New times, new climes, new arts, new men; but still God hath proclaim'd the destiny of earth;
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 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, each 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 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,
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 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.
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-
AHOLIBAMAH (interrupting him).
And wouidst thou have her like our father's foe
In mind, and soul? If I partook thy thought,
And dream'd that aught of Abel was in her !-
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou mak'st strife.
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 ?
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
Whate'er our God decrees,
The God of Seth as Cain, I must obev,
And will endeavour patiently to obey;
But could I dare to pray in this dread ho.
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
The brightest future without the sweet past-
Thy love-my father's-all the life, and all
The things which sprung 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.
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 wors. of dreams, the phantasies engender'd
By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth,
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom?
To save an earth-born being; and behold, These are not of the sinful, since they have The fellowship of angels.
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!
Not ye in all your glory can redeem
What He who made you glorious hath condemn'd.
Were your immortal mission safety, 't would
Be general, not for two, though beautiful,
And beautiful they are, but not the less
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.
Let me die with this, and them!
Thou shouldst for such a thought, but shalt not; He Who can, redeems thee.
And why him and thee,
More than what he, thy son, prefers to both?
Ask Him who made thee greater than myself
And mine, but not less subject to his own
Almightiness. And lo! his mildest and
J-east to be tempted messenger appears!
Enter RAPHAEL the Archangel.
Whose seat is near the throne,
What do ye here?
Is thus a seraph's duty to be shown
Now that the hour is near
When earth must be alone?
In glorious homage with the elected "seven." Your place is heaven.
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?
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!
And lose eternity by that delay!
And thou! if earth be thus forbidden In the decree
To us until this moment hidden,
Dost thou not err as we
In being here?
RAPHAEL.
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
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 hong outlast the sun whien gave unem daş
Think how your essence differeth from theirs
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