Angel. To mark upon thy brow Exemption from such deeds as thou hast done. Cain. No, let me die! Angel.
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].
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,
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.
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.'
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.
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!
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;
An Eden kept afar from sight,
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
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.
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,
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-
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!
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.
I have some cause to think Anah!
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
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.
I must proceed alone. Irad.
Then peace be with thee! [Exit IRAT
Japh. [solus]. Peace! I have sought it where
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?
|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
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"
Enter NOAH and SHEM. Noah. Where is thy brother Japhet?
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,
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,
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
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-
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
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