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.(1)
A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts
of laughter-afterwards, a Spirit passes.
Japh.

Of the Most High, what art thou?
Spirit (laughs).

In the name

Ha! ha! ha!

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.

And eat, and driuk, and wive? With a base heart so far subdued and tamed, As even to hear this wide destruction named, Without such grief and courage, as should rather Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave, Than seek a shelter with thy favour'd father, And build thy city o'er the drown'd earth's gra Who would outlive their kind, Except the base and blind? Mine

Hateth thine

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,

ensues between Japhet and one of them, and a chort sung by a body of them, part of which is truly na Campbell.-L. E.

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 th ir 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 str ped 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 remuant 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 bell!

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 demous shall do well!

Spirits. And when shall take effect this wondrous 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;

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. (1)
Chorus of Spirits.
Brethren, rejoice!

Mortal, farewell!

Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice
Of growing oceau'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; (2) while man-
kind

View, unacknowledged, each tremendous token-
Still, as they were from the beginning, blind.

We hear the sound they cannot hear, [sphere;
The mustering thunders of the threatening
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! O 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,

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

(2) "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." --Ibid.

Alone can do so. Anah.

Ah! he speaks of death.

The brightest future, without the sweet past— Thy love-my father's--all the life, and all

Could smile. Japh.

I grieve not for myself, nor fear;
I am safe, not for my own deserts, but those
Of a well-doing sire, who hath been found
Righteous enough to save his children. Would
His power was greater of redemption! or
That by exchanging my own life for hers,
Who could alone have made mine happy, she,
The last and loveliest of Cain's race, could share
The ark which shall receive a remnant of
The seed of Seth!

Aho.
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 alway dwelt apart from thine
From the beginning, and shall do so ever.

Japh. 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!
Bat thou, my Anah! let me call thee mine,
Albeit thou art not; 't is 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 favour--
Aho. (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 makest strife.
Japh. Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!
Aho.

Making my dim existence radiant with

Soft lights which were not mine? Aholibamah!
Oh! if there should be mercy-seek it, find it:

I abhor death, because that thou must die.
Aho. What! hath this dreamer, with his father's ark,
The bugbear he hath built to scare the world,
Shaken my sister? Are we not the loved
Of seraphs? and if we were not, must we
Cling to a son of Noah for our lives?
Rather than thus-But the enthusiast dreams
The worst of dreams, the fantasies engender'd
By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth,
And bid those clouds and waters take a shape
Distinct from that which we and all our sires
Have seen them wear on their eternal way?
Who shall do this?

Japh.

He whose one word produced them.

Aho. Who heard that word?
Japh.

The universe, which leap'd
To life before it. Ah! smilest thou still in scorn?
Turn to thy seraphs: if they attest it not,
They are none.
Sam.

Aholibamah, own thy God! Aho. I have ever hail'd our Maker, Samiasa, As thine, and mine: a God of love, not sorrow. Japh. Alas! what else is love but sorrow? Even He who made earth in love had soon to grieve Above its first and best inhabitants.

He slew not Seth: and what hast thou to do
With other deeds between his God and him?
Japh. 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.

Aho.
He was our fathers' father;
The eldest-born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring:-Shall I blush for him
From whom we had our being? Look upon
Our race; behoid their stature and their beauty,
Their courage, strength, and length of days-
Japh.
They are number'd.
Aho. Be it so! but while yet their hours endure,
I glory in my brethren and our fathers.

Japh. My sire and race but glory in their God, Anah! and thou?

Noah. These are they, then, Who leave the throne of God, to take them wives From out the race of Cain; the sons of heaven, Who seek earth's daughters for their beauty? Aza.

Thou hast said it.

Noah.

Patriarch!

Woe, woe, woe to such communion!
Has not God made a barrier between earth
And heaven, and limited each, kind to kind?
Sam. Was not man made in high Jehovah's image?
Did God not love what he had made? And what
Do we, but imitate and emulate

His love unto created love?
Noah.

I am

Were your immortal mission safety, 't would
Be general, not for two, though beautiful;
And beautiful they are, but not the less
Condemn'd.
Japh.
Noah.

Oh, father! say it not.

Son! son! If that thou wouldst avoid their doom, forget That they exist; they soon shall cease to be; While thou shalt be the sire of a new world, And better. Japh. Let me die with this, and them! Noah. Thou shouldst for such a thought, but shalt Who can redeems thee. [not; he

Sam. And why him and thee, More than what he, thy son, prefers to both? Noah. Ask Him who made thee greater than myself And mine, but not less subject to his own Almightiness. And lo! his mildest and Least to be tempted messenger appears!

In glorious homage with the elected "seven."
Your place is heaven.
Raphael!

Sam.
The first and fairest of the sons of God,
How long hath this been law,
That earth by angels must be left untrod?
Earth! which oft saw

Jehovah's footsteps not disdain her sod!
The world he loved, and made

For love; and oft have we obey'd
His frequent mission with delighted pinions:

Adoring him in his least works display'd;
Watching this youngest star of his dominions;

And, as the latest birth of his great word,
Eager to keep it worthy of our Lord.

Why is thy brow severe ?

And wherefore speak'st thou of destruction near?
Raph. Had Samiasa and Azaziel been
In their true place, with the angelic choir,
Written in fire

They would have seen Jehovah's late decree,

And not inquired their Maker's breath of me;
But ignorance must ever be
A part of sin;

And even the spirits' knowledge shall grow less
As they wax proud within;

For Blindness is the first-born of Excess.
When all good angels left the world, ye stay'd,
Stung with strange passions, and debased

By mortal feelings for a mortal maid:
But ye are pardon'd thus far, and replaced
With your pure equals. Hence! away! away!
Or stay,

And lose eternity by that delay!
Aza. And thou! if earth be thus forbidden

(1) In the original MS. "Michael." "I return you," says Lord Byron to Mr. M., "the revise. I have softened the part to which Gifford objected, and changed the name of Michael

Raph. I came to call ye back to your fit sphere, In the great name and at the word of God. Dear, dearest in themselves, and scarce less dear That which I came to do: till now we trod Together the eternal space; together

Let us still walk the stars. True, earth must die Her race, return'd into her womb, must wither, And much which she inherits: but oh! why Cannot this earth be made, or be destroy'd, Without involving ever some vast void In the immortal ranks? immortal still

In their immeasurable forfeiture. Our brother Satan fell; his burning will Rather than longer worship dared endure! But ye, who still are pure!

Seraphs! less mighty than that mightiest one,
Think how he was undone!

And think if tempting man can compensate
For heaven desired too late?

Long have I warr'd,

Long must I war

With him who deem'd it hard

To be created, and to acknowledge Him
Who 'midst the cherubim

Made him as sun to a dependent star,
Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim.

I loved him-beautiful he was: oh heaven! Save his who made, what beauty and what power Was ever like to Satan's! Would the hour

1

In which he fell could ever be forgiven!! The wish is impious: but, oh ye! Yet undestroy'd, be warn'd! Eternity

With him, or with his God, is in your choice: He hath not tempted you; he cannot tempt The angels, from his further snares exempt: But man hath listen'd to his voice, And ye to woman's-beautiful she is, The serpent's voice less subtle than her kiss. The snake but vanquish'd dust; but she will draw A second host from heaven, to break heaven's law. Yet, yet, oh fly! Ye cannot die; But they

Shall pass away,

While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky For perishable clay,

Whose memory in your immortality

Shall long outlast the sun which gave them day. Think how your essence differeth from theirs In all but suffering! why partake The agony to which they must be heirsBorn to be plough'd with tears, and sown with cares, And reap'd by Death, lord of the human soil? Even had their days been left to toil their path Through time to dust, unshorten'd by God's wrath, Still they are Evil's prey and Sorrow's spoil. Let them fly!

Aho. I hear the voice which says that all must die Sooner than our white-bearded patriarchs died; And that on high

An ocean is prepared,

to Raphael, who was an angel of gentler sympathies *B. Letters, July 6, 1822.-L. E.