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FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI.

"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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SCENE I.-A woody and mountainous district near | This cannot be of good; and though I know not Mount Ararat.-Time, Midnight.

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*"Heaven and Earth" was written at Ravenna, in October, 1821. In forwarding it to Mr. Murray, in the following month, Lord Byron says-"Enclosed is a lyrical drama, entitled 'A Mystery. You will find it pious enough, I trust at least some of the chorus might have been written by Sternhold and Hopkins themselves for that, and perhaps for melody. As it is longer, and more lyrical and Greek, than I intended at first, I have not divided it into acts, but called what I have sent Part First; as there is a suspension of the action, which

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 cannot 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.

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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!-T is 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 thine 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 seest 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 forgett'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!

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 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 cannot 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

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

Into my ears this truth-" Thou liv'st for ever!"
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 woe. But thee and me he never can destroy; Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are Of as eternal essence, and must war

With him if he will war with us: with thee

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
Their bright way through the parted night.
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-color'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

Haste

Down, down, to where the ocean's fountains sleep.
Aho. They have touch'd earth! Samiasa!
Anah.

My Azaziel!

[Exeunt.

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*The archangels, said to be seven in number, and to occupy Oh, Anah! the eighth rank in the celestial hierarchy.

Irad.

But she loves thee not.

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Me! why?

Yes.

Japh.
For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
frad. 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 discolor'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 I,

Thou wilt not to our tents then?
Japh. No, Irad; I will to the cavern, whose
Mouth they say opens from the internal world
To let the inner spirits of the earth

Forth when they walk its surface.
Irad.

What wouldst thou there?
Japh.

Wherefore so?

Soothe further my sad spirit

But 't is dangerous;

With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,

And I am hopeless.

Irad.

Strange sounds and

terrors.

I must go with thee.
Japh.

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 Shem.

Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet?
Shem.
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 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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sights have peopled it with SCENE III.-The Mountains.-A Cavern, and the

Irad, no; believe me
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil.

Irad. But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.
Japh.

No, neither, Irad;

Then peace be with thee!

I must proceed alone.
Irad.
[Exit Irad.
Japh. (solus). Peace! I have sought it where it
should be found,

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,

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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 depth 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,

Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen.

calm

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 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.
A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts
of laughter-afterwards a Spirit passes.
Japh.
In the name

Of the Most High, what art thou?

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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 are 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.

The abhorred race

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Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow! 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,

And sea and sky

Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye.
Upon the foam

Who shall erect a home?

Japh. (coming forward). My sire!
Earth's seed shall not expire;
Only the evil shall be put away
From day.

Avaunt! ye exulting demons of the waste! Who howl your hideous joy

When God destroys whom you dare not destroy;
Hence! haste!

Back to your inner caves!
Until the waves

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 woeLess 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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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 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-sorrow-crime-
With all companionship of hate and toil,
Until-

Japh. (interrupting them). The eternal will
Shall deign 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 wondrous spell?

Japh. When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain, And then in glory.

Spirit. 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;
New times, new climes, new arts, new 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' 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;

*"And there were giants in the earth in those days, and after; mighty men, which were of old, men of renown."Genesis.

"The same day were all the fountains of the great deep

The fountains of the great deep shall be broken, And heaven set wide her windows; † while mankind

View, unacknowledged, each tremendous tokenStill, 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,
Yet undisplay'd,

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

Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his grave ? Brethren, rejoice!

And loudly lift each superhuman voice

All die,

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We fell ! They fall! So perish all

These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from hell! [The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards. Japh. (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 Almighty pur
pose,

Or deaf obedient ocean, which fulfills 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

broken up; and the windows of heaven were opened.”— Ibid.

The book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians, is said by them to be anterior to the tlood.

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