While from below

The deep shall rise to meet heaven's overflow. Few shall be spared,

It seems; and, of that few, the race of Cain Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in vain. Sister! since it is so,

And the eternal Lord

In vain would be implored

For the remission of one hour of woe, Let us resign even what we have adored,

And meet the wave, as we would meet the sword,
If not unmoved, yet undismay'd,

And wailing less for us than those who shall
Survive in mortal or immortal thrall,

And, when the fatal waters are allay'd,
Weep for the myriads who can weep no more.
Fly, seraphs! to your own eternal shore,
Where winds nor howl nor waters roar.
Our portion is to die,

And yours to live for ever:
But which is best, a dead eternity,

Or living, is but known to the great Giver.
Obey him, as we shall obey;

I would not keep this life of mine in clay
An hour beyond his will;

Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace,
For all the mercy which Seth's race

Find still. Fly!

Save in our ark, or let me be no more! Noah. Peace, child of passion, peace! If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue Do God no wrong!

Live as he wills it-die, when he ordains,
A righteous death, unlike the seed of Cain's.
Cease, or be sorrowful in silence; cease
To weary Heaven's ear with thy selfish plaint.
Wouldst thou have God commit a sin for thee?
Such would it be

To alter his intent

For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man!
And bear what Adam's race must bear, and can.
Japh. Ay, father! but when they are gone,
And we are all alone,

Floating upon the azure desert, and

The depth beneath us hides our own dear land,
And dearer, silent friends and brethren, all
Buried in its immeasurable breast,

Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then com-
Can we in desolation's peace have rest? [mand?
O God! be thou a God, and spare

Yet while 'tis time!

Renew not Adam's fall:

Mankind were then but twain,

But they are numerous now as are the waves
And the tremendous rain,

Whose drops shall be less thick than would their graves,
Were graves permitted to the seed of Caiu.
Noah. Silence, vain boy! each word of thine's a

Thy prophecies were true!

And yet thou wert so happy too!

The blow, though not unlook'd for, falls as new: But yet depart!

Ah! why?

Yet let me not retain thee-fly!

My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be
Eternal, if repulsed from heaven for me.

Too much already hast thou deign'd
To one of Adam's race!

Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone,
But to the spirits who have not disdain'd

To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace.

The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurl'd From his once archangelic throne

Into some unknown world:

And thou, Azaziel! No

Thou shalt not suffer woe

For me. Away! nor weep!
Thou canst not weep; but yet

Mayst suffer more, not weeping: then forget

Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling deep Can bring no pang like this. Fly! fly!

Being gone,

't will be less difficult to die.

Japh. Oh say not so!

Father! and thou, archangel, thou! Surely celestial mercy lurks below

That

pure severe serenity of brow:

Let them not meet this sea without a shore,

Then from this hour,

Shorn as ye are of all celestial power, And aliens from your God.

Japh.

Farewell!

Alas! where shall they dwell? Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still, Are howling from the mountain's bosom: There's not a breath of wind upon the hill,

Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom: Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

Noah. Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry!
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,

Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to brave.
Soon it shall be their only shore,

And then, no more!

Japh.

The sun! the sun!

He riseth, but his better light is gone;

And a black circle, bound

His glaring disk around,

Proclaims earth's last of summer days hath shone!
The clouds return into the hues of night,

Save where their brazen-colour'd edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.
Noah. And lo! yon flash of light,

The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!

ters.

Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite
For the annihilation of all life.
Unequal is the strife

Between our strength and the Eternal Might!

Sam. But ours is with thee; we will bear ye far
To some untroubled star,

Where thou and Anah shalt partake our lot:

And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth, Our forfeit heaven shall also be forgot.

Anah. Oh! my dear father's tents, my place of birth, And mountains, land, and woods! when ye are not, Who shall dry up my tears?

Aza.
Thy spirit-lord.
Fear not; though we are shut from heaven,
Yet much is ours, whence we can not be driven.

Raph. Rebel! thy words are wicked, as thy deeds
Shall henceforth be but weak: the flaming sword,
Which chased the first-born out of Paradise,
Still flashes in the angelic hands.

Aza. It cannot slay us: threaten dust with death,
And talk of weapons unto that which bleeds.
What are thy swords in our immortal eyes?

Raph. The moment cometh to approve thy strength;
And learn at length

(1) "In his description of the deluge, which is a varied and recurring master-piece,-(we hear it foretold, and we see it come,)-Lord Byron appears to us to have had an eye to Poussin's celebrated picture, with the sky hanging like a weight of lead upon the waters, the sun quenched and lurid, the rocks and trees, with fugitives upon them gloomily watching their fate, and a few figures struggling vainly with the overwhelming waves." Jeffrey.-L. E.

(2) "The elopement of spirits with children of dust is an incident that wants the sanction of reason, good-taste, popular opinion, history, or tradition. It is only countenanced by the mythology which school-boys learn from their pantheons, and, when endowed with natural good sense, learn to despise before they cease to be boys; and by the romances, which the good sense of later ages has discarded from their literature, although the superior sense of this enlightened age seems willing to restore them to favour. Milton is so far from countenancing any thing so monstrous and inconceivable as sexual love between spiritual and material creatures, that his Adam speaks to Raphael of the passion to which he was too much enthralled by female charms, even where it was properly and naturally placed, as a weakness of which he seems to be half ashamed

Here passion first I felt

Commotion strange! In all enjoyments else,

How vain to war with what thy God commands. Thy former force was in thy faith.

Enter Mortals, flying for refuge.

Chorus of Mortals.

The heavens and earth are mingling-God! oh God!
What have we done? Yet spare!

Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer!
The dragon crawls from out his den,
To herd, in terror, innocent with men;
And the birds scream their agony through air.
Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod
Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair!
Hear not man only, but all nature plead! [clay!
I cannot, must not, aid you.
Raph. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of
"T is decreed!
[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. (1)

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 ANAB and AHOLIBAMAH. (2) 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. (3)

Chorus of Mortals.
Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind!
What! wilt thou leave us all-all—all behind?

Superior and unmoved. Here only, weak Against the charms of Beauty's powerful glance.' The angel rebukes him for yielding to a subjection unworths the perfection of his nature, and warns him of the debase ment and disgrace in which it might involve him. Th produces a question from the man, whether sexual love made no part of the happiness of the blest abode? To whom the angel (with 'a smile that glowed celestial rosy red, love proper hue',) answered

Let it suffice thee, that thou know'st
Us happy; and without love no happiness!
Whatever pure thou in thy body enjoy'st,
And pure thou wert created, we enjoy
In eminence.'

What Adam says, on another occasion, may be applied to these unnatural conjunctions:

Among unequals, what society
Can sort, what harmony, and true delight?"

In Lord Byron's poem, they are censured by Noah, as impro per and unlawful; but this does not lessen the absurdity of supposing them possible." Anon.-L. E.

(3) "The despair of the mortal lovers for the loss of their mortal mistresses is well and pathetically expressed." Jeffrey.-L. E.

And burst,

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

Be he who made thee and thy sire!

We deem our curses vain; we must expire;

Bat 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?

f 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
Vben Paradise upsprung,

Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,
Adam his first hymn of slavery sung),

So

massy, vast, yet green in their old age,
Are overtopp'd,

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

ainly we look up to the lowering skiesThey meet the seas,

nd shut out God from our beseeching eyes. Fly, son of Noah, fly! and take thine ease

athine allotted ocean-tent;

nd view, all floating o'er the element,

be 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!

This poem, or rather first part of a poem, for so it is tated to be, carries with it the peculiar impress of the riter's genius. It displays great vigour, and even a severy of style, throughout; which is another proof, if proof ere needed, that elevation of writing is to be obtained only a rigid regard to simplicity. It may be perused without bocking the feelings of the sensitive, or furnishing an obert for the discriminating morality of any Lord Chancellor. ord Byron has evidently endeavoured to sustain the interest f this poem, by depicting natural but deep-drawn thoughts, all their freshness and intensity, with as little fictitious

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 is his own:

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

Still blessed 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!

aid as possible. Nothing is circumlocutory: there is no going about and about to enter at length upon his object, but he impetuously rushes into it at once. All over the poem there is a gloom cast suitable to the subject: an ominous fearful hue, like that which Poussin has flung over his in. imitable picture of the Deluge. We see much evil, but we dread more. All is out of earthly keeping, as the events of the time are out of the course of nature. Man's wickedness, the perturbed creation, fear-struck mortals, demons passing to and fro in the earth, an overshadowing solemnity, and unearthly loves, form together the materials. That it has

faults is obvious: prosaic passages, and too much tedious soliloquising: but there is the vigour and force of Byron to fling into the scale against these: there is much of the sublime in description, and the beautiful in poetry. Prejudice, or ignorance, or both, may condemn it; but while true poetical feeling exists amongst us, it will be pronounced not unworthy of its distinguished author."— Campbell.

"It appears that this is but the first part of a poem; but it is likewise a poem, and a fine one too, within itself. We confess that we see little or nothing objectionable in it, either as to theological orthodoxy, or general human feeling. It is solemn, lofty, fearful, wild, tumultuous, and shadowed all over with the darkness of a dreadful disaster. Of the angels who love the daughters of men we see little, and know less and not too much of the love and passion of the fair lost mortals. The inconsolable despair preceding and accompanying an incomprehensible catastrophe, pervades the whole composition; and its expression is made sublime by the noble strain of poetry in which it is said or sung. Sometimes there is heaviness-dulness-as if it were pressed in on purpose; intended, perhaps, to denote the occasional stupefaction, drowsiness, and torpidity of soul produced by the impending destruction upon the latest of the antedilu. vians. But, on the whole, it is not unworthy of Lord Byron." -Wilson.

"Lord Byron's Mystery, with whatever crudeness and defects it is chargeable, certainly has more poetry and music in it than any of his dramatic writings since Manfred; and has also the peculiar merit of throwing us back, in a great degree, to the strange and preternatural time of which it professes to treat. It is truly, and in every sense of the word, a meeting of Heaven and Earth; angels are seen ascending and descending, and the windows of the sky are opened to deluge the face of nature. We have an impas. sioned picture of the strong and devoted attachment inspired into the daughters of men by angel forms, and have placed before us the emphatic picture of woman wailing for her demon lover.' There is a like conflict of the passions as of the elements-all wild, chaotic, uncontrollable, fatal; but there is a discordant harmony in all this-a keeping in the colouring and the time. In handling the unpolished page, we look upon the world before the Flood, and gaze upon a doubtful blank, with only a few straggling figures, part human and part divine; while, in the expression of the former, we read the fancies, ethereal and lawless, that lifted the eye of beauty to the skies, and in the latter, the human passions that drew angels down to earth.'”—Jeffrey.

"According to that vague and mysterious conception of grandeur which religious or poetic minds associate with the antediluvian ages of the world, there were giants in those days: the face of nature, the animal and vegetable productions, the stature, the longevity, the passions of men, were of a vast and majestic growth, unknown in the later and more feeble days of our ordinary world. Hence, from a poet who throws himself back into those times, we make the unreasonable demand, that he should keep the scenes and persons whom he introduces to our notice sufficiently allied to our common sympathies to excite our interest; while, at the same time, they must appear as almost belonging to another earth, and a different race of beings. We imperiously require that degree of reality, without which no poetry can become lastingly popular: yet that reality must be far removed from all our ordinary notions; the region visited by angels must be formed of the same elements, yet possess a totally distinct character from that which we inhabit: the sons and daughters of men, who enjoyed familiar intercourse with a higher race of beings, while we are to feel for them as akin to ourselves, must partake in some degree of the unearthly nature of their celestial visitants. Το this at once real and unreal world, among this human yet at the same time almost preterhuman race, we must be transported by the imagination of the poet; and the slightest

incongruity, the most insignificant vulgarism, or modernism, or even too great similarity to the ordinary features of nature, breaks the charm at once, and destroys the character of the picture, as a faithful representation of the pri meval earth, and the mighty race which nature bore while yet in her prime of youth. Among all the wonderful excellencies of Milton, nothing surpasses the pure and undia turbed idealism with which he has drawn our first parents, so completely human as to excite our most ardent sympathies, yet so far distinct from the common race of men as manifestly to belong to a higher and uncorrupted state of being. In like manner, his Paradise is formed of the uni versal productions of nature-the flowers, the fruits, the trees, the waters, the cool breezes, the soft and sunny slopes, the majestic hills that skirt the scene; yet the whole is of an earlier, a more prolific, a more luxuriant vegetation: it fully comes up to our notion of what the earth might have been before it was cursed of its Creator.' This is the more remarkable, as Milton himself sometimes destroys, or at least mars, the general effect of his picture, by the intre duction of incongruous thoughts or images. It has, net without justice, been said, that sometimes

God the Father turns a school divine;"

and it is impossible, now and then, not to regret the intru sion of the religious controversies of modern days. The poet's passions are, on occasions, too strong for his imagina tion, drag him down to earth, and, for the sake of some i timed allusion to some of those circumstances which bal taken possession of his mighty mind, he runs the hazard breaking the solemn enchantment with which he has apel. bound our captive senses. Perhaps, of later writers, Lori Byron alone has caught the true tone, in his short drama called Heaven and Earth. Here, notwithstanding that w cannot but admit the great and manifold delinquenci against correct taste, particularly some perfectly ludicrou metrical whimsies, yet all is in keeping-all is strange, pe etic, oriental; the lyric abruptness, the prodigal accumu tion of images in one part, and the rude simplicity in other -above all, the general tone of description as to natar objects, and of language and feeling in the scarcely merta beings which come forth upon the scene, seem to throw a upward into the age of men before their lives were short ened to the narrow span of three-score years and ten, when all that walked the earth were not born of woma -Milman.

"From the Loves of the Angels, we turn to a strain higher mood;' with feelings much like those which weal arise on leaving the contemplation of a Holy Family Carlo Dolce, to behold the Last Judgment' of Michel A gelo. The Mystery of Heaven and Earth is conceived in th best style of the greatest masters of poetry and painti It is not unworthy of Dante, and of the mighty artist t whom we have alluded. As a picture of the last deluge, is incomparably grand and awful. The characters, too. ar invested with great dignity and grace. Nothing cần b more imposing and fascinating than the haughty, and in perious, and passionate beauty of the daughter of Cain; any thing more venerable than the mild but inflexible nity of the patriarch Noah. We trust that no one will b found with feelings so obtuse, with taste so perverted. with malignity so undisguised, as to mar the beauties of pi tures like these, by imputing to their author the cool profes sion of those sentiments which he exhibits as extorted fro perishing mortals, in their last instants of despair and desti Such a poem as this, if read aright, is calculated, by lofty passion and sublime conceptions, to exalt the and to purify the heart beyond the power of many a sele homily. It will remain an imperishable monument of th transcendent talents of its author; whom it has raised, i our estimation, to a higher pitch of pre-eminence than b ever before attained." M. Mag.-L. E.

PREFACE.

publishing the following Tragedies (3) I have enly to repeat, that they were not composed with the must remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the Managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the following compositions, the reader is referred to the Notes.

The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach, the "unities;" conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama.

(1) On the original MS. Lord Byron has written:-"Mem. Ravenna, May 27, 1821.-I began this drama on the 13th of January, 1821; and continued the two first acts, very slowly and by intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month); that is to say, in a fortnight." The following are extracts from Lord B.'s diary and letters:—

"January 13, 1821. Sketched the outline and Dram. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time metated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus (I know the his tory of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years dd, and read over a passage in the ninth volume of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians. Carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for a tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my lewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love to Sardanapalus than I intended."

May 23. I have completed four acts. I have made SardanapaIs brave (though voluptuous, as history represents him), and also as amiable as my poor powers, could render him. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but xor for the stage.”

May 30. By this post I send you the tragedy. You will remark that the unities are all strictly preserved. The scene passes in the same hall always: the time, a summer's night, about nine hours or less; though it begins before sunset, and ends after sunrise. It not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it; and I shall take better care this time that they don't get hold

on't."

July 14. I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken for a political play; which was so far from my intention, that I thought of nothing but Asiatic history, My object has been to dramatise, like the Greeks (a modest phrase), striking passages of history and mythology. You will find all this very unlike Shakspeare; and so much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers. It has been y object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have broken dwn the poetry as nearly as I could to common language. The hardship is that, in these times, one can neither speak of kings nor eens without suspicion of politics or personalities. I intended

neither."

He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. But "nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire Where he abandonment of all rules whatsoever. has failed, the failure is in the architect,-and not in the art.(4)

"July 22. Print away, and publish. I think they must own that I have more styles than one. Sardanapalus is, however, almost a comic character: but, for that matter, so is Richard the Third. Mind the unities, which are my great object of research. I am glad Gifford likes it as for the million, you see I have carefully consulted any thing but the taste of the day for extravagant 'coups-detheatre.'"

Sardanapalus was published in December, 1821, and was received with very great approbation.-L. E.

(2) "Well knowing myself and my labours, in my old age, I could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the expressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less original in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his subjects." Goethe.-L. E.

(3) Sardanapalus originally appeared in the same volume

with The Foscari and Cain.-L. E

(4) "In this preface," (says Mr. Jeffrey) "Lord Byron renews his protest against looking upon any of his plays as having been composed with the most remote view to the stage;' and, at the same time, testifies in behalf of the unities, as essential to the existence of the drama-according to what was, till lately, the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it.' We do not think these opinions very consistent; and we think that neither of them could possibly find favour with a person whose genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as soon expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to be spoken. A drama is not merely a dialogue, but an action; and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the eyes of assembled spectators. Whatever is peculiar to its written part should derive its

• The following is an extract from The Life of Dr. Parr:-" In the course of the evening the Doctor cried out-Have you read Surdanapalus? Yes, Sir. Right; and you couldn't sleep a wink after it No.'- Right, right-now don't say a word more about it to-night. The memory of that fine poem seemed to act like a spell of horrible fascination upon him."