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Angel.
To mark upon thy brow
Exemption from such deeds as thou hast done.
Cain. No, let me die!
Angel.

It must not be.

The ANGEL sets the mark on CAIN'S brow.
Cain.
It burns
My brow, but nought to that which is within it.
Is there more? let me meet it as I may.
Angel. Stern hast thou been and stubborn
from the womb,

As the ground thou must henceforth till; but he
Thou slewest was gentle as the flocks he tended.
Cain. After the fall too soon was I begotten;
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided from
The serpent, and my sire still mourn'd for Eden.
That which I am, I am; I did not seek
For life, nor did I make myself; but could I
With my own death redeem him from the dust-
And why not so? Let him return to-day,
And I lie ghastly! so shall be restored
By God the life to him He loved ; and taken
From me a being I ne'er loved to bear.

Angel. Who shall heal murder? what is done
is done :

Go forth! fulfil thy days! and be thy deeds
Unlike the last!
[The ANGEL disappears.
Adah.
He's gone, let us go forth;
I hear our little Enoch cry within
Our bower.

Cain. Ah! little knows he what he weeps for!
And I who have shed blood cannot shed tears!
But the four rivers would not cleanse my soul.
Think'st thou my boy will bear to look on me?
Adah. If I thought that he would not, I
would-

Cain [interrupting her].

No,

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And everlasting witness! whose unsinking
Blood darkens earth and heaven! what thou
now art

I know not; out if thou seest what I am,
I think thou wilt forgive him whom his God
Can ne'er forgive, nor his own soul.-Farewell!
I must not, dare not touch what I have made
thee.
[drain'd
I, who sprang from the same womb with thee,
The same breast, clasp'd thee often to my own,
In fondness brotherly and boyish, I
Can never meet thee more, nor even dare
To do that for thee which thou shouldst have
done

For me-compose thy limbs into their grave-
The first grave yet dug for mortality. [earth!
But who hath dug that grave? Oh, earth! Oh,
For all the fruits thou hast render'd to me, I
Give thee back this.-Now for the wilderness !
[ADAH stoops down and kisses the body of ABEL.
Adah. A dreary and an early doom, my
brother,

Has been thy lot! Of all who mourn for thee,
I alone must not weep. My office is [them;
Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed
But yet, of all who mourn, none mourn like me,
Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee.
Now, Cain! I will divide thy burden with thee.
Cain. Eastward from Eden will we take our
way:

'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps.
Adah. Lead! thou shalt be my guide, and
may our God

Be thine! Now let us carry forth our children.
Cain. And he who lieth there was childless. I

No more of threats: we have had too many of Have dried the fountain of a gentle race,

them :

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Which might have graced his recent marriage
couch,

[mine,
And might have temper'd this stern blood of
Uniting with our children Abel's offspring!
O Abel!

Adah. Peace be with him!
Cain.

But with me![Exeunt.

HEAVEN AND EARTH:

A MYSTERY.

1821.

FOUNDED ON THE FOLLOWING PASSAGE IN GENESIS, CHAP. VI.: 'AND IT CAME TO PASS . THAT THE SONS OF GOD SAW THE DAUGHTERS OF MEN THAT THEY WERE FAIR; AND THEY TOOK THEM WIVES OF ALL WHICH THEY CHOSE.'

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And when I think that his immortal wings
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre
Of the poor child of clay which so adored h
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:
His grief will be of ages, or at least
Mine would be such for him, were I the seraph
And he the perishable.
Aho.
Rather say,
That he will single forth some other daughter
Of earth, and love her as he once loved Anah
Anah. And if it should be so, and she loved
him,

Better thus than that he should weep for me.
Aho. If I thought thus of Samiasa's love,
All seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me.
But to our invocation !-'Tis the hour.
Anah.

Seraph!

From thy sphere ! Whatever star contain thy glory; In the eternal depths of heaven Albeit thou watchest with the seven.” Though through space infinite and boar Before thy bright wings worlds be dime Yet hear!

Oh! think of her who holds thee dear'
And though she nothing is to thee.
Yet think that thou art all to her.

Thou canst not tell,-and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me.

The archangels, said to be seven in number, and to «f cupy the eighth rank in the celestial hierarchy.

The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thine years,
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathize,
Except in love, and there thou must
Acknowledge that more loving dust
Ne er wept beneath the skies.

Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st
The face of him who made thee great,
As he hath made me of the least

Of those cast out from Eden's gate;
Yet, Seraph dear!

Oh hear !

For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,
That thou forgett'st in thine eternity

Her whose heart death could not keep
from o'erflowing

For thee, immortal essence as thou art!

Great is their love who love in sin and fear;
And such, I feel, are waging in my heart
A war unworthy: to an Adamite [appear,
Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts
For sorrow is our element;

Delight

An Eden kept afar from sight,

[blent.

I feel my immortality o'ersweep

All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,

Into my ears this truth- Thou liv'st for ever!'
But if it be in joy

I know not, nor would know;

That secret rests with the Almighty giver,

Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and woe.
But thee and me he never can destroy :
Change us he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are
Of as eternal essence, and must war
With him if he will war with us: with thee

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow;
For thou hast ventured to share life with me,
And shall I shrink from thine eternity?

No! though the serpent's sting should pierce
me thorough,

And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil
Around me still! and I will smile,

And curse thee not; but hold

Thee in as warm a fold

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For an immortal. If the skies contain
More joy than thou canst give and take, remain!
Anah. Sister! sister! I view them winging

Though sometimes with our visions Their bright way through the parted night.

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Thou rulest in the upper air-
Or warring with the spirits who may
Dispute with him

Who made all empires, empire; or recalling Some wandering star, which shoots through the abyss,

[ing,

Whose tenants dying, while their world is fall-
Share the dim destiny of clay in this;
Or joining with the inferior cherubim,
Thou deignest to partake their hymn-
Samiasa!

I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:
If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!
Though I be form'd of clay,

And thou of beams

More bright than those of day
On Eden's streams,

Thine immortality cannot repay
With love more warm than mine
My love. There is a ray

In me, which, though forbidden yet to shine,
I feel was lighted at thy God's and thine.
may be hidden long: death and decay
Our mother Eve bequeath'd us--but my heart
Defies it: though this life must pass away,
Is that a cause for thee and me to part?
Thou art immortal-so am I: I feel-

An hour too soon.

Anah. They come ! he comes !—Azaziel !
Aho.

To meet them! Oh! for wings to bear
My spirit, while they hover there,

To Samiasa's breast!

Haste

Anah. Lo! they have kindled all the west, Like a returning sunset ;-lo!

On Ararat's late secret crest

A mild and many-colour'd bow,
The remnant of their flashing path,
Now shines and now, behold! it hath
Return'd to night, as rippling foam,

Which the leviathan hath lash'd
From his unfathomable home,

When sporting on the face of the calm deep,
Subsides soon after he again hath dash'd
Down, down, to where the ocean's fountains
sleep.

Aho. They have touch'd earth! Samiasa!
Anah.

My Azaziel!

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I have some cause to think
Anah!

Japh. What other?
Irad.

No; her sister.
That I know not; but her air,
If not her words, tells me she loves another.
Japh. Ay, but not Anah: she but loves her
God.

Irad. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee
What can it profit thee?
[not,
Japh.
True, nothing; but

I love.

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terrors.

Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with
I must go with thee.
Japh.

Irad, no; believe me
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil.
Irad. But evil things will be thy for the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.

Japh.

I must proceed alone.
Irad.

No, neither, Irad

Then peace be with thee! [Exit IRAT

Japh. [solus]. Peace! I have sought it where

it should be found,

In love-with love, too, which perhaps deserved
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart,
A weakness of the spirit,-listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep-
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace?

C2.T

|Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by
The sweeping tempest through its groant
Such is the sullen or the fitful state
borgte
Of my mind overworn. The earth's grown
wicked,

And many signs and portents have proclam
A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming Goom
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah!
When the dread hour denounced shall open
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thos
Have lain within this bosom, folded from
The elements; this bosom, which in vain
Hath beat for thee, and then will beat me*
vainly,

While thine- -Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amidst the failing
As a star in the clouds, which cannot querch
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Ans
How would I have adored thee, but thou wea

not;

And still would I redeem thee-see thee live
When ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed
By rock or shallow, the leviathan,

Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world.
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of rear"

[Exit JAPH.

Enter NOAH and SHEM.
Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet?

Shem.

He went fr moon-According to his wont, to meet with Irad He said; but, as I fear, to bend his steps Towards Anah's tents, round which he he nightly,

Irad.
Thou wilt not to our tents then?
Japh. No, Irad; I will to the cavern, whose
Mouth they say opens from the internal world
To let the inner spirits of the earth
Forth when they walk its surface.
Irad.

Like a dove round and round its pillaged nes
Or else he walks the wild up to the cavern
Which opens to the heart of Ararat.

Noah. What doth he there? It is an evil
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Wherefore so? Than even wicked men resort there: be
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she kved h
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy bra

What wouldst thou there?
Japh.
Soothe further my sad spirit
With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,

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Do not fear for me:
All evil things are powerless on the man
Sected by Jehovah.-Let us on.

Shem. To the tents of the father of the sisters?
Noak. No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.
[Exeunt NOAH and SHEM.
SCENE III.

The mountains.-A cavern, and the rocks of
Caucasus.

Japh. [solus. Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,

[stone]

Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains, varied and so terrible in beauty; Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks And toppling trees that twine their roots with in perpendicular places, where the foot

of man would tremble, could he reach themYe look eternal! Yet, in a few days, [yes, Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, huri d

Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,
Which seems to lead into a lower world,
Mal have its depths search'd by the sweeping
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den! [wave,
And man-Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
Stall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kins-
A is! what am I better than ye are, [men,
That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
We I had hope? or the more savage haunts,
Sarce less beloved, where I despair'd for her?
And can it be !-Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
and scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
y's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
raving it with a crown of many hues?
No more to be the beacon of the world,
It angels to alight on, as the spot [more'
Nearest the stars? And can those words 'no
Fe meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
He preserve them, and I not have the power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his

mate,

Shall scape to save his kind to be prolong'd,

hass and sting through some emerging world, keeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze Nali slumber o'er the wreck of this until The salt morass subside into a sphere

Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguish'd sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be still'd at once! All-beauteous
world!

So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy number'd days and
nights.

I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think
Upon thy coming doom without a feeling
Such as-Oh God! and canst thou-

Las

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Ha ha ha!

[Spirit vanishes.

Japh. How the fiend mocks the tortures of a The coming desolation of an orb, [world, On which the sun shall rise and warm no life! How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is Sleep too upon the very eve of death! [here, Why should they wake to meet it? What are Which look like death in life, and speak like things [clouds! Born ere this dying world? They come like [Various Spirits pass from the cavern. Rejoice! The abhorred race

Spirit.

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