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"And it came to pass.... that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair ; and they took them wives of all which they chose."

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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:

SCENE I.-A woody and mountainous district near His grief will be of ages, or at least Mount Ararat.-Time, midnight.

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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.
Anah.

Seraph!
From thy sphere!
Whatever star contain thy glory;
In the eternal depths of heaven

Albeit thou watchest with "the seven"* 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 thy years, Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes; With me thou canst not sympathize, 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!

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

All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peai, Like the eternal thunders of the deep,

Into

my ears this truth—" thou liv'st for ever 199 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 wo.
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we a
Of as eternal essence and must war

With him if he will war with us: with ther

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

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

Her whose heart death could not keep from o'er- Their bright way through the parted night.

flowing

For thee, inmortal 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!

My own Azaziel! be but here,

And leave the stars to their own light.

Aho.

Samiasa!

Wheresoe'er

Thou rulest in the upper air

Or warring with the spirits who Dispute with him

may

dare

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

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 bequeath'd 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-
I feel my immortality o'ersweep

• The archangels said to be seven in number.

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
Rising unto some sorcerer's tune
An hour too soon.

Anah. They come! he comes!-Azaziel !
Aho.

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-colour'd bow,
The remnant of their flashing path,
Now shines! and now, behold! it hath
Return'd to night, as rippling foam,

Which the leviathan hath lash'd
From his unfathomable home,
When sporting on the face of the calm deep,
Subsides soon after he again hath dash'd
Down, down, to where the ocean's fountains sleep
Aho. They have touch'd earth! Samiasa!
Anah.

Haste

My Azaziol! [Exeunt.

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I loved her well; I would have loved her better,
Had love been met with love: as 't is, I leave her
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them.
Japh. What destinies?
Irad.

She loves another.

Japh.

Anah!

Trad.

Japh. What other?
Irad.

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 "ainis,

I have some cause to think While thine-Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amid the failing

No; her sister.

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 n.,

That I know not; but her air, And still would I redeem thee-see thee live
When ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed
By rock or shallow, the leviathan,

If not her words, tells me she loves another.
Japh. Ay, but not Anah: she but loves her God.
Irad. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not,
What can it profit thee?

Japh.

I love.

True, nothing; but

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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
Than all our father's herds would bring if weigh'd
Against the metal of the sons of Cain-
The yellow dust they try to barter with us,
As if such useless and discolour'd 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.

If I could rest.

Irad.

And so would 【

Thou wilt not to our tents then?

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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

it

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He went forth

Enter NOAH and SHEм.
Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet?
Shem.
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.

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;
He must be sought for!

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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 SHFM.

SCENE III.-The Mountains-A Cavern, 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
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, hurl'd
Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,
Which seems to lead into a lower world,

Shall have its depu. 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,

Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the alm Alas! what am I better than ye are,

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

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 despair'd 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 "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 prolong'd,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world,
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 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.
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.

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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! 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
Sleep 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.
Rejoice!

Spirit.

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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.

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Shall search you in your secret place,

And drive your sullen race

Forth, to be roll'd 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 wo→ Less goodly in their aspect, in their years 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

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As of a different order in the sphere,
But not our own.
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;

Yet undisplay'd,

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 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 pray 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 tinie
New beings-years-diseases-sorrow-crime-
With all companionship of hate and toil,

Until

Japh. (interrupting them.) The eternal will
Shall design to expound this dream

Of good and evil; and redeem

Unto himself all times, all things;

And, gather'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 woudrous

spell ?

Japh. 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 battle plain;

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-
How shall he shriek o'er the remorseless sea!
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,
Unanswer'd, 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
Naught to his eye beyond the deep, his grave?

Brethren, rejoice!

And loudly lift each superhuman voice-
All die,

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

Beings even in death so fair.
It is decreed,

All die!

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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

New times, new climes, new arts, new men; but still Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief,

The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill, Shall be among your race in different forms;

But the same moral storms

Shall oversweep the future, as the waves In a few hours the glorious giant's graves."

Chorus of Spirits. Brethren, rejoice! Mortal, farewell'

Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice
Of growing ocean's gloomy swell;

The winds, too, plume their piercing wings!
The clouds have nearly fill'd their springs;
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken,
And heaven set wide her windows; 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 delay'd;

Their flashing banners, folded still on high,

"And there were giants in these days, and after; mighty men, which were of old men of renown."-Generis.

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
Unform'd forefather of mankind-but roused
Before the human orison the earlier
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,-
Ay, day will rise; but upon what ?—a chaos,
Which was ere day; and which, renew'd, makes time

•The book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians, is said by therm 67 be anterior to the flood.

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