Now rise, inexorable deep!

_Anah_.
And must we die? 650
And must I lose thee too,
Azaziel?
Oh, my heart! my heart!
Thy prophecies were true!
And yet thou wert so happy too!
The blow, though not unlocked for, falls as new:
But yet depart!
Ah! why?
Yet let me not retain thee--fly!
My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be 660
Eternal, if repulsed from Heaven for me.
Too much already hast thou deigned
To one of Adam's race!
Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone,
But to the Spirits who have not disdained
To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace.
The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurled
From his once archangelic throne
Into some unknown world:
And thou, Azaziel! No-- 670
Thou shall not suffer woe
For me. Away! nor weep!
Thou canst not weep; but yet
May'st suffer more, not weeping: then forget
Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling deep
Can bring no pang like this. Fly! fly!
Being gone, 'twill be less difficult to die.

_Japh. _
Oh say not so!
Father! and thou, archangel, thou!
Surely celestial mercy lurks below 680
That pure severe serenity of brow:
Let them not meet this sea without a shore,
Save in our ark, or let me be no more!

_Noah_.
Peace, child of passion, peace!
If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue
Do God no wrong!
Live as he wills it--die, when he ordains,
A righteous death, unlike the seed of Cain's.
Cease, or be sorrowful in silence; cease
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish plaint. 690
Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee?
Such would it be
To alter his intent
For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man!
And bear what Adam's race must bear, and can.

_Japh. _
Aye, father! but when they are gone,
And we are all alone,
Floating upon the azure desert, and
The depth beneath us hides our own dear land,
And dearer, silent friends and brethren, all 700
Buried in its immeasurable breast,
Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then command?
Can we in Desolation's peace have rest?
Oh God! be thou a God, and spare
Yet while 'tis time!
Renew not Adam's fall:
Mankind were then but twain,
But they are numerous now as are the waves
And the tremendous rain,
Whose drops shall be less thick than would their graves, 710
Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain.

_Noah_. Silence, vain boy! each word of thine's a crime.
Angel! forgive this stripling's fond despair.

_Raph. _ Seraphs! these mortals speak in passion: Ye!
Who are, or should be, passionless and pure,
May now return with me.

_Sam. _ It may not be:
We have chosen, and will endure.

_Raph. _ Say'st thou?

_Aza. _ He hath said it, and I say, Amen!

_Raph. _
Again!
Then from this hour, 720
Shorn as ye are of all celestial power,
And aliens from your God,
Farewell!

_Japh. _ Alas! where shall they dwell?
Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still,
Are howling from the mountain's bosom:
There's not a breath of wind upon the hill,
Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom:
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

_Noah_. Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry! 730
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,
Even when the waters waxed too fierce to brave.
Soon it shall be their only shore,
And then, no more!

_Japh. _ The sun! the sun[157]!
He riseth, but his better light is gone;
And a black circle, bound 740
His glaring disk around,
Proclaims Earth's last of summer days hath shone!
The clouds return into the hues of night,
Save where their brazen-coloured edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.

_Noah_. And lo! yon flash of light,
The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!
It cometh! hence, away!
Leave to the elements their evil prey!
Hence to where our all-hallowed ark uprears 750
Its safe and wreckless sides!

_Japh. _ Oh, father, stay!
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides!

_Noah_. Must we not leave all life to such? Begone!

_Japh. _ Not I.

_Noah_. Then die
With them!
How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison 760
With just Jehovah's wrath!

_Japh. _ Can rage and justice join in the same path?

_Noah_. Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now!