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Raph. Farewell, thou earth! Ye wretched sons of clay, 'Tis decreed!

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I cannot, must not, aid you.

[Exit RAPHAEL.

Japh. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey,

While others, fix'd as rocks, await the word

At which their wrathful vials shall be pour'd.

No azure more shall robe the firmament,

Nor spangled stars be glorious: Death hath risen :
In the Sun's place, a pale and ghastly glare

Hath wound itself around the dying air.

Aza. Come, Anah ! quit this chaos-founded prison, To which the elements again repair,

To turn it into what it was: beneath

The shelter of these wings thou shalt be safe,
As was the eagle's nestling once within

Its mother's.-Let the coming chaos chafe

With all its elements! heed not their din!

A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe
Ethereal life, will we explore:

These darken'd clouds are not the only skies.

[AZAZIEL and SAMIASA fly off, and disappear with ANAH and AHOLIBAMAH.

Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd amidst

the roar

Of the forsaken world; and never more,

Whether they live, or die with all earth's life,
Now near its last, can aught restore

Anah unto these eyes.

Chorus of MORTALS.

Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind!

What, wilt thou leave us all-all-all behind?

While safe amidst the elemental strife,

Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark?

A mother (offering her infant to JAPHET). Oh, let this child embark!

I brought him forth in woe,

But thought it joy

To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?

What hath he done

My unwean'd son

To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn?

What is there in this milk of mine, that Death
Should stir all heaven and earth up to destroy

My boy,

And roll the waters o'er his placid breath?

Save him, thou seed of Seth!

Or cursed be-with Him who made

Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd!

Japh. Peace! 'tis no hour for curses, but for prayer.

Chorus of MORTALS.

For prayer!!!
And where

Shall prayer ascend

When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend
And burst,

And gushing oceans every barrier rend,
Until the very deserts know no thirst?
Accurst

Be He, who made thee and thy sire!

We deem our curses vain; we must expire;

But as we know the worst,

Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent,

Since we must fall the same?

If He hath made earth, let it be His shame,
To make a world for torture.-Lo! they come,
The loathsome waters, in their rage!

And with their roar make wholesome Nature dumb!
The forest's trees (coeval with the hour

When Paradise upsprung,

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,

Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung),
So massy, vast, yet green in their old age,
Are overtopt,

Their summer blossoms by the surges lopp'd
Which rise, and rise, and rise.

Vainly we look up to the low'ring skies-
They meet the seas,

And shut out God from our beseeching eyes.
Fly, son of Noah, fly, and take thine ease
In thine allotted ocean-tent;

And view, all floating o'er the element,

The corpses of the world of thy young days:
Then to Jehovah raise

Thy song of praise!

A Mortal. Blessed are the dead

Who die in the Lord!

And though the waters be o'er earth outspread,
Yet, as His word,

Be the decree adored!

He gave me life-He taketh but

The breath which His is own:

And though these eyes should be for ever shut,
Nor longer this weak voice before His throne
Be heard in supplicating tone,

Still blessèd be the Lord,

For what is past,

For that which is:

For all are His,

From first to last

Time-space-eternity-life-death

The vast known and immeasurable unknown.

He made, and can unmake;
And shall I, for a little gasp of breath,
Blaspheme and groan?

No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith,
Nor quiver, though the universe may quake!

Chorus of MORTALS.

Where shall we fly?

Not to the mountains high;

For now their torrents rush, with double roar,
To meet the ocean, which, advancing still,
Already grasps each drowning hill,

Nor leaves an unsearch'd cave.

Enter a WOMAN.

Woman. Oh, save me, save!

Our valley is no more:

My father and my father's tent,

My brethren and my brethren's herds,

The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent

And sent forth evening songs from sweetest birds, The little rivulet which freshen'd all

Our pastures green,

No more are to be seen.

When to the mountain cliff I climb'd this morn,

I turn'd to bless the spot,

And not a leaf appear'd about to fall ;

And now they are not!

Why was I born?

Japh. To die! in youth to die!

And happier in that doom,

Than to behold the universal tomb

Which I

Am thus condemn'd to weep above in vain.
Why, when all perish, why must I remain ?

[The Waters rise; Men fly in every direction;
many are overtaken by the waves. The Chorus
of Mortals disperses in search of safety up the
mountains; JAPHET remains upon a rock,
while the ark floats towards him in the
distance.

EXTRACTS FROM DON JUAN.

THE ISLES OF GREECE.*

THE isles of Greece, the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace,-
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung!
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.

The Scian and the Teian muse,

The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."+

The mountains look on Marathon-
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,

I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians'
grave,

I could not deem myself a slave.

A king sat on the rocky brow

Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis;
And ships, by thousands, lay below,

And men in nations ;-all were his!
He counted them at break of day-
And when the sun set, where were they?

And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now-

The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?"

The Pieces following, to the end, are, from their great beauty and unobjectionable character, extracted from Don Juan.

The "Islands of the Blest," of the Greek poets were supposed to have been the Cape de Verd Islands or the Canaries.

"Deep were the groans of Xerxes, when he saw

This havoc; for his seat, a lofty mound
Commanding the wide sea, o'erlook'd the hosts.
With rueful cries he rent his royal robes,

And through his troops embattled on the shore
Gave signal of retreat; then started wild
And fled disorder'd."-ÆSCHYLUS,

'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.

Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush ?-Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyla !

What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no;-the voices of the dead
Sound like a distant torrent's fall,

And answer, "Let one living head,
But one arise,- -we come, we come!
'Tis but the living who are dumb.

In vain-in vain; strike other chords; Fill high the cup with Samian wine! Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,

And shed the blood of Scio's vine! Hark! rising to the ignoble callHow answers each bold Bacchanal !

You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons, why forget

The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave?

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon's song divine:

He served but served Polycrates

A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.

The tyrant of the Chersonese

Was freedom's best and bravest friend; That tyrant was Miltiades!

Oh! that the present hour would lend

Another despot of the kind!

Such chains as his were sure to bind.

Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line

Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.

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