Lord Byron - Delphi Poets Series
Page 147
Is thus a Seraph’s duty to be shown,
Now that the hour is near 510
When Earth must be alone?
Return!
Adore and burn,
In glorious homage with the elected “Seven.”
Your place is Heaven.
Sam.
Raphael!
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 520
Jehovah’s footsteps not disdain her sod!
The world he loved, and made
For love; and oft have we obeyed
His frequent mission with delighted pinions:
Adoring him in his least works displayed;
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? 530
Raph.
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 enquired 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; 540
For Blindness is the first-born of Excess.
When all good angels left the world, ye stayed,
Stung with strange passions, and debased
By mortal feelings for a mortal maid:
But ye are pardoned thus far, and replaced
With your pure equals. Hence! away! away!
Or stay,
And lose Eternity by that delay!
Aza.
And thou! if Earth be thus forbidden
In the decree 550
To us until this moment hidden,
Dost thou not err as we
In being here?
Raph.
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, returned into her womb, must wither, 560
And much which she inherits: but oh! why
Cannot this Earth be made, or be destroyed,
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! 570
And think if tempting man can compensate
For Heaven desired too late?
Long have I warred,
Long must I war
With him who deemed it hard
To be created, and to acknowledge him
Who midst the cherubim
Made him as suns to a dependent star,
Leaving the archangels at his right hand dim.
I loved him — beautiful he was: oh, Heaven! 580
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 undestroyed, be warned! 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 listened to his voice,
And ye to woman’s — beautiful she is, 590
The serpent’s voice less subtle than her kiss.
The snake but vanquished 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 600
Shall long outlast the Sun which gave them day.
Think how your essence differeth from theirs
In all but suffering! why partake
The agony to which they must be heirs —
Born to be ploughed with years, and sown with cares,
And reaped by Death, lord of the human soil?
Even had their days been left to toil their path
Through time to dust, unshortened by God’s wrath,
Still they are Evil’s prey, and Sorrow’s spoil.
Aho.
Let them fly! 610
I hear the voice which says that all must die,
Sooner than our white-bearded patriarchs died;
And that on high
An ocean is prepared,
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, 620
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 undismayed,
And wailing less for us than those who shall
Survive in mortal or immortal thrall,
And, when the fatal waters are allayed,
Weep for the myriads who can weep no more. 630
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, 640
For all the mercy which Seth’s race
Find still.
Fly!
And as your pinions bear ye back to Heaven,
Think that my love still mounts with thee on high,
Samiasa!
And if I look up with a tearless eye,
‘Tis that an angel’s bride disdains to weep, —
Farewell! Now rise, inexorable deep!
Anah.
And must we die? 650
And must I lose thee too,
Azaziel?
Oh, my heart! my heart!
Thy prophecies were true!
And yet thou wert so happy too!
The blow, though not unlocked 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 660
Eternal, if repulsed from Heaven for me.
Too much already hast thou deigned
To one of Adam’s race!
Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone,
But to the Spirits who have not disdained
To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace.
The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurled
From his once archangelic throne
Into som
e unknown world:
And thou, Azaziel! No — 670
Thou shall not suffer woe
For me. Away! nor weep!
Thou canst not weep; but yet
May’st 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, ‘twill be less difficult to die.
Japh.
Oh say not so!
Father! and thou, archangel, thou!
Surely celestial mercy lurks below 680
That pure severe serenity of brow:
Let them not meet this sea without a shore,
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. 690
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.
Aye, 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 700
Buried in its immeasurable breast,
Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then command?
Can we in Desolation’s peace have rest?
Oh 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, 710
Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain.
Noah. Silence, vain boy! each word of thine’s a crime.
Angel! forgive this stripling’s fond despair.
Raph. Seraphs! these mortals speak in passion: Ye!
Who are, or should be, passionless and pure,
May now return with me.
Sam. It may not be:
We have chosen, and will endure.
Raph. Say’st thou?
Aza. He hath said it, and I say, Amen!
Raph.
Again!
Then from this hour, 720
Shorn as ye are of all celestial power,
And aliens from your God,
Farewell!
Japh. 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! 730
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 waxed 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 740
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-coloured edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.
Noah. And lo! yon flash of light,
The distant thunder’s harbinger, appears!
It cometh! hence, away!
Leave to the elements their evil prey!
Hence to where our all-hallowed ark uprears 750
Its safe and wreckless sides!
Japh. Oh, father, stay!
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides!
Noah. Must we not leave all life to such? Begone!
Japh. Not I.
Noah. Then die
With them!
How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison 760
With just Jehovah’s wrath!
Japh. Can rage and justice join in the same path?
Noah. Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now!
Raph. Patriarch, be still a father! smooth thy brow:
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink:
He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink
With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters;
But be, when passion passeth, good as thou,
Nor perish like Heaven’s children with man’s daughters.
Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite 770
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, 780
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? 790
Raph. The moment cometh to approve thy strength;
And learn at length
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. 800
Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod
Of wrath, and pity thine own world’s despair!
Hear not man only but all nature plead!
Raph. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of clay,
I cannot, must not, aid you. ‘Tis decreed!
[Exit Raphael.
Japh. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey,
While others, fixed as rocks, await the word
At which their wrathful vials shall be poured.
No azure more shall robe the firmament,
Nor spangled stars be glorious: Death hath risen: 810
In the Sun’s place a pale and ghastly glare
Hath wound itself around the dying air.
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 shall 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 820
Ethereal life, will we explore:
These darkened clouds are not the only skies.
[Azaziel and Samiasa fly off, and disappear
with Anah and Aholibamah.
Japh. They are gone! They have disappeared 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.
Chorus of Mortals.
Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind!
What! wilt thou leave us all — all — all behind?
While safe amidst the elemental strife, 830
Thou sitt’st within thy guarded ark?
A Mother (offering her infant to Japhet).
Oh, let this child embark!
I brought him forth in woe,
But thought it joy
To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?
What hath he done —
My unweaned son —
To move Jehovah’s wrath or scorn?
What is there in this milk of mine, that Death 840
Should stir all Heaven and Earth up to destroy
My boy,
And roll the waters o’er his placid breath?
Save him, thou seed of Seth!
Or curséd be — with him who made
Thee and thy race, for which we are betrayed!
Japh. Peace! ‘tis no hour for curses, but for prayer!
Chorus of Mortals.
For prayer!!!
And where
Shall prayer ascend, 850
When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend
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;
But as we know the worst,
Why should our hymns be raised, our knees be bent
Before the implacable Omnipotent, 860
Since we must fall the same?
If 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
When Paradise upsprung,
Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower,
Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung),
So massy, vast, yet green in their old age, 870
Are overtopped,
Their summer blossoms by the surges lopped,
Which rise, and rise, and rise.
Vainly we look up to the lowering skies —