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;
The fountains of the great deep shall be broken,
And heaven set wide her windows; + while mankind
View, unacknowledged, oach 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,
Yet undisplay'd,
Save to the Spirits' 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 upou 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?
And loudly lift each superhuman voice--·
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.
"And there wire giants in the earth in those days, and after; mighty men, whic were of old, men of renown."-Genesis.-B.
"The same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up; and the windows of heaven were open."-Genesis.-B.
And to the universal human cry
The universal silence shall succeed!
Fly, brethren, fly!
But still rejoice!
We fell !
They fall!
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 shrick 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 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
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.
1 cannot trace their features; but their forms,
How lovelily they move along the side
Of the gray mountain, scattering its mist!
The book of Enoch, preserved by the Ethiopians, is said by them to be anterior to the Bood-b.
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-
Enter SAMIASA, AZAZIEL, ANAH, and AHOLIBAMAH.
While all his race are slumbering?
Dost thou on earth when thou shouldst be on high?
Aza. Know'st thou not, or forgett'st thou, that a part
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
Mayst 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, Deserve her. Farewell, Anah! I have said
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-
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,
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.
Aho.
If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink
More to be mortal, than I would to dare
An immortality of agonies
Sister! sister! speak not
Aza. Fearest thou, my Anah?
Anah.
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 tho
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
Alone can do so.
Sam. Of death to us! and those who are with us!
But that the man seems full of sorrow, I
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 bath 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 always 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; 'tis a word I cannot
Part with, although I must from thee: my Anah!
Thou who dost rather make me dream that Ah
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
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 !
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; behold 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?-
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 this dread hour
Of universal vengeance (if such should be),
It would not be to live, aloue exempt
Of all my house. My sister! oh, my sister!
What were the world: or other worlds, or all
The brightest future, without the sweet past-
Thy love-my father's-all the life, and all
The things which sprang up with me, like the stars,
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 phantasies 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 shapo
Distinct from that which we and all our sires
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