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 gray 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 como.
Anah! oh, God! and with her-

Enter SAMIASA, AZAZIEL, ANAH, and AHOLIBAMAH.

Anah.

Sam.

A son of Adam:

Aza.

Japhet!

Lo!

Angel! what

What doth the earthborn here,
While all his race are slumbering?
Japh.
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 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 gifts, 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
Children of Cain?

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
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 scems full of sorrow, I
Could smile.

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 muck 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 he
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.

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
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 ?

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 this 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 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.

And why him and thee,

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?

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. Spirits!

Raph.

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 he alone?
Return!

Adore and burn

To life before it. Ah! smilest thou still in scoru?

Turn to thy seraphs; if they attest it not,
They are none.

Sam.
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.

A bolibamah, own thy God!

Sam.

Your place is heaven. Raphael!

seven.

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?
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 inquired their Maker's breath of me: But ignorance must ever be

A part of sin;

Thou hast said it.
Noah.
Wo, wo, wo to such communion!
Has not God inade 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?

For Blindness is the first-born of Excess.
When all good angels left the world, ye stayea,
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'
Or stay,

And lose eternity by that delay!
Aza. And thou! if earth be thus forbidden

That which I came to do: till now we trod T'ogether 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 long 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 suns 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!

While ye shall fill with shrieks the upper sky
For perishable clay,

Whose memory in your immortality

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 plough'd with years, and sown with cares,
And reap'd by Death, lord of the human soil?
Even had their days been left to toil their path
Through time to dust, unshorten'd by God's wrath,
Still they are Evil's prey and Sorrow's spoil.
Aho.
Let them fly!

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,

The dead 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,

And the eternal Lord

In vain would be implored

For the remission of one hour of wo, Let us resign even what we have adored, And meet the wave, as we would meet the sword, If not unmoved, yet undismay'd. And wailing less for us than those who shall Survive in mortal or immortal thrall,

And, when the fatal waters are allay'd, Weep for the myriads who can weep no more. Fly, seraphs! to your own eternal shore,

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, 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.

pure,

And mountains, land, and woods! when ye are not,
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,

Still flashes in the angelic hands.

It may not be ;

We have chosen, and will endure.

Raph. Say'st thou ?

Aza.

Raph.

He hath said it, and I say, Amen! Again!

Then from this hour,

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!
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 wax'd too fierce to brave. Soon it shall be their only shore,

He riseth, but his better light is gone;

And a black circle, bound

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-colour'd 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-hallow'd ark uprears

Its safe and reckless sides.

Japh. Oh, father, stay!

Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides!

Noah. Must we not leave all life to such? Begone! Japh.

Noah.

Not I.

With them!

Then die

How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison

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 daugnters.
Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite
For the annihilation of all life.
Unequal

the strife

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?

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 pray'r!
The dragon crawls from out his den,

To herd, in terror, innocent with men;
And the birds scream their agony through air.
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, fix'd as rocks, await the word

At which their wrathful vials shall be pour'd.

No azure more shall robe the firmament,

Nor spangled stars be glorious: Death hath risen.
In the sun's place a pale and ghastly glare
Hath wound itself around the dying air.

Aza. Come, Anah! quit this chaos-founded prisʊn. To which the elements again repair,

To turn it into what it was: beneath

The shelter of these wings thou shalt 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
Ethereal life, will we explore:

These darken'd clouds are not the only skies.

[AZAZIEL and SAMIASA fly off, and disappear with ANAH and AHOLIBAMAH.

Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd amid

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 amid the elemental strife,
Thou sitt'st within thy guarded ark?

A Mother, (offering her infant to JAPHET.) Oh let this child embark !

I brought him forth in wo,

But thought it joy

To see him to my bosom clinging so.
Why was he born?

What hath he done-
My unwean'd son-

To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn?
What is there in this milk of mine, that death
Should stir all heaven and earth up to destroy

My boy,