A weakness of the spirit-listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep-
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace?

the calm

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 proclaim'd

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
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
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 SÊм.
Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet?
Sem. 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

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, Which seems to lead into a lower world, Shall have its depths search'd 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,

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, For angels to alight on, as the spot Nearest the stars? And can those words

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 undistinguish'd sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be still'd at once! All-beauteous
world!

So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy number'd days and
nights.

1 cannot save thee, cannot save even her Whose love had made me love thee more;

Japhet. In the name

Of the Most High, what art thou?
Spirit (laughs). Ha! Ha! Ha!
Japhet. By all that earth holds holiest,
speak!

Spirit (laughs). Ha! Ha!

Japhet. By the approaching deluge! by the earth

Which will be strangled by the ocean! by The deep which will lay open all her fountains!

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 weepst thou?
Japhet. For earth and all her children.
Spirit. Ha! Ha! Ha! [Spirit vanishes.
Japhet. 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 Sleeps too upon the very eve of death! Why should they wake to meet it? What is 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

Nor years, nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping motion,

Shall they drop off. Behold their last tomorrow!

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,

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,
Destroy'd!

Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorr'd
Children of dust be quench'd; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain
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,

There is not one who hath not left a throne 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!

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 salt sources

pour'd

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;

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 New beings-years- diseases -sorrowcrime

With all companionship of hate and toil, Until

Japhet (interrupting them). The eternal will

Shall deign to expound this dream
Of good and evil; and redeem

Unto Himself all times, all things; And,gath er'd under his almighty wings, Abolish hell!

And to the expiated Earth

Restore the beauty of her birth, 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?

Japhet. When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain,

And then in glory.

Spirits. 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

With the blood reeking from each battleNew times, new climes, new arts, new plain; 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'

Chorus of Spirits.

Brethren, rejoice!

Mortal, farewell!

graves.

dwells

But still rejoice! We fell! They fall! So perish all

These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from Hell!

[The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards.

Japhet (solus). God hath proclaim'd the destiny of Earth;

My father's ark of safety hath announced it;
The very demons shriek it from their caves;
The scroll 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 listen'd not, nor listen; but
Walk darkling to their doom; which,
though so nigh,

Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief,
Than their last cries shall shake the

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,

Ay, day will rise; but upon what? A chaos, Which was ere day; and which, renew'd, 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 swallow'd in that
Deep

Which has no fountain; as his race will be Devour'd by that which drowns his infantworld.

What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air?

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 gray mountain, scattering its mist!
And after the swart savage spirits, whose
Infernal Immortality pour'd 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 pray'd—They

come!

Anah! oh God! and with her

Enter SAMIASA, AZAZIEL, ANAH, and AHOLIBAMAH.

Anah. Japhet!
Samiasa. Lo!

A son of Adam!

Azaziel. What doth the Earth-born here, While all his race are slumbering? Japhet. Angel! what

Dost thou on earth when thou shouldst be on high?

Azaziel. Knowst thou not, or forgetst

thou, that a part

Which is condemn'd; nay, even the evil fly The approaching Chaos. Anah! Anah! my In vain, and long, and still to be beloved! Why walkst thou with this Spirit, in those

hours

When no good spirit longer lights below?
Anah. Japhet, I cannot answer thee;
yet, yet
Forgive me—

The Ark which shall receive a remnant of The seed of Seth!

Aholibamah. 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

In Paradise, 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.

Japhet. 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, 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 stern Cainites, save in beauty, For all of them are fairest in their favourAholibamah (interrupting him).

And wouldst thou have her like our father's foe

In mind, in soul? If I partook thy thought, And dream'd that aught of Abel was in her!Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou mak'st strife.

Japhet. Offspring of Cain, thy father did so! Aholibamah. But

He slew not Seth; and what hast thou to do

With other deeds between his God and him? Japhet. 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.

Aholibamah. He was our fathers' father; The eldest-born of man, the strongest,