by Lord Byron
When the hot sun hath baked the reeking soil
Into a world, shall give again to Time 190
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, gathered under his almighty wings,
Abolish Hell!
And to the expiated Earth
Restore the beauty of her birth, 200
Her Eden in an endless paradise,
Where man no more can fall as once he fell,
And even the very demons shall do well!
Spirits. And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?
Japh. When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain,
And then in glory.
Spirit. 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 210
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.
Chorus of Spirits.
Brethren, rejoice!
Mortal, farewell!
Hark! hark! already we can hear the voice 220
Of growing Ocean’s gloomy swell;
The winds, too, plume their piercing wings;
The clouds have nearly filled 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 delayed; 230
Their flashing banners, folded still on high,
Yet undisplayed,
Save to the Spirit’s 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 — 240
How shall he shriek o’er the remorseless sea!
And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,
Unanswered, 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, 250
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 260
Beings even in death so fair.
It is decreed,
All die!
And to the universal human cry
The universal silence shall succeed!
Fly, brethren, fly!
But still rejoice!
We fell!
They fall!
So perish all 270
These petty foes of Heaven who shrink from Hell!
[The Spirits disappear, soaring upwards.
Japh. (solus).
God hath proclaimed the destiny of earth;
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 listened not, nor listen; but
Walk darkling to their doom: which, though so nigh,
Shakes them no more in their dim disbelief, 280
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
Unformed forefather of mankind — but roused
Before the human orison the earlier 290
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, —
Aye, day will rise; but upon what? — a chaos, 300
Which was ere day; and which, renewed, 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 swallowed in that deep
Which has no fountain; as his race will be
Devoured by that which drowns his infant world. —
What have we here? Shapes of both earth and air? 310
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 poured 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 prayed. — They come! 320
Anah! oh, God! and with her — —
Enter Samiasa, Azaziel, Anah, and Aholibamah.
Anah. Japhet!
Sam. Lo!
A son of Adam!
Aza. What doth the earth-born here,
While all his race are slumbering?
Japh. Angel! what
Dost thou on earth when thou should’st be on high?
Aza. Know’st thou not, or forget’st thou, that a part
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?
Japh. But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemned; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved! 330
Why walk’st thou with this Spirit, in those hours
&
nbsp; 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 340
Upright before his God, whate’er thy gifts,
And thy words seem of sorrow, mixed 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 350
Children of Cain?
Aza. From what?
Japh. And is it so,
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.
Sam. 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. So be it!
If they love as they are loved, they will not shrink
More to be mortal, than I would to dare 360
An immortality of agonies
With Samiasa!
Anah. Sister! sister! speak not
Thus.
Aza. Fearest thou, my Anah?
Anah. Yes, for thee:
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 370
Be happy or be hallowed. 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.
Anah. Ah! he speaks of Death.
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 hath been found 380
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 390
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, 400
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 Abel
Had left a daughter, whose pure pious race
Survived in thee, so much unlike thou art
The rest of the stem Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour — —
Aho. (interrupting him).
And would’st thou have her like our father’s foe
In mind, in soul? If I partook thy thought,
And dreamed that aught of Abel was in her! — 410
Get thee hence, son of Noah; thou makest strife.
Japh. Offspring of Cain, thy father did so!
Aho. But
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 father’s father;
The eldest born of man, the strongest, bravest,
And most enduring: — Shall I blush for him 420
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 numbered.
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? — —
Anah. 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 430
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 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: 440
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 engendered
By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who
Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm earth, 450
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 leaped
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 hailed our Maker, Samiasa,
As thine, and mine: a God of L
ove, not Sorrow. 460
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.
Aho. ‘Tis said so.
Japh. It is even so.
Enter Noah and Shem.
Noah. Japhet! What
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,
These are not of the sinful, since they have
The fellowship of angels.
Noah. These are they, then, 470
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. Patriarch!
Thou hast said it.
Noah. 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 480
But man, and was not made to judge mankind,
Far less the sons of God; but as our God
Has deigned to commune with me, and reveal
His judgments, I reply, that the descent
Of Seraphs from their everlasting seat
Unto a perishable and perishing,
Even on the very eve of perishing? — world,
Cannot be good.
Aza. What! though it were to save?
Noah. Not ye in all your glory can redeem
What he who made you glorious hath condemned. 490
Were your immortal mission safety, ‘twould
Be general, not for two, though beautiful;
And beautiful they are, but not the less
Condemned.
Japh. Oh, father! say it not.
Noah. 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 not: he
Who can, redeems thee.
Sam. And why him and thee, 500
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!
Enter Raphael the Archangel.
Raph.
Spirits!
Whose seat is near the throne,
What do ye here?