5

HEAVEN AND EARTH.

PART I.

SCENE I. (1)

A woody and mountainous district near Mount Ararat.-Time, midnight.

Enter ANAH and AHOLIBAMAH.

Anah. OUR father sleeps: it is the hour when they Who love us are accustom'd to descend

Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat :-
How my
heart beats!

(1) [The great power of this " Mystery" is in its fearless and daring simplicity. Lord Byron faces at once all the grandeur of his sublime subject. He seeks for nothing, but it rises before him in its deathdoomed magnificence. Man, or angel, or demon, the being who mourns, or laments, or exults, is driven to speak by his own soul. The angels deign not to use many words, even to their beautiful paramours; and they scorn Noah and his sententious sons. The first scene is a woody and mountainous district, near Mount Ararat; and the time midnight. Mortal creatures, conscious of their own wickedness, have heard awful. predictions of the threatened flood, and all their lives are darkened with terror. But the sons of God have been dwellers on earth, and women's hearts have been stirred by the beauty of these celestial visitants. Anah and Aholibamah, two of these angel-stricken maidens, come wandering along while others sleep, to pour forth their invocations to their demon lovers. They are of very different characters: Anah, soft, gentle, and submissive; Aholibamah, proud, impetuous, and aspiring the one loving in fear, and

the other in ambition. - WILSON.]

What was I going to say? my heart grows impious. Aho. And where is the impiety of loving 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 can not outlive him.
And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre

Of the poor child of clay 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.
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.

From thy sphere !
Whatever star contain thy glory;

In the eternal depths of heaven

Albeit thou watchest with "the seven," (1) 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,

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,

(1) The archangels, said to be seven in number, and to occupy the eighth rank in the celestial hierarchy.

As he hath made me of the least

Of those cast out from Eden's gate:
Yet, Seraph dear!

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'erflowing

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,
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 abandon'd quite.-—-
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!

Aho.

My own Azaziel! be but here,

And leave the stars to their own light.

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,
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 form'd of clay,
And thou of beams

More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams,

Thine immortality can not repay

With love more warm than mine

My love. There is a ray

It

may

heart

In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine, I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine. be hidden long: death and decay Our mother Eve bequeath'd us-but my 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

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

But if it be in joy

"Thou liv'st for ever!"

I know not, nor would know;

That secret rests with the Almighty giver

Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.