Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair! [clay, Raph. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of 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 Hath wound itself around the dying air. (1) 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 shalt be safe, A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe These darken'd clouds are not the only skies. [AZAZIEL and SAMIASA fly off, and disappear with ANAH and AHOLIBAMAH. (2) (1) [In his description of the deluge, which is a varied and recurring master-piece,- (we hear it foretold, and we see it come,) - Lord Byron appears to us to have had an eye to Poussin's celebrated picture, with the sky hanging like a weight of lead upon the waters, the sun quenched and lurid, the rocks and trees upon them gloomily watching their fate, and a few figures struggling vainly with the overwhelming waves. — -JEFFREY.] (2) [The elopement of spirits with children of dust is an incident that wants the sanction of reason, good taste, popular opinion, history, or tradition. It is only countenanced by the mythology which school-boys learn Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd amidst the roar Of the forsaken world; and never more, from their pantheons, and, when endowed with natural good sense, learn to despise before they cease to be boys; and by the romances, which the good sense of later ages has discarded from their literature, although the superior sense of this enlightened age seems willing to restore them to favour. Milton is so far from countenancing any thing so monstrous and inconceivable as sexual love between spiritual and material creatures, that his Adam speaks to Raphael of the passion to which he was too much enthralled by female charms, even where it was properly and naturally placed, as a weakness of which he seems to be half ashamed "Here passion first I felt Commotion strange! In all enjoyments else, Superior and unmoved. Here only, weak Against the charms of Beauty's powerful glance." The angel rebukes him for yielding to a subjection unworthy the perfection of his nature, and warns him of the debasement and disgrace in which it might involve him. This produces a question from the man, whether sexual love made no part of the happiness of the blest abode ? To whom the angel (with a smile that glowed celestial rosy red, love's proper hue) answered "Let it suffice thee, that thou know'st Us happy; and without love no happiness! In eminence." What Adam says on another occasion, may be applied to these unnatural conjunctions: "Among unequals, what society Can sort, what harmony, and true delight!" In Lord Byron's poem, they are censured by Noah, as improper and unlawful; but this does not lessen the absurdity of supposing them possible. -ANON.] (1) [The despair of the mortal lovers for the loss of their mortal mistresses is well and pathetically expressed. - JEFFREY.] Chorus of Mortals. Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind! 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. 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 And roll the waters o'er his placid breath? Or cursed be- with him who made Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd! Chorus of Mortals. For prayer!!! And where Shall prayer ascend, prayer When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend And burst, And gushing oceans every barrier rend, 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 hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent, 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), Their summer blossoms by the surges lopp'd, Vainly we look up to the lowering skies They meet the seas, And shut out God from our beseeching eyes. And view, all floating o'er the element, Then to Jehovah raise Thy song of praise ! A Mortal. Blessed are the dead Who die in the Lord! And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Be the decree adored! He gave me life—he taketh but The breath which is his own: And though these eyes should be for ever shut, Nor longer this weak voice before his throne Be heard in supplicating tone, Still blessed be the Lord, For what is past, For that which is: For all are his, From first to last Time-space-eternity-life-death The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake; And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan? No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake! Chorus of Mortals. Where shall we fly? Not to the mountains high; For now their torrents rush, with double roar, Enter a Woman. Woman. Oh, save me, save! Our valley is no more: My father and my father's tent, My brethren and my brethren's herds, The pleasant trees that o'er our noonday bent |