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.

Would

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
Righteous enough to save his children.
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

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; '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 stern Cainites, save in beauty,
For all of them are fairest in their favour-

Aho. (interrupting him). And wouldst thou have her 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 fathers' 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— They are number'd.

Japh.

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 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.

Aho. What, hath this dreamer, with his father's ark,

my

The bugbear he hath built to scare the world,
Shaken 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?

Japh.

He whose one word produced them.

Aho. Who heard that word?

Japh.

The universe, which leap'd

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 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.

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,

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.

Thou hast said it.

Noah.

Patriarch!

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?

But man, and was not made to judge mankind,
Far less the sons of God; but as our God
Has deign'd 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 condemn'd. Were your immortal mission safety, 'twould Be general, not for two, though beautiful; And beautiful they are, but not the less

Condemn'd.

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,

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!