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 CainThe 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 moonI must back to my rest.
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.
What wouldst thou there? Japh.
Enter NOAH and SHEM,
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!
Shem.
Soothe further my sad spirit I will seek Japhet. With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot, Noah. And I am hopeless. All evil things are powerless on the man Selected by Jehovah.-Let us on.
Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors. I must go with thee.
I must proceed alone. Irad.
Then peace be with thee!
[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-
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm
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.
Shem. To the tents of the father of the sisters? Noah. No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.
[Exeunt NOAH and SHEM.
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 depths 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
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 "
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).
Japh. By all that earth holds holiest, speak!
Spirit (laughs).
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?
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!
Which could not keep in Eden their high place, But listen'd to the voice
Of knowledge without power,
Are nigh the hour
Of death!
Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,
Nor years, nor heart-break, nor time's sapping motion,
Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!
Earth shall be ocean!
Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
(I) "This soliloquy bas the fault of being too long and wire-drawn. At its close, spirits rush from the cavern, and exult in the approaching calamity of the world: a dialogue
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,
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-crimeWith all companionship of hate and toil,
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?
(2) "The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." -Ibid.
Ja. (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 (1) 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 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:
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?
Japh. But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemn'd; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still-to-be beloved!
Why walk'st thou with this spirit, in those hours
When no good spirit longer lights below?
Anah. Japhet, I cannot answer thee; yet, yet
Forgive me-
Japh.
May the Heaven, which soon no more
Will pardon, do so! for thou art greatly tempted.
Aho. Back to thy tents, insulting son of Noah!
We know thee not.
Japh.
The hour may come when thou
May'st know me better; and thy sister know
Me still the same which I have ever been.
Sam. Son of the patriarch, who hath ever been
Upright before his God, whate'er thy griefs,
And thy words seem of sorrow, mix'd with wrath,
How have Azaziel, or myself, brought on thee
Wrong?
Japh. Wrong! the greatest of all wrongs; but thou
Say'st well, though she be dust, I did not, could not,
Their matins now draw nigh-the east is kindling-Deserve her. Farewell, Anah! I have said
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
Nothing! for, without life, what are the hours?
No more to dust than is eternity
Unto Jehovah, who created both.
Without him, even eternity would be
A void: without man, time, as made for man,
Dies with man, and is swallow'd in that deep
Which has no fountain; as his race will be
Devour'd by that which drowns his infant world.—
What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air?
No-all of heaven, they are so beautiful.
I cannot trace their features; but their forms,
How lovelily they move along the side
Of the grey mountain, scattering its mist!
And after the swart savage spirits, whose
Infernal immortality pour'd forth
Their impious hymn of triumph, they shall be
Welcome as Eden. It may be they come
To tell me the reprieve of our young world,
For which I have so often pray'd-They come!
Anah! oh, God! and with her (2)–
Enter SAMIASA, Azaziɛl, Anab, and AHOLIBAMAH.
Anah.
What doth the earth-born here,
While all his race are slumbering?
Japh.
Angel! what
Dost thou on earth, when thou shouldst be on high?
Aza. Know'st thou not, or forgett'st thou, that a part
(1) The Book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians, is said by them to be anterior to the flood.
(2) "The spirits disappear soaring upwards, and Japhet has again recourse to a very fine soliloquy. He is now joined by Anah and Aholibamah, who are accompanied by the two angels, Samiasa and Azaziel. The angels seem somewhat sulky, and are extremely laconic; they look like
That word so often! but now say it, ne'er
To be repeated. Angel! or whate'er
Thou art, or must be soon, hast thou the power
To save this beautiful-these beautiful
Children of Cain?
That ye too know not? Angels! angels! ye
Have shared man's sin, and, it may be, now must
Partake his punishment; or, at the least,
My sorrow.
Sorrow! I ne'er thought till now
To hear an Adamite speak riddles to me.
Japh. And hath not the Most High expounded them?
Then ye are lost, as they are lost.
So be it!
If they love as they are loved, they will not shriuk
More to be mortal, than I would to dare
An immortality of agonies
With Samiasa!
I would resign the greater remnant of
This little life of mine, before one hour
Of thine eternity should know a pang.
Japh. It is for him, then! for the seraph thou
Hast left me! That is nothing, if thou hast not
Left thy God too! for unions like to these,
Between a mortal and an immortal, cannot
Be happy or be hallow'd. We are sent
Upon the earth to toil and die; and they
Are made to minister on high unto
The Highest: but if he can save thee, soon
The hour will come in which celestial aid
The brightest future, without the sweet pastThy love-my father's-all the life, and all
Sam. Of death to us! and those who are with us! The things which sprang up with me, like the stars, But that the man seems full of sorrow, I
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! But 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?
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.
Dost thou here with these children of the wicked?
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom?
Japh. Father, it cannot be a sin to seek
To save an earth-born being; and behold,
But These are not of the sinful, since they have
The fellowship of angels.
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-
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?
Whate'er our God decrees, The God of Seth as Cain, I must obey, And will endeavour patiently to obey. But could I dare to pray in his dread hour Of universal vengeance (if such should be), It would not be to live, alone exempt Of all my house. My sister! oh, my sister! What were the world, or other worlds, or all
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?
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.
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