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THE DELUGE. 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 
 ITALY; 
 
 ^ i^oem, in ^ix ®anto0» 
 
 WITH HISTORICAL AND CLASSICAL JSOTES. 
 
 Preparing for Publication, 
 
 CATILINE; 
 OR, THE ROMAN CONSPIRACY 
 
 ^ ^ragetig, in ipibe ^ctg* 
 
 DEDICATED 
 
 TO 
 
 WILLIAM CHARLES MACREADY. 
 
THE DELUGE 
 
 a iSrama, 
 
 IN TWELVE SCENES. 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN EDMUND READE, 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 ITALY, IN SIX CANTOS, WITH HISTORICAL AND CLASSICAL NOTES 
 
 AND "CAIN THK WANDERER," &C. 
 
 'AAAa ai 0dp<r€i, hrl ©eiou yevos 4<n\ fiporoTaiv, 
 
 '> > '', I y \ ' '. ' Pvthagoras. 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAUNDERS AND OTLEY, CONDUIT STREET. 
 
 1839. 
 
• • • < c« 
 
 LONDON: 
 PRINTED BY IBOTSON AND PALMER, SAVOY STREET. 
 
?^ 52 /^ 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 The Author of the Drama of " The Deluge " feels it 
 especially incumbent on him to state that it was com- 
 pleted some years before the publication of a Poem in the 
 year 1829, entitled "Cain the Wanderer;" anticipating, 
 in point of time, Moore's " Loves of the Angels," and the 
 consequent and analogous Drama of Lord Byron. 
 
 248210 
 
The following passage extracted from that antique and 
 singular book, " Purchas His Pilgrimage," will be found 
 interesting in itself, at the same time that, in some degree, 
 it illustrates the Poem. 
 
 " Howsoever it is more than apparant that the Booke 
 bearing Enoch's name is very fabulous, which, because 
 the tales therein professe antiquitie, (although they were 
 later dreams,) I thought it not unfit to borrow out of 
 Scaliger somewhat of that which he hath inserted in his 
 notes upon Eusebius, the Greek copie being, as the 
 phrase testifieth, translated out of the Hebrew; which 
 had been the work of some Jewe ; the antiquitie appear- 
 eth in that Tertullian citeth it. 
 
 " « ^And it came to passe when the sonnes of men 
 were multiplied, there were borne to them faire daugh- 
 
 * This fable arose from the false interpretation of Moses' 
 words, Gen. vi. . 
 
Vlll 
 
 ters, and the Watchmen (so he called the Angels out of 
 Dan. iv.) went astray after them, and they said one 
 to another. Let us chuse us wives of daughters of 
 men of the earth ; and Semixas, their prince, said unto 
 them, ' I feare me you will not doe this thing, and I 
 alone shall be debter of a great sinne. And they all 
 answered him and said ; We will sweare with an oath, 
 and will anathematise or curse ourselves not to alter this 
 our minde till we have fulfilled it, and they all sware 
 together. These came down in the days of Jared to the 
 top of the hill Hermon. 
 
 " ' And they called the hill Hermon, because they 
 sware and anathematised on it. These tooke them 
 wives, and three generations were borne unto them : the 
 first were great giants ; the giants begate the Nephelim, 
 to whom were borne Eliud ; and they taught them and 
 their wives sorceries and inchantments. 
 
 " * Ezael taught first to make swords and weapons for 
 warre, and how to worke in mettals. He taught to 
 make woman's ornaments, and how to looke faire and 
 jewelling. 
 
 " ' And they beguiled the saints, and much sinne was 
 committed on the earth. Others of them taught the 
 
IX 
 
 vertues of roots, astrologie, divinations, &c. After these 
 things the giants began to eate the flesh of men, and 
 men were diminished, and the remnant cried to heaven, 
 because of their wickednesse, that they might come in 
 remembrance before him. 
 
 " « And the four great Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, 
 Raphael, and Uriel, hearing it, looked downe on the 
 earth from the holy places of heaven : and beholding 
 much bloodshed on the earth, and all ungodlinesse and 
 transgression committed therein, said one to another, — 
 That the Spirits and Soules of men complaine, saying, 
 That ye should present our prayer to the Highest, and 
 our destruction. 
 
 " ' And the foure Archangels, entering, said to the 
 Lord, Thou art God of Gods and Lord of Lords. Thou 
 seest what Ezael hath done ; he hath taught mysteries, 
 and revealed to the world the things of heaven. 
 
 Then the Highest said — the Holy One — the Great One 
 — spake, and sent Uriel to the sonne of Lamech, saying, 
 Goe to Noe, tell him of the end approaching, and a flood 
 shall destroy the earth. 
 
 " 'To Raphael he said. Go Raphael, and bind Ezael 
 hand and foot, and cast him into Darknesse, and open 
 
the wilderness in the Desert of Dodoel, and there cast 
 hinij and lay upon him sharpe stones to the Day of 
 Judgement. 
 
 " ' And to Gabriel he said, Go, Gabriel, to the Giants, 
 and destroy the sons of the Watchmen from the sons of 
 men, set them one against another in warre and destruc- 
 tion. 
 
 " « To Michael he saith. Go, Michael, binde Semixas, 
 and the others with him that have mixed themselves 
 with the daughters of men (until seventie generations) 
 to the hills of the earth ; until the day of their judge- 
 ment, till the judgement of the world be finished, and 
 then they shall be brought into the confusion* of fire, 
 and unto tryall, and unto the prison of the ending of 
 the world, and whosoever shall be condemned and de- 
 stroyed, from henceforth shall be cast together with 
 them till the finishing of their generation. And the 
 Giants, which were begotten of the spirits and flesh, 
 they shall call them evil spirits on the earth, because 
 their dwelling is on the earth. The spirits that depart 
 out of their bodies shall be Evill Spirits, because they 
 were engendered of the Watchmen, and men.' 
 * £?$ rh xo^s rov irvpos. Job i. 6 ; iii. 7. 
 
XI 
 
 " The antiquitie of it, and because it is not so common, 
 and especially because some of the Ancients and of the 
 Papists have been misse-led by these dreames (refused 
 justly by Jerome and Augustine) interpreting the 
 sonnes of God in Moses to be spoken of Angels, (as 
 their Translation did reade it,) have moved me to insert 
 those tales. 
 
 " Lactantius saith, (1. 2, cap. 15,) that when the world 
 was multiplied, God sent angels to keep men from the 
 frauds of the Diuell, to whom he forbad all earthly con- 
 tagion. These were by the Diuell insnared with wo- 
 men, therefore deprived of heaven ; and their progenie 
 of a middle nature betwixt men and Angels became un- 
 cleane Spirits ; so that hence grew two kindes of 
 Daemons, or diuellish spirits; the one heavenly, the 
 other earthly, which would now seeme to bee keepers, 
 and are destroyers of men. 
 
 " The angels are sometimes called the sonnes of God : 
 but that name is communicated to man, who by nature 
 children of wrath, by faith in the naturall and onely Sonne 
 of God, have this prerogative to be the sonnes of God, 
 and fellow-heires with Christ."" 
 
 PuRCHAs HIS Pilgrimage. 
 
ERRATA. 
 
 I'age 37, line 15, /or parents read parent. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONiE. 
 
 SPIRITS. 
 
 Michael, the Arch- Angel of the Lord. 
 
 israphil. 
 
 Oraziel. 
 
 MEN. 
 
 Noah. 
 
 Hammon. 
 
 Irad. 
 
 The Giant-Mortal. 
 
 The Infidel. 
 
 The Patriarch. 
 
 WOMEN. 
 Azoara, 
 
 A, 1 
 IE, ^ 
 
 . t Sisters. 
 
 ASTARTr 
 
 The Scene of the Drama is laid on and around Mount 
 Hermon. The time of the action is two days. 
 
THE DELUGE. 
 
 SCENE I. 
 
 The Deserts of Mount Hermon, 
 
 IRAD, (alone.) 
 Ay, this is Solitude ! no life is here : 
 The black woods frown on me, as if I were 
 The first who dared disturb their solemn stillness, 
 Talking of human sorrows. Here, I can 
 Pour forth my thoughts, unheard, and unrestrained. 
 Why does not the Intelligence of Earth 
 Respond to me ? I know she hath a life. 
 And vital sympathies. O that she had 
 Eyes, ears, and voice to answer back to mine ! 
 Voices, articulated words she hath. 
 
2 THE DELUGE. [SCENE II. 
 
 Of stormy wrath, of gentlest whispers ; I 
 
 Feel that her Inspirations enter me, 
 
 Eve'n as the presence of God ; that gazing on 
 
 Her awful forms my griefs are soothed — not healed ; 
 
 Awhile forgotten. What hath my love taught me ? 
 
 The lightness of the human heart, and most 
 
 Of hers, I once thought so unchangeable. 
 
 And broken hopes, and failing strength, are all 
 
 The fruits which I have gathered from its tree : 
 
 My fortitude and strength of will, which were 
 
 The pillars of my mind, are broken down ; 
 
 And though I see my Idol's hollowness. 
 
 In my mind prostrated, I only feel 
 
 The consciousness of worshipping it still ! 
 
 SCENE II. 
 
 AsTARTE enters — seeing Irad, she is about to retreat- 
 he stays her. 
 
 Would'st thou avoid me, my Astarte ! I 
 Deemed not to meet thee in this solitude ; 
 Nay — turn not from me ; not one look — one word, 
 Before I join my father on the mountain ? 
 
SCENE II.] THE DELUGE. 
 
 The Moon will change ere we shall meet again : 
 As changed and cold art thou become to me. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Nay, Irad ! speak not harshly : I am still 
 The same ; my thoughts were dwelling 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Not on me. 
 Thou canst not look upon me and avow it. 
 Astarte ! love like mine may be repulsed, 
 But it returneth still : my joys and hopes, 
 Once the fond inmates of thy heart from mine, 
 Will not be thrown back on my own, to wither 
 Like broken flowers, but return to die 
 On the pure shrine where first they sprung to life. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Is this well spoken, Irad ? can'st thou 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Nay, 
 I ask not for profession, 'tis too late : 
 I would not have thee now confess to me. 
 Love may be crushed, its blossom trampled down. 
 But never did it grow again from hearts. 
 That coldly left it to decay. Astarte ! 
 That name was a familiar sound, and now 
 The very word that once was music, sounds 
 
 B -2 
 
4 THE DELUGE. [SCENE II. 
 
 So strange that it doth startle ! — look on me. 
 
 Astarte ! we were reared together ; we 
 
 Were pledged to each upon the gates of life : 
 
 We grew together, I, the stronger plant, 
 
 And thou, the hidden violet ; how I loved thee ! 
 
 Turning away from Enoch's haughtier maids, 
 
 To dwell on thy retiring beauty. Thou — 
 
 Yes — thou didst love me then : oh ! blessed be 
 
 The memory of those hours when we sat, 
 
 And heard the bird of evening's song, and watched 
 
 The sunset hueing the rich clouds, and felt 
 
 The beauty and the feeling of the hour. 
 
 Draw us together to the inner world 
 
 Of our own bosoms, as the outward failed ! 
 
 Those tresses then lay on thy neck ; those eyes 
 
 Looked into mine — our very breath was mingled. 
 
 Drawn from one heart, inspired from one vast soul. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Think not I have forgot those hours which were 
 The sunniest of my life : those days of peace, 
 And hope, and innocence, when my young heart 
 Sought nothing further than its earthly joys. 
 When no vague hopes, no restless wishes were 
 Awakened, leaving in my breast a void 
 
SCENE II.] THE DELUGE. 
 
 Unfilled, and wasting it with vain desires ; 
 I was then worthier thee, for I was like thee. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Then what hath changed, and made thee as thou art ? 
 The same indeed in outward form ; and oh ! 
 More beautiful than 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Irad ? not to love 
 Such as thou art, would prove my bosom dead 
 To memory and gratitude. My heart 
 Is all unchanged, unbroken are those ties 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Then wherefore wilt thou not unite our lov^es ? 
 Making my earthly life a paradise, 
 From which I cannot be expelled. Thou knowest 
 Thy sire will barter with my kinsmen 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Nay, 
 Give me but time, and I will tell thee all. 
 I am as yet no mate for thee ; my heart 
 Is wayward and unsettled as the tree 
 Tossing to every wind : vague thoughts, and hopes. 
 Are shook from it like leaves, but soon to pass 
 Away, and be forgotten. Urge no more — 
 Look not thus on me — leave me for a while. 
 
6 THE DELUGE. [sCENE II. 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 And what are these disturbing thoughts ? what is 
 
 The mystery untold in these dark words ? 
 
 Why doth thy cheek flush, and thy bosom heave — 
 
 It is as I believed — 'tis Azoara 
 
 Hath changed thee thus, for she is ever with thee. 
 
 'Tis she who hath infected thy meek nature 
 
 With her self will, and restlessness ; how well 
 
 Doth her brow prove her Cainite origin ! 
 
 Though beautiful, the stamp of pride is fixed 
 
 Upon it still ; and she doth glory in 
 
 That which should be her shame. What fantasy 
 
 Hath she infused in thee ? Are not our race 
 
 Superior to hers, the elect of God ? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Yet blame her not, remember, Irad I we 
 Have all our varying natures, that are given 
 Not by ourselves : oh, let us gently then 
 Touch on each other's failings ! She is guiltless : 
 Her thoughts have higher objects than thy joys, 
 Or mine 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 But not approved by God ; I know 
 And care not what her aspirations are. 
 So they pervert not thee. Lo, she comes forth, 
 
SCENE II.] THE DELUGE. 5 
 
 As is her wont at evening, from her tent : 
 
 I will not meet her now, and see her pride, 
 
 And haughty gesture, for I feel unequal : 
 
 'Tis thou hast humbled me to this. I go 
 
 To solitude and sorrow. Fare thee well ! 
 
 Yet wherefore do I say those idle words, 
 
 Knowing thou never can*st be parted from me ? 
 
 When thy light footsteps are no longer heard, 
 
 The falling leaf will startle me, and make 
 
 My heart beat quickly to that well-known sound ! 
 
 When I depart, I shall behold thee still : 
 
 Thy presence dwells like light around me ; when 
 
 I cease to hear thy voice I shall create 
 
 Its sounds, while memory lives upon its echoes ; 
 
 Oh, when I turn from thee I do not leave thee ! 
 
 Thine image fills my being, and becomes 
 
 My body's soul, that else were tenantless. 
 
 Farewell ! I feel there is a music in 
 
 The very words that draws me back to thee, 
 
 Even while it tells me that I should depart : 
 
 May the pure Eye of God watch over thee, 
 
 And bless thee, even as I have done — in vain ! 
 
 [Irad withdraws^ 
 
THE DELUGE. [SCENE III. 
 
 SCENE III, 
 
 AZOARA ASTARTE. 
 
 How ? Does Astarte still hold interviews 
 To hear the sighings of the Adamite ? 
 In tears ? — nay, then his tongue was eloquent. 
 If unsuccessful. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Thy light laugh is vain. 
 I feel the unquiet heart returns at last 
 To its first tie ; yea, with a natural pang, 
 Drawn from the memories of old affections ; 
 And though I cannot offer Irad all 
 My heart, I feel I cannot take it from him, 
 And give it to another. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Wed him, then : 
 And live as Lillah lives with Hammon ; toil, 
 And spin, and tend thy children, flocks, and herds. 
 Shut up thine eyes and soul from all high feelings. 
 All commune with a life beyond thee ; make 
 Each day a measured portion of giv'n time, 
 
SCENE III.] THE DELUGE. 
 
 To see, and to provide the appetite 
 Wherewith to eat and drink ; till, in this round 
 Of abject, dull, and daily slavery. 
 Thou diest — never having life enjoyed. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 And wherefore not ? Do they not life enjoy ? 
 
 And is not happiness Life's end and aim ? 
 
 Look at them — day beholds them occupied ; 
 
 And Evening comes to sanctify their rest. 
 
 Felt doubly sweet from all their labours done. 
 
 They go forth hand in hand, and they are honoured 
 
 Among the people ; and when age steals on them, 
 
 Their children will grow round them, propping up. 
 
 And hiding decently their slow decline ! 
 
 And when they sink at last, their memories 
 
 Will be recorded by the hearts that loved them. 
 
 We love, are loved more deeply, but by whom ? 
 
 Immortal beings, ties forbade alike 
 
 By earth and heaven, yea, our own hearts condemn us. 
 
 We feel the truth, or why conceal that love 
 
 Which we should glory in ? why meet in gloom 
 
 And covert, hiding it from human eyes, 
 
 Like some ill-gotten treasure, which must be 
 
 Concealed from all save us ; and why, oh ! why 
 
10 THE DELUGE. [SCENE III. 
 
 Do ray Oraziel's words, when tenderest breathed, 
 Seem like the sounds of sorrow ? 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 'Tis the fear 
 Of thy weak nature which doth make them so. 
 Do I not glory in my Seraph lord ? 
 Or would / change my heavenly destiny 
 For aught that earth could give ? What, if we hide 
 From human eyes our meetings ? — 'tis because 
 They are too lowly to prize happiness 
 They cannot judge of, to be proved ere owned. 
 How can it be an evil to aspire 
 Towards immortal beings ? Is it not 
 To raise ourselves from human to divine ? 
 Above the jealousies and petty cares. 
 The apathy, and weariness of life ? 
 If they led us astray from God, their presence 
 Would be forbidden ; but they rather give us 
 Glimpses of heaven, until our spirits feel 
 Ethereal as their own. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Thou speakest well : 
 How willingly I listen to thy words ! 
 Even though I feel that something of the truth 
 Is wanting in them still. 
 
SCENE III.] THE DELUGE. 11 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 And sayest thou 
 That rest from toil or want is happiness ? 
 That feeling which the soul embodies forth 
 From its own heavenly nature, giving first, 
 Then taking back again the beautiful 
 On which it doth exist — on which its life 
 Depends ; in following and adoring all 
 It cannot comprehend ; in feeding on 
 Undying things, till it becomes immortal, 
 Even in its own unlimited desires ! 
 Is this a fancy, sayest thou ? Take the real, 
 But leave, oh, leave me these immortal longings, 
 Until with them I sink into nothingness. 
 But they deceive us not ; the very love 
 Our Angels bear us is a proof our natures 
 Are kindred with their own, else whence their power ? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Yes ; powerful hath been Oraziel*s spell 
 
 To have estranged me thus from Irad's love ; 
 
 And yet, though each fond look doth haunt me still ; 
 
 And though I dwell upon each passing word. 
 
 As though they were the pulses of my heart. 
 
 Which ceasing, life must cease ; and though I watch 
 
 While time becomes a void filled up with wishes. 
 
12 THE DELUGE. [SGENE III. 
 
 Aimless and vague — waiting his coming — till 
 Hope darkens to suspense, which then is pain, 
 I feel the ties between us are unhallowed. 
 Our meetings are endearing, yet unlike 
 Those earlier ones with Irad — calm and quiet ; 
 But with a consciousness, by either felt, 
 Of mutual sin — hidden, yet unconcealed. 
 My heart is soothed, not saddened ; for there is 
 A tone of tenderness in his deep voice 
 That steals my fears reluctantly away; 
 Until I feel more happy listening to 
 Oraziel's sighs, than sharing Irad's joys. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 And would'st thou weigh the mortal with the god ? 
 The pale, cold flame that, lighted up in clay. 
 Lives feebly on in dim and wavering gleams, 
 With that which glows in an immortal bosom ? 
 Now, by my life, thou art become insensate. 
 As once so ardent 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 No, it is the fulness 
 Of my heart speaks ; the consciousness of all 
 Its hidden treasures that doth make it fear 
 The end of life is love : and oh, how brief 
 Its hour, how soon to pass away ! I felt 
 
SCENE III.] THE DELUGE. 13 
 
 The truth with my first breath ; for all things round me 
 Mingled their life with mine ; the flowers and clouds. 
 And Stars — those flowers of heaven! And then I 
 
 leaned 
 On human hearts, on those who loved me, feeling 
 Happy while resting on them, and that joy 
 Was in participation. Now I stand 
 Like one who gathers up her all, to place it 
 On an uncertain venture. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Dost thou doubt 
 Thy Seraph? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 We are matched unequally : 
 I feel such ties as ours could not endure. 
 The hope — the doubt — the fear — these slowly waste 
 The feelings and the vital strength away ; 
 And, like a flame consuming, make, at last. 
 The heart that feeds on them their sacrifice. 
 Yet ev'n when meeting his immortal eyes, 
 Looking on me as if I were his equal, 
 I sigh, remembering my mortality ; 
 And then the tears start from me when I think 
 That he shall one day mourn the child of dust, 
 Then — turn to heaven — forgetting her for ever ! 
 
14 THE DELUGE. [SCENE III. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 And / see in my Israphil a star 
 
 Whose immortality I glory in, 
 
 And feel that I shall share. My hopes, and joys, 
 
 And aspirations, all are wrapt in him ; 
 
 And, though I dwell on earth, I cease to hold 
 
 A thought in common ; I would rather live 
 
 One fleeting hour within my Angel's love. 
 
 And die — than share an immortality 
 
 Of life without him. Had'st thou but one spark 
 
 Of that proud fire that glows through all our race ! 
 
 We are immortal, and we feel it ; we 
 
 May die, but cannot be extinct— /orgre^ / 
 
 An earthly word unknown to heavenly natures, 
 
 Whose lives are present, unlike ours, dependant 
 
 Upon the future, and, each moment, leaving 
 
 The past behind with all its memories ! 
 
 'Tis we forget, not they, for they are gods : 
 
 And we, aspiring to be like them, prove 
 
 We are allied, though fallen, and shall join them 
 
 In those bright stars, our destined heritage. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 How fondly to that sweet belief I cling ! 
 
 For then I shall meet Irad there, and tell him 
 
 I would have loved him here, but that our hearts 
 
SCENE III.] THE DELUGE, 15 
 
 Are not in our own power ; and he will, then, 
 Look back with me, and smile at earthly sorrows. 
 But — I know not — when gazing in the night 
 Upon those Stars rolling in their blue depths, 
 So soft, so dim ! and feeling in my soul 
 How all unchangeably they shine, so far 
 From making me aspire, I turn from them ; 
 My heart oppressed — my eyes suffused with tears, 
 And a weight sinking on my heart, from feeling 
 The deepest sense of my own nothingness ! 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Thou humblest thyself in thine own eyes. 
 And thus thy feelings take their tone. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Alas ! 
 What have we to be proud of? Our lives are 
 Not in our keeping, nor our loves ; our feelings 
 Depend not on ourselves ; for ever changing 
 With time and circumstance ; our very joys 
 Expire in sighs, and take the tones of sorrow. 
 Proving the common source from whence they sprung, 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Behold ! — they come who shall confirm them ; see. 
 The Watcher's light is trembling o'er the peak 
 Of Hermon ; and the Angels, even now, 
 
16 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IV. 
 
 Unfold their heavenly wings. Lo, how a trail 
 Of light parts from yon orb like floating mist, 
 The glory left behind them in their flight ! 
 Wilt thou advance with me and welcome them 
 As they alight : or would'st thou rather here 
 Remain behind alone, to muse upon 
 The waywardness of woman's heart? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 My sister ! 
 
 \_Eooeunt, 
 
 SCENE IV. 
 
 The Solitudes of Mount Hermon — Time^ Sutiset. 
 
 I RAD (alone.) 
 How motionless the time and scene ! Earth lies, 
 Steeping herself in sunshine ; basked beneath 
 The over-arching canopy of Heaven. 
 What silent interchange of Life exists 
 Between her and yon watching Sun ! the dews, 
 Her mighty respirations, float above her, 
 Even as a mantle, folding from the rays 
 
SCENE IV.] THE DELUGE. 17 
 
 Of his too ardent brow ; while, in her trance 
 Of deep, and silent, and absorbing gladness, 
 She feels his warmth inspiring her with life, 
 Yea, with a living soul. 
 
 Thou Eye of Heaven ! 
 Watcher of Earth I all-seeing — whom all see : 
 Thou Fountain of the Light i and visible god 
 In glory and in beauty ! thou that foldest 
 Thy brow in clouds and storms, which are but moods 
 Of thy unvarying love ; for thou dost leave 
 Lingering behind thee, o'er each folded scene, 
 Rays that are feeUngs ; hues that tint the heart, 
 Till it become as beautiful as they. 
 
 Thou living Power ! or world — or what thou art — 
 
 A life, and an Intelligence like ours. 
 
 Thou hast — I feel the truth and know ; Mankind 
 
 Will worship thee upon the mountain tops, 
 
 As God— or God's own symbol — with the love. 
 
 The adoration which thou dost inspire. 
 
 Oh ! had I never known Him — never heard 
 
 That He had walked as man with man in Eden ! 
 
 Nor felt His love and mercy speaking in 
 
 The meanest flower that lives beneath my feet. 
 
18 THE DELUGE. [SCENE V. 
 
 To look on thee alone, thou glorious Image ! 
 Rising, or sinking, or when, in mid-heaven. 
 Thou sittest on thy burning throne, when men 
 Turn from thee as the Angels from their God : — 
 To look on thee and worship were the same. 
 
 Circle of glory — fare thee well ! thou wert 
 
 A blessing to my eyes and to my heart, 
 
 Which I have given back to thee ; and made thee 
 
 Confessional to feelings and to hopes 
 
 Rejected here : not vainly oflTered — I 
 
 Have dwelt upon thy brow till I have felt 
 
 Its own tranquillity ! until absorbed 
 
 In thy majestic presence, I forgot 
 
 My wounded spirit calmed by thine to rest. 
 
 SCENE V. 
 
 Irad — Hammon. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 My brother ! I have sought thee far and near. 
 The Patriarch — how, dost thou turn from me, Irad ? 
 Hast thou not shared my secrets from thy youth ? 
 And wilt thou shun me now, and hide thy thoughts. 
 
SCENE v.] THE DELUGE. 19 
 
 Telling them rather to the senseless airs, 
 That cannot minister to 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Yet they soothe me : 
 And chide not for a sorrow, which I feel 
 My weakness yielding to, yet cherish still. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 In sharing ills their burthen is relieved. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Aye, when allaying hope doth lighten them : 
 
 But memory is now my only joy ; 
 
 Feeding upon the sweet yet bitter past, 
 
 Till hope, soothed by its charm, forgets herself. 
 
 And in fond dreams anticipates again 
 
 That which is gone for ever; for the heart 
 
 Will cling to anything save its despair. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 We knew thou lov*dst Astarte, ye were pledged 
 From childhood ; what arose between to part ye ? 
 Our brethren say she hath forgot her ties, 
 But that thou still hast been 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Loved her — how weak 
 Are words to tell the passion of the soul ! 
 I know not — loved : we were brought up together, 
 
 c2 
 
"20 THE DELUGE. [sCENE V. 
 
 We grew together like twin flowers : I thought 
 Our very beings one. Oh, I have stood 
 And drank in life while gazing in her eyes ! 
 Those eyes of tenderest azure, where the soul 
 Looks visibly through as from a starry shrine. 
 She was my life, my very being's self : 
 All other avenues of sense and feeling 
 Were closed, to centre, raylike, upon her ! 
 And then her voice, so gentle yet so soft. 
 So winning, yet so quiet ; how it told 
 The gladness in the temple of her Mind ; 
 That all its inmost chords were melody ! 
 She was the fountain — the absorbing Deep, 
 From whom the troubled river of my thoughts 
 Arose, to lose themselves again in rest. 
 But then — I know not how — insensibly 
 A change came over her : it was not marked. 
 Nor violent — for she is still the same, 
 Apparently, the same as ever; no, 
 It stole upon her imperceptibly 
 As shadows o'er the earth. She was estranged, 
 And yet I saw it not, for oh ! how blind 
 Is love 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Why think'st thou she doth love another ? 
 
SCENE v.] THE DELUGE. 21 
 
 Among the festal meetings, and the dance, 
 Where still the loving and the loved repair, 
 She comes, not with the pride of Azoara, 
 But, as if feeling sympathy with none, 
 She moved among them, yet not of them 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Therefore, 
 I feel the truth I do not know. Thou can'st not 
 Look in Astarte's face, but thou dost read 
 The expression of a heart confiding traced 
 In each most gentle feature ; that it is 
 A very part of her sweet being. Her form 
 In its most feminine and shrinking grace 
 Doth ask protection ; as if it but sought 
 To cling to something stronger than itself ! 
 And then her eyes, or raised or downcast, show 
 Her spirit is not in them : for, when spoken, 
 She answers not, or answering, her words 
 Are but disjointed things, as if she heard not : 
 Yet, with a look or word from Azoara, 
 I have seen the blush suffuse her conscious cheek. 
 And her soul living in her eyes. These are 
 The outward signs of some deep hidden feeling. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 But who hath changed her ? 
 
22 THE DELUGE. [SCENE V. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 I have taxed my thought, 
 My very soul to answer. I have watched 
 All time and place, and hitherto in vain. 
 A power hath been exerted over her, 
 And changed her very nature ; for she was 
 As steadfast once as she is wayward now. 
 Yet there are times, when softening, she seems 
 As if she wished to love me, and she could not. 
 Now — for a brief time — I have parted from her ; 
 I thought that absence would support my mind : 
 Vain hope ! — it has but wrought its overthrow. 
 True, I had more to combat in her presence ; 
 But, even in resisting, all was not 
 Privation, for I saw her still — and oh ! 
 How often without looking on her, I 
 Felt conscious that her eyes were turned on me, 
 That they sunk in my inmost soul. But now, 
 An isolated thing from all I love. 
 From all I clung to, I am left alone 
 With melancholy : nothing softens now 
 Its bitterness ; no consolation comes 
 To heal the sacrifice that I have made. 
 Her shadow is before me everywhere, 
 And I dwell on it with abstracted eye, 
 
SCENE v.] THE DELUGE. 23 
 
 Until I start — as in the leaf I hear, 
 
 Or think I hear — the accents of her voice 
 
 Recalling me ! There is a melody 
 
 Among the woods and waters not unfelt 
 
 By him whose heart is Nature's sanctuary ; 
 
 But when Astarte speaks, I feel a joy 
 
 Till then unknown, as if she held the key, 
 
 Opening the secrets of my inner being. 
 
 I know not whether joy is mixed with pain : 
 
 But the deep tenderness of her sweet voice 
 
 Inspires a passion in me more allied 
 
 To sadness than delight, and yet a feeling 
 
 More exquisite than any joy could give. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 How the mind magnifies the thing it loves ! 
 Hiding its due proportions with the wealth 
 Of its overflowing feelings. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Look on her : 
 Then own how weak are words to express the charm 
 Of her exceeding beauty. I would liken 
 Her face to something heavenly, yet I cannot 
 Imagine aught more lovely than our earth ; 
 But then she hath not the day's joyousness, 
 Its life and many stirring pageants— no. 
 
24 THE DELUGE. [SCENE V. 
 
 She doth resemble Nature when the Evening 
 Throws her dim vesture round her ; when the first 
 Faint Stars shed their wan rays upon her features, 
 Half visionary in the fading distance ; 
 Meeting of sobered lights and gentlest hues, 
 And twilight harmonies without a name ! 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Thou art thyself as visionary : thou 
 Takest all this too nearly ; thou shouldst slight her ; 
 Answer her pride with greater : ill dost thou, 
 In feeding idle thoughts and sickly musings. 
 Which, like the parisital plants, cling round, 
 And waste away thy strength : arouse thy reason ; 
 Be thou the master of thyself; — the Mind, 
 Thou wert ordained here, and set to govern ! 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 No words of counsel heal the infected mind ; 
 That colours all things with its own disease. 
 Showing the giver harsh and pitiless. 
 Ask not if human grief be reasonable. 
 But if we grieve : this very truth, that man 
 Vexes himself without a cause is evil ; 
 Consider thou the feeUng of the mind. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 ril tell thee who hath wrought on her — that heart 
 
SCENE v.] THE DELUGE. 25 
 
 Of pride, her sister Azoara. Hear, — 
 There's not a day hath passed for many moons, 
 But they have walked together, and held commune, 
 Leaving their tents, and still ascending Hermon, 
 At sunset 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 'Tis the hour which of late 
 She hath forbade me to approach her tent : 
 It was the time of all our fondest meetings, 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 My Lillah, too, hath marked, that when the Star 
 Of Evening shines, a light descends from it, 
 As if an Angel visited the earth. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 My eyes, at last, are opened : and yet, no— 
 It must not, cannot be. Astarte never 
 Would listen to unhallowed love, forbade 
 By God and Nature. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Yet the Angels still 
 Walk on the earth, and are accessible ; 
 To human passions ; and if they love not. 
 They may make erring women worship them 
 In their pure beauty and intelligence : 
 And, in their heaven, they cannot look upon 
 A lovelier creature than Astarte ! 
 
26 THE DELUGE. [sCENE V. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Never 1 
 She is too young, too innocent, too fearful ; 
 I know her nature well 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Then thou should'st know 
 That such are easiest wrought upon by those 
 Of firmer temper, until they become 
 The very opposites of what they were. 
 If Azoara*s pride can stoop, and soften. 
 Owning immortal beauty, doubt not thou 
 Her influence upon her gentler sister. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 But the deep sin of meeting them: — the daring 
 To link their human natures with divine. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 When the heart once loves, it doth cease to reason : 
 
 All is forgotten in its own profound. 
 
 Absorbing feelings : all the overruling scruples 
 
 Which seemed insuperable, soften then 
 
 Their forms, till they become familiar, 
 
 Viewed by habitual eye ; and hope flies o'er them, 
 
 Heedless of all save reaching its desires. 
 
 'Tis like eternity, of the present born ; 
 
SCENE v.] THE DELUGE. fi7 
 
 It hath no past, no future, for all is, 
 And to be — ever. 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 I know Angels walked 
 On earth, rare visitants, since that blest time 
 When every hill was a bright stepping-stone 
 From heaven, and an altar-place for man. 
 But he is changed, as are the Elements, 
 Which emulate his wild and lawless deeds. 
 For now storms come and desolate the earth ; 
 And, ever and anon, the fire and flood 
 Sweep the proud palaces of men away. 
 And Watch-towers of their Star-idolatry. 
 God is remembered only by our race 
 Among the mountains ; war and rapine are 
 Let loose upon the earth ; the strong, secure 
 Themselves within their walls of strength : the weak, 
 Are driven from their fields, and slaughtered, caUing 
 On God in vain. But now are wrathful signs 
 Beheld on earth from heaven ; and foretel 
 Some dreadful retribution is at hand. 
 At such a time what do the angels here ? 
 Do they not see the anger of the Lord ? 
 And if they have beheld and felt it, they 
 Have long departed to their place.] 
 
'28 THE DELUGE. [sCENE V. 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Why thb. 
 Doth Azoara bear such haughty gesture ? 
 And walk upon the earth with steps as proud 
 As if she held no commune with her race ? 
 'Tis that she hath some heavenly visitant. 
 Who raiseth her above them ; and Astarte, 
 What hath so changed her towards thee ? My brother ! 
 Whatever it be, she heeds thee not ; so thou 
 Should'st slight her, or, at least, forget ; the heart 
 Cannot love that by which it is rejected : 
 But spurned, doth arm itself with innate pride. 
 Scorning the unworthy altar where it knelt. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Ay, love can act thus, when, of passion born. 
 Dying, at last, of its satiety : 
 It masks the fiercest feelings : there are hours 
 When I have taken refuge even in hate : 
 But when the fit was past, I found my hate 
 Was only love in madness : that forgiveness 
 Followed — while my heart turned to her a^i..-. 
 Mingling its blessing with its penitence. 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DELUGE. 29 
 
 SCENE VI. 
 Irad — Hammon — Noah. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 How now, my son ! why dost thou loiter here, 
 Wasting in an unprofitable commune 
 The day of worship that is set apart 
 Devoted to the service of the Lord ? 
 Behold, our day of rest is half gone by ; 
 Yet our burnt offerings are still unpiled. 
 Art thou too sinking in that sensual sloth, 
 Forerunner of the evils which have made 
 This generation come to what they are ? 
 
 HAMMON, 
 
 My Father, I am thine in faith and hope. 
 The speech of Irad dwelt upon the change, 
 That, with each Moon, becomes more awful 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Ay, 
 No season this to be inert ! the blind 
 May feel, and the deaf understand the signs 
 And portents that are daily given us. 
 The growing wrath of God is manifest ; 
 
30 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VI. 
 
 But, whether that He hardeneth men's hearts, 
 Or their own headstrong passions, they are blind ; 
 And rush upon their ruin. Do we not 
 Behold each day from our high places, scenes 
 Of blood and rapine ? how the fires blaze nightly. 
 How shrieks of those the slaughtered rise up, calling 
 In their last agonies to God in vain. 
 He hath raised up his Witnesses against them, 
 Who judge them, and condemn, but will they heed 
 The mortal prophet, who disown the God ? 
 They, who on every mountain build up Towers, 
 And bow down to the Stars, and Hosts of Heaven ? 
 Can they feel Him within their hearts ? the fools. 
 Who, round the golden mould of their own hands, 
 Revel in mad idolatry ! 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 My Father ! 
 Let us not judge too harshly : God doth not 
 Condemn like us ; much of this wickedness 
 Hath been instilled, which else had never entered 
 Into the mind of unassisted man. 
 We know that Angels walked upon the earth. 
 Who taught men to look up with reverence. 
 Yea, and with fear, to the bright hosts above. 
 They spoke of mysteries to be untold, 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DELUGE. 31 
 
 And fathomless ; and thus their hearers filled 
 
 With thirst for knowledge, only quenched in death. 
 
 We know that evil spirits walk the earth. 
 
 Who tempted Eve to loss of Paradise, 
 
 And Cain to homicide ; that Sorcerers are : 
 
 Adepts to darkness ; who would read the Stars. 
 
 From hence the Giant race, who filled the earth 
 
 With rapine ; and who first taught men to find 
 
 The steel with which they slew themselves. From these 
 
 Have sprung the many evils which have made 
 
 Men what they are. But shall not rather God 
 
 Root out the causes ? 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Son ! thou errest ; life 
 Was given, as thou knowest, as do all 
 Who walk with fear of God before their eyes. 
 To be a place of trial ; and beset 
 With dangers and temptations ; to essay 
 Our faith, which without proof, could not be shown : 
 For this was Paradise assigned — and lost. 
 Our Parents strove and fell, and have entailed 
 Their weakness on their children, but on whom 
 Perchance a heavier vengeance shall descend. 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Patriarch ! it is as thou hast said ; but man. 
 
^2 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VI. 
 
 May he not ask why God created him ? 
 Knowing, in His great prescience, that his work 
 Would, in the end, dishonour Him ? And how 
 Can passion ruffle the Almighty Being, 
 To feel revenge, the lowest of our failings ? 
 He who is love, and made the world in love, 
 Yea, all creation, which is emanation 
 Of Love enduring through eternity ! 
 And why, oh ! why hath He not given us power 
 Over our passions to restrain them, knowing 
 That yielding, we become their sacrifice ? 
 
 NOAH, 
 
 Peace, thou blasphemer ! God hath made all equal : 
 
 Free to choose evil or reject, which is not 
 
 Like good, presented to him everywhere, 
 
 But to be found — if sought. If He opposed 
 
 The search, where would be man's free will, or means 
 
 To show his faith or disbelief in Him ? 
 
 He looketh from above, and holds the scales : 
 
 And marks to which the human heart inclines. 
 
 Irad ! I chide too hastily ; I know 
 
 Thy heart, and that it is the fitful fever 
 
 Of human passion which in thee rebels. 
 
 Thou hast been captive to the race of Cain : 
 
 To one who hath not the Ancestral pride 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DELUGE. 33 
 
 Of that vain tribe. I marked it, nor opposed ; 
 For who, save God, should come betv^^een the hearts 
 That nature draws together ? But she was 
 Beloved by all : and men, while gazing on her. 
 Forgot the curse attached to her proud race. 
 Behold, at length, ev'n she, too, shows the taint 
 Inherent in her blood ; for, with no cause. 
 Save the light impulse of self-will, she now 
 Withdraws her love, and hath forsaken thee. 
 Nay — hear me ! I condemn thee not, but counsel. 
 She now withholds her love, yea, shuns thee, swayed, 
 For so thy brethren say, by her proud Sister. 
 Irad ! thou seest the base of human love, 
 On what foundation it doth rest ; and think. 
 In chase of this vain shadow, how thou hast 
 Forgot thy love to Him who made thee ! lo. 
 The earthly fails thee, turn to that of heaven ! 
 All things are drawing to their end : even I, 
 "Whether that, standing on the verge of Life, 
 I see into futurity, with eyes 
 Sharpened by fast and faith, or that Years give 
 To the mind's eye a visual prophecy, 
 I feel the symptoms of a mighty change. 
 
 \_ Approaching him familiarly. 
 Irad ! forget thy trials, which shall end. 
 
34 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VI. 
 
 And give thy undivided heart to God. 
 Her dreams, like yours, with time will pass away ; 
 What is all passionate feeling but delusion ? 
 Born from the feverish nerves of youth, unreal 
 And magnified ; and which decay and die 
 Before the eye of age ; each tint that made 
 The heaven of our youth is then departed. 
 We do not turn from them, 'tis they forsake us. 
 Walking along our solitary path. 
 Till a new morning dawns upon our souls. 
 Hammon ! I go to raise the Altar : he 
 Perchance will hear my words and follow me. 
 
 [Noah departs^ 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 My brother ! come : the sacrifice will draw thee 
 From thy own thoughts, and tranquillize thy mind. 
 Action is the true element of life ; 
 All happiness is in unreached pursuit. 
 What is our life ? — a circle of vague wishes, 
 Of hopes renewing from their death : repose 
 Is weariness to him who nought desires ; 
 And he, who nothing has to hope or fear, 
 Is the most wretched of all sufferers. 
 Arouse but from thy torpor, thou wilt prove 
 Utility itself is happiness : 
 
SCENE VI.] THE DELUGE, 35 
 
 If thou art useful, thou art virtuous ; 
 In making others happy, thou shalt find 
 A healthier happiness restored to thee ! 
 
 TRAD. 
 
 Ay, in a torpor, in a state of death 
 
 In all but movement : passionless repose. 
 
 In which the pausing mind can contemplate 
 
 Its resignation and mute sacrifice. 
 
 I shall resolve to this at last, I know ; 
 
 But not while yet a spark of hope remains ; 
 
 Not whilst one human feeling flutters in me ; 
 
 Not till I sink in utter hopelessness, 
 
 Resigned to anything. Let us obey 
 
 The Patriarch : for lo, the crystal Noon 
 
 Throws back her veil, and shows the sparkling Stars 
 
 Gemming her awful forehead. 
 
 Thou say'st well ; 
 The sacrifice will draw me from myself. 
 For oh ! what dearer joy have I now left 
 Than pouring forth that passion for her, which 
 Is born from her, refined and chastened down. 
 And sanctified into religion ! feeling 
 My soul o'erflow while interceding for her, 
 As for a spotless Angel to be saved 
 Forth from the wreck of a demolished world. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE DELUGE. [sCENE VII. 
 
 SCENE VII. 
 
 A woody recess on Mount Hermon — a cavern beside 
 the mountain ; before its entrance, 
 
 Oraziel and Astarte. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Here let us rest awhile, and feel our life ; 
 
 The existence which we draw but from ourselves. 
 
 The hours before us still are unenjoyed. 
 
 Prophets of coming joy — the unproved Hours ! 
 
 Thou art my life of immortality, 
 
 Which thou now sharest with me : what is time, 
 
 Or space, or death, when thou art near me ? — visions, 
 
 Unreal as are themselves. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 But what if Irad 
 Should wander 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Lo— how Nature answers thee ! 
 Look at the Mountains girding thee, each peak 
 Steeped in blue heaven : and around their sides. 
 The insuperable Woods from base to height, 
 
SCENE VII.] THE DELUGE. 37 
 
 Rising o'er each, as cloud o'er settling cloud ; 
 The woods — the solemn and majestic robes 
 Nature assumes when seated on her throne. 
 There is no visible motion save above : 
 The changes of the Shadow and the Light ; 
 The calm, slow march of the majestic heavens ! 
 Be, what thou art, the Angel of this spot : 
 And sit, in thy exceeding beauty, here. 
 Beside this withered trunk, contrasting well 
 Against the beautiful its own decay ! — 
 Beneath whose over-canopying shadows 
 Thou standest in thy self-reflected hght, 
 Even as a star amid the wastes of heaven. 
 This grey and antique trunk, inert as Earth, 
 Yet teeming like its Parents : high in air 
 Raising its ponderous arms and visible veins. 
 The innumerable leaves of its rich hair ; 
 Each leaf itself a world of infinite life; 
 Each living point, one mirror of the Whole. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Would that my spirit, too, could feel, like thine. 
 The quietude that settles o'er the scene ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 And why are restless thoughts awaked ?— erewhile 
 OrazieVs love absorbed thy heart, too full 
 
38 THE DELUGE. [sCENE VII. 
 
 For any other feeling. It was once 
 
 Thy end, thy hope of life : but now, of late, 
 
 Thy bosom is become receptacle 
 
 Of hidden thoughts which are not hidden — well 
 
 Thy innocent clear brow reflects their shadow I 
 
 Nay, they have changed thy gestures as 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Alas ! 
 It is thyself hast made me thus. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Astarte ! 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Nay, look not thus on me — it is thyself. 
 
 Oh ! from the moment that a shadow rests 
 
 Upon the brow where the soul's inmost thoughts 
 
 Were open once as daylight, it is felt : 
 
 And strikes a sudden chill on the quick sense 
 
 Of watching, ever anxious hope, which then 
 
 Disguises, too, its feeling : not to show 
 
 The wound received, or sadden with distrust ; 
 
 And thus is taught concealment, even when 
 
 It most doth mourn it 
 
 Yes ; each wish and hope, 
 Ajid inmost feeling, were laid open to thee. 
 And if 1 asked the secrets of thy heaven. 
 
SCENE VII.] THE DELUGE. 39 
 
 Might it not be forgiven me by love ? 
 
 Or the remembrance — which so well thou know'st, 
 
 Of my brief span, when I shall be at rest, 
 
 And thy confessions buried in my grave. 
 
 But — I have done. I will adore thee still, 
 
 As some immortal Star in whose soft light 
 
 I am hallowed : but to whose divine abode 
 
 I am too lowly to aspire ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Astarte ! 
 Think'st thou Oraziel would hide from thee 
 Aught that could minister to thy delight ? 
 What ? — do those downcast eyes that rise not now 
 To read the truth in mine, distrust me ? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Never ! 
 For if thou now did'st wing thy flight to heaven, 
 Think not Astarte's voice would call thee back. 
 Oh, no ! too long already hast thou given me 
 A happiness that, without thee, my heart 
 Had never dreamed, and there must come an hour 
 When I, alas, must leave it all too soon. 
 Then let us here pour forth our inmost thoughts ; 
 I will confess — do thou as thy soul moves thee. 
 Oraziel ! thou art changed — not in thyself, 
 
40 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VII. 
 
 But other feelings have awaked. When first 
 
 We met, there was a joy in thee that lived 
 
 Upon the present only. Those bright eyes 
 
 In their effulgence never turned from me. 
 
 The Sky, the glorious Images of Nature, 
 
 The setting Sun and Stars were unbeheld ; 
 
 For we were all in all ; the outward world 
 
 Was nothing, was forgotten. Slowly then, 
 
 And imperceptibly to all eyes, save 
 
 Those of quick hope, a change came over thee. 
 
 Still thou wert outwardly the same : those eyes 
 
 Looked tenderness ; it was their character 
 
 Was changed, as day doth change to twilight, saddened, 
 
 Yet still serene, though deepening in gloom. 
 
 While sitting by me, even while thy voice 
 
 Came tenderest on my ear, Tve watched thine eyes 
 
 Gazing on the dark sky, as if thy thoughts 
 
 Were centering there : or on the rocks, or woods, 
 
 As if thou mourned'st something which was fled 
 
 From them for ever ! 
 
 And when first we met, 
 Our wanderings and resting places were 
 'Midst fields and flowers, springing as our^hopes. 
 And beautiful and holy as our loves. 
 Now we are led, unconsciously, to rest 
 
SCENE VII.] THE DELUGE. 41 
 
 Beneath the pale grey crags that frown above us ; 
 Which seem like records pointing us to read 
 Of desolation past — perhaps, to come ! 
 As if there were some sympathy of fate 
 Between us, soon to be made manifest. 
 I have told all, Oraziel ! and relieved 
 My bosom from a weight oppressing it : 
 Enough that thou hast heard, — I ask no more. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Yes — thou shalt know the truths I would have hidden. 
 It is in vain we strive against our fate ; 
 And — least of all — myself; and never more 
 Could we be what we have been ; for the heart. 
 Human, or heavenly, cannot rest, while feeling 
 A wish, an aching want, ungratified. 
 Be all save thy affections lost — they will. 
 From my confession, closer to me cling. 
 
 This Earth was first inhabited from high : 
 
 The Watchers, those who walk the realms of space, 
 
 Beheld it in its first eternal spring ; 
 
 But they, forgetting their high duties — nought 
 
 Is perfect save the One — descended there. 
 
 To live in freedom and in happiness. 
 
 They disobeyed their Maker, yet were not 
 
42 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VII. 
 
 Punished as yet : they still walked in the light 
 
 Of their abandoned Heaven, reminding them 
 
 Of the ethereal heights from which they fell. 
 
 But soon inherent sin was manifest ; 
 
 The pride, that loftier Powers had overthrown. 
 
 Immortal, they forgot their origin : 
 
 Deeming that they were aelf-existent ; then, 
 
 (For gently the Eternal dealt with them,) 
 
 Not until then, a Change came that was felt. 
 
 Their self-emitted radiance became dim : 
 
 They walked in twilight ; darkened were their eyes 
 
 To rays that shone forth from the Gates of Heaven, 
 
 The gloTwfelt from God — Himself unseen. 
 
 Nature was now their only light and guide ; 
 
 The intelligible Voice of Him no more 
 
 They understood ; no longer did they hear, 
 
 While gazing on the midnight Host of Stars, 
 
 Borne through the space the sound of distant hymns. 
 
 The Choirs of their immortal Populations ! 
 
 Yet still the whisperings of the Voiceful trees, 
 The mournful Winds, the Twilight's fading hues. 
 Spoke eloquently well : yea, woke an echo 
 From their too slumbering hearts : but their remorse, 
 If such it were — was vain. They had forgotten 
 
SCENE VII.] THE DELUGE. 43 
 
 The solemn secret of their Destiny ! 
 And when they struggled to recal it, they 
 Grasped but a shadow, as unlike the real, 
 As the material Sun is to its God. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Alas for them — the lost — the fallen Angels ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Then, as their latest warning, Man was made : 
 Being of lower grade, yet heavenly still. 
 Image, not -only of the Eternal One, 
 But of the world : his spirit is from Him ; 
 For what else is the soul God breathed in him, 
 But God himself in-dwelling there ! the shrine 
 Reared by His hands from forth the dust of earth. 
 In him, as in a mirror, doubtless given 
 With such wise purpose, they beheld, and felt 
 In his immediate fall, how weak is mind 
 Trusting in its own power ; they saw, and owned ; 
 And many turned to their allegiance, 
 And they were seen no more on earth. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Ah — how thy brow is changing — all in vain 
 Would'st thou repress some dreadful truth ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 There were 
 
44 THE DELUGE. [sCENE Vll. 
 
 Two spirits who remained behind, but they 
 Were one in soul. They saw, and loved, the same ; 
 The daughters of the Earth ; and felt, if they 
 Abandoned them, they should return again, 
 And lose their Heaven for ever. 
 ASTARTE, (throwing herself on her knees before him.) 
 
 Oh, forgive 
 My earthlier nature yielding to its fears ! 
 They destroy not my love — they cannot — that 
 Will live o'er death : but they are born from it. 
 Leave — leave me here to live — to die alone ! 
 I — only I — am guilty ; now I feel 
 The pangs of my remorse awake !— it is 
 The Voice of God that warns me ; thou hast left 
 Thy heaven for me, and to behold thee there, 
 Would have crowned all my happiness, though I, 
 Dying, could not have shared it with thee ! Now 
 My eyes are opened ; yet a little while, 
 I should have been at peace, and known it not ; 
 And fek, so weak is woman's trusting heart. 
 That all my errings would have been forgiven. 
 Would I had never been — for then hadst thou 
 Still dwelt in heaven, and never loved another. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 And speaks thy heart in this ? Dost thou now shrink 
 
SCENE VII.] THE DELUGE. 45 
 
 From him who sacrificed his all for thee ? 
 
 Thou didst not draw me down, it was my will : 
 
 And I — shall I be the condemned in loving 
 
 The lowliest, gentlest, purest of God's works ? 
 
 Have I turned thee from Him, or taught thee creeds 
 
 Of pride and disbelief? And if thou hast 
 
 Beheld me saddened, it was from the thought 
 
 Of what I was, and am ; and the regret 
 
 That thou couldst not partake that heaven which I 
 
 Have forfeited. But fallen though I am, 
 
 I have gained much : my mind hath lost its pride, 
 
 Subdued and softened down by human feelings, 
 
 To almost human lowliness : to all 
 
 The fondest, gentlest affections : yet. 
 
 Thou weak one ! would' st debar me from thy lot. 
 
 Because I cannot raise thee to my own. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 I cannot answer thee— I only feel : 
 
 If I have erred, my heart is only guilty. 
 
 For, in its hope, it felt its imperfections. 
 
 Yet could not, dared not own them ; I am thine 
 
 For ever — ever thine ! 
 
46 THE DELUGE. [sCENE VIII. 
 
 SCENE VIII. 
 
 Enter Irad. 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 What is'tl see? 
 Astarte leaning on an Angel's bosom ? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Nay, hide me from him — oh ! let us depart. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Stay — it is / will leave thee, my Astarte ! 
 How little dost thou know this heart, to deem 
 It could reproach thee now ! its fate is fixed, 
 And though I scarcely felt a ray of hope, 
 'Tis darkened now for ever. Despair hath 
 No passion, no resistance ; but doth yield. 
 Resigned beneath its vast calamity, 
 That makes all struggle hopeless — it doth seem 
 Like patience — while within — but fare thee well ! 
 
 {Going.) 
 ASTARTE (staying him,) 
 Irad ! thou shalt not go— condemn, but hear me. 
 Ask thy own heart — is love in our own control ? 
 
SCENE VIII.] THE DELUGE. 47 
 
 I grew up with thee as with one to be 
 
 Thy helpmate : to divide and share alike 
 
 The common ills and burdens of our life. 
 
 I knew not then I had a heart ; its feelings 
 
 Were not awakened ; natural affections. 
 
 And duties filled the circle of my days. 
 
 I saw a higher Being ; then, I felt 
 
 Towards thee as a sister ; in thy presence 
 
 I knew not that quick sense of fear and joy, 
 
 As in the Angels : and when absent from thee, 
 
 I sighed not as I sighed for him, while feeling 
 
 Time was a void till I beheld him, filled 
 
 With vague and anxious hopes ; but, when he came. 
 
 Unconscious of its flight till it was past. 
 
 I felt that this was love : that if I gave 
 
 My hand to thee, my heart would be another's, 
 
 With all its hopes and dreams of happiness ; 
 
 For here they centre, and will be remembered, 
 
 When she who confesses — thus sleeps in quiet. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Nay, I have done ; thou hast indeed been tried. 
 But can he save thee, whom thou hang'st upon ? 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Mortal ! I blame thee not in loving her : 
 But accuse not the Angel in thy wrath. 
 
48 THE DELUGE. [SCENE VITI. 
 
 Astarte's free will was her own ; her nature 
 Turned to a heavenly, not an earthly mate. 
 
 TRAD. 
 
 May she be happier ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 She will 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Alas ! 
 Is restless agitation happiness ? 
 Hopes ever born to be renewed, and die 
 In apathy, their rest, as in a grave, 
 From our weak natures, all unfit to bear 
 A life of excitation ? Joy itself 
 Exhausted, ends in sorrow, yea, despair, 
 And wastes the vital spirits that ebb back 
 With still decreasing power. No, the heart 
 Like the soft streamlet loves to glide along. 
 Unruffled and serene its peaceful way ! 
 Imaging all in heaven and on earth, 
 Of quiet and of beautiful : and blending 
 Itself delightedly with what it dwells on ; 
 And so it wanders on its dreamy course. 
 Till sleep steals on it, mingling with the Deep. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Thou speakest of thy mortal self, and well ; 
 
SCENE VIII.] THE DELUGE. 49 
 
 IRAD (hastily.) 
 I live among immortal things, and thus 
 I am myself immortal : for does not 
 An immortality commence with him, 
 Whose soul is blended with eternal natures ? 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 But my Astarte hath reposed her hopes 
 On one whose being is unchangeable ; 
 And she shall be, if hope deceive me not, 
 Undying ; for her nature is divine. 
 If this thou callest being saved — I too 
 Can save her. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 What ? are thy immortal eyes, 
 By gazing on Astarte's, so closed up 
 To portents manifold of outward things. 
 That thou read'st not amidst the Elements, 
 That thou hear''st not in echoes of the Earth, 
 That thou feel'st not in thy intenser spirit, 
 A dreadful Change is near ? 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 What meaneth Irad ? 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Visions of fantasy, the engenderings 
 Of watching, and of fast. 
 
50 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IX. 
 
 SCENE IX. 
 
 ISRAPHIL — AZOARA — OrAZIEL — AsTARTE — IrAD. 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Oraziel ! 
 Hast thou beheld the signal ? 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 How? 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 We watched 
 The twilight from the Mountain, and we saw 
 Our own Star rising o'er it ; when a light 
 Flashed from it, and I knew the banner spread, 
 The warning of our brethren, to be 
 Herald to us that danger is at hand. 
 I looked through the Infinity of Space ; 
 When far — upon the very verge extreme 
 Of Angels' ken, I saw the fiery plague, 
 The flaming messenger, the star of wrath ; 
 Urging through worlds recoiling its fierce way, 
 And sparing them, perchance, to turn on this. 
 
SCENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 61 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 O God ! and must this — can this be ? No, no — 
 
 jA, is a fantasy — an idle fear : 
 
 The earth is grown corrupt, and all have sinned : 
 
 But have we not foregone our Paradise ? 
 
 And, left to human frailties, and the sway 
 
 Of our own natures, without rule, or guide, 
 
 Is it a marvel if we walk astray ? 
 
 Can He who made the earth in love destroy it, 
 
 Or His own creatures, for indulging feelings 
 
 He gave them, and which draw us nearer Him ? 
 
 Yea, make us like Him 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Sister ! thou dost debase 
 Thy nature, and thy love, by thy weak fears. 
 Shall we shrink from our punishment, when they 
 Have hazarded their all in heaven for us ? 
 Why, fear itself cannot believe this earth. 
 With all its rocks and waters, hills and woods, 
 Can become unstable as is the Cloud, 
 And melt in nothingness. If God made the world, 
 And who else formed it ? — He made it the Image 
 Of his perfection ; of his own ideas 
 Of truth and beauty, harmony and love : 
 Thus, 'tis an emanation of His Nature, 
 
 e2 
 
52 THE DELUGE. [SCENE IX. 
 
 The archetype of Truth : attached to Him 
 
 As is the following Shadow to the Form. 
 
 And shall He build like man to overthrow ? 
 
 Weak — wretched man ! least portion of the whole ? 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 My Azoara ! think not aught below 
 Imperishable ; nothing is unchanged, 
 Save Him the deathless, and unchangeable. 
 Angels, and men, and worlds, are emanations 
 From God, the Substance ; they. His shadows all. 
 Appearances : their changing is not death. 
 But only their recal again to Him. 
 Before He made them. He was All : in them 
 He multiplies his Form : the mirrors, they, 
 Reflecting but the One. The days of man 
 Are numbered as the Stars' duration ; they, 
 The motes within the sunbeams of a Life, 
 Whose compass is eternity. This Earth, 
 Its plains, and mountains, are the monuments 
 Of life extinct, renewing : whose gray rocks 
 Bear testimonies on their ancient brows 
 Of dateless time, which man shall read hereafter ; 
 It drew its being. Cloud-like, from the Sun, 
 Narrowing its cycles till it sink again, 
 From whence its blazing being first was hurled. 
 
CENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 53 
 
 These are its natural vicissitudes, 
 
 That, like the seasons, have their stated times : 
 
 And whether now that hour is come, I know not. 
 
 AZOARA, 
 
 Then welcome Fate, whatever form it take ! 
 
 1 mourn no more my destiny, 
 
 So it be shared with thee : 
 
 What would I not endure for thy dear sake ? 
 
 For, oh, I know thy love 
 
 My Angel ! and I feel my own ; 
 I know the soul in me is from above : 
 
 And, though inferior to thine, 
 
 Yet it is still divine : 
 
 Yea, lighted from as pure a shrine \ 
 But thou wilt live immortal round His throne; 
 
 Oh, may'st thou never feel alone ! 
 
 And I must still have died at last ; 
 And now I shall not feel life's slow decay. 
 Changing and withering, but pass away, 
 Like a brief sunbeam, bright, then overcast : 
 
 But thou wilt think of me when I am past : 
 
 And if I turn on thee a tearless eye, 
 'Tis I am happy such a death to die ! 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 My Sister 1 oh, my Sister dear ! 
 
54 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IX. 
 
 Talk not thus, nor hope forsake : 
 
 For thou, in thy despair, dost make 
 The very worst appear ; 
 Which, in the distance now, we only fear. 
 
 Oh no ! — I cannot — dare not think 
 
 That death was made for us ; 
 
 That hearts are wrenched asunder thus. 
 I feel such love as ours will hnk, 
 And guard, and hallow us from earthly ill ; 
 That time will bless and sanctify it still ! 
 
 God makes his Angels live in happiness 
 
 For ever ; why should be awarded less 
 
 To us, who are so happy here ? 
 No, Azoara, dear : 
 All we enjoy will be for ever ours ; 
 The earth, and sky, and laughing flowers : 
 They are a part of us, and cannot die : 
 They grew up with us from our infant eye ; 
 The Love that made them, pleads for us on high. 
 
 NOAH (without) 
 Irad, where art thou ? 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 *Tis my Father's cry 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Methinks the Voice is full of Prophecy ! 
 
SCENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 55 
 
 Enter Noah and Hammon. 
 How ? — Angels with the daughters of the earth ! 
 
 And absent from their mansions now ? 
 Have ye, then, forfeited your heavenly birth ? 
 
 Yet still the faded glories on your brow, 
 
 Though dimmed, your state avow ; 
 I deemed communion with our earth forbidden. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Patriarch ! our abode is Heaven. 
 
 Yet upon the earth we staid, 
 
 Deeming, though we disobeyed. 
 Our crime had less of erring than if hidden. 
 
 Each loved a mortal maid : 
 But felt such love would be forgiven. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Spirits ! I judge ye not, far less condemn : 
 
 Ye know the feeling which your Souls have stirred. 
 
 And it is there the Voice of God is heard. 
 
 And only felt ; but how will ye save them ? 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 What danger threatens ? 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Nay, ye are fallen indeed ! 
 Where are your eyes of faith, that cannot read 
 
66 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IX. 
 
 Portents that to the blind are manifold : 
 Truths that the deaf have felt in thunder told. 
 Have ye not seen the signs above ? the face 
 Of Nature changed ; the devastating trace 
 Of tempests, and heaven's fires that emulate 
 The wrath of man in his most reckless hate ? 
 I heard the People's voices on the wind 
 Rise like the roar of waters unconfined. 
 Their eyes are opening, and they feel the hour 
 Of Retribution o'er their heads doth lower. 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 And if this be, 
 This most inexorable doom, 
 This crushing all in one engulphing tomb : 
 This giving life but to betray. 
 This wrenching love from love away ; 
 This mingling the good and ill 
 In one destruction — what shall it fulfil ? 
 What shall the deed avail, 
 The blind and merciless decree ? 
 Shall not the saved have human natures still ? 
 Yes — the same trials shall again assail : 
 The same unvaried tale 
 Of innocence — guilt — shame— remorse— prevail ; 
 
SCENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 57 
 
 And time, disease, and death, efface 
 Each track of happiness ; until their race 
 Again in strangling Waters shall expire, 
 Or in annihilating Fire ! 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Never ! — His promise hath been given. 
 Unheard by ye who have forsaken heaven. 
 
 God walks no more with man on earth. 
 
 Yet watcheth — as at his first birth. 
 And One, at last, shall emanate from Him, 
 
 Transmuted Godhead —who shall make 
 The Arch-angel's glories at his right hand dim. 
 
 He shall teach man his spirit's heaivenly lot, 
 
 By sin, and doubt, and pride forgot : 
 
 Till he shall earthlier creeds forsake 
 For Truth — His words their guide and oracle, 
 
 Even to the ends of time ; 
 Making him fearless, in his faith sublime. 
 
 Of the grave — Death — and Hell ! 
 
 The Shadows— not realities— which dwell 
 
 Between him and the Life he seeks on high. 
 
 Approach me. Angels ! I, even I, 
 Have parted from the living God ! 
 
58 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IX. 
 
 Unseen by ye who near Him trod : 
 
 The Future is revealed before my eye ; 
 
 My soul, my soul is full of prophecy. 
 
 I speak His words — hence, if ye would be safe ! 
 
 Already in their caves the Waters chafe : 
 
 An influence doth work on them from high : 
 
 Their chains are loosening, and they shall be hurled 
 
 Forth from their depths, and swallow up the world ! 
 
 Spirits, away ! — your home is in the sky. 
 'Tis not too late, ye yet may save 
 Yourselves : but earth must sink within her grave ; 
 
 And these shall suffer 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Nothing : we will soar 
 
 With them to some eternal Star, 
 
 To some bright realm of peace afar, 
 Where time is unknown, where death frights no more ; 
 There shall they dwell in bliss with us for evermore. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Be yours to prove what power ye have left, 
 When of obedience, faith, and love bereft 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Oh ! by your hopes of heaven, essay it not ! 
 We are content, are happy in our lot ; 
 
SCENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 59 
 
 Stay with us only for a while to see 
 How we will meet our hateful destiny : 
 Then flee to some untroubled spot, 
 Enough for us, we shall not be forgot. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Yes — leave us ! we will be submiss, 
 
 The bitterness of death is this ; 
 
 Yet hasten back to Heaven's half-opened gate, 
 
 Ere it be closed for ever, and too late ; 
 
 We yield to fate — for what can we oppose ? 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 The mind — itself an equal to all woes ! 
 That, to the last, asserts its steadfast will : 
 Which death annihilates — ^but cannot kill. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Behold, when erring passions lead astray. 
 Angels are weak as women ; Son ! away — 
 Up to the mountain with thy sire, and pray. 
 
 iRAD, (kneeling at ASTARTE's/ee^.) 
 Patriarch, I hear — behold how I obey : 
 Here do I kneel ! 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 What ? child of passion ! — rise : 
 Bend'st thou to her who turns from thee her eyes, 
 
60 THE DELUGE. [sCENE IX. 
 
 As if she knew thee not, or wished to shun ; 
 Hath she not sHghted thy rash love for one 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Forgive a weakness. Seer ! to thee unknown : 
 Thou knowest how I loved her ! she hath flown 
 From me, as flies the bird from its light spray, 
 When for some new thing it doth flit away ! 
 I kneel not to her Sister, for she is 
 Of haughtier nature. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 What seek'st thou in this ? 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Do thou implore her with me to return 
 To her first love ! or, if her bosom yearn 
 Towards the loftier one, oh, let her save 
 Her precious life from the impending grave 
 That yawns around her ! She may meet again 
 Her Angel-lord, a happy denizen 
 Of happier worlds ; 1 read upon his brow. 
 His power is past to aid or save her now. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Doth she relent, or sympathy avow ? 
 Or turn to thee as if her heart were moved 
 By thy fond words ? and if she ever loved, 
 Now — now would it appear, when hope and hfe 
 
SCENE IX.] THE DELUGE. 61 
 
 Hang on thy words — behold, how vain thy strife ! 
 
 She will not look on thee, but turns aside 
 
 Her head : hast thou not feeling left, nor pride ? 
 
 No sense of manhood in thee ? or hast thou 
 
 Forgot thy nature ? — hath love power to bow 
 
 Man thus to its control ? — to kneel unawed 
 
 To woman — he who kneels but to his God ? 
 
 I charge thee, follow ! and forsake 
 
 These death-doomed, or their fate partake. 
 
 Irad ! dost hear me ? — art thou turned to stone ? — - 
 
 As moveless and insensate thou art grown ! 
 
 I charge thee by the living God 
 
 To follow me, or share the rod 
 
 Of Vengeance ; if thou dost delay, 
 
 I lop thee like a rotten spray 
 
 From thy Ancestral trunk away : 
 
 Thy memory from my heart I sever ; 
 
 And God's curse light on thee for ever ! 
 
 [Noah departs. 
 
 IRAD, 
 
 {wildly throwing himself at astarte's feet, and grasp- 
 ing the folds of her robe.) 
 Oh ! that the passion swelling in this heart 
 Could be embodied in one burning word, 
 Felt — as I feel it now ! — oh, by the deep 
 
62 THE DELUGE. [SCENE IX. 
 
 Despair that thrills within this bosom !— by 
 The hope that once was its foretaste of heaven ! 
 By our young days together ! by thy beauty — 
 By the idolatry of this aching heart 
 So crushed by thy devotion to another — 
 Once all my own ! — by thy so precious life !— 
 And dearer, by thine immortality ! — 
 
 Astarte — wilt thou — ^wilt thou yet be mine ? 
 
 ISRAPHIL, (to AZOARA apart.) 
 All love is suffering — suffered thus in vain. 
 What tortures could be dealt on him, like those 
 He deals upon himself? — the agony — 
 The anguish— the despair. I pity him, 
 Yea, sympathise with griefs I could not share. 
 See how the changes of his visage show 
 The warring strife within ! — the jealousy, 
 The hate — yet love o'erruling ! — what a curse, 
 Even in mortal bosoms is the hell 
 Of unrequited passion ! 
 
 ORAZIEL, {to ASTARTE.) 
 
 Answer, love. 
 Whose is thy heart ? 
 
 ASTARTE, (hiding her face in the AngeVs bosom.) 
 For ever — ever thine ! 
 
 (I RAD rushes out,) 
 
SCENE X.] THE DELUGE. 63 
 
 AZOARA, {embracing her triumphantly.) 
 Now we are one — in life, in death we join ! 
 
 SCENE X. 
 
 The rocky solitudes of Mount Hermon. Time, day- 
 break. 
 
 IRAD alone. 
 The Morning breaks ; not joyously as wont, 
 But, Seraph-like, looks on this earth with eyes 
 Downcast, while their ethereal tinct beneath [ 
 Is dimly seen through tears. The world how still ! 
 As if Life were already dead and buried 
 In the deep grave of Darkness. Ay, this calm 
 Doth speak indeed : it is unnatural ; 
 It is not Nature's rest, but listening fear ; 
 The prescience of some danger, gathering 
 New terrors each slow instant from the heart ] 
 Of thrilling Expectation ! My own Voice 
 Appals, as if I were the only thing alive. 
 
 Behold they sleep below — the populous World, 
 
64 THE DELUGE. [SCENE X. 
 
 Their latest sleep, save that which is eternal ; 
 The retribution hanging o'er their heads, 
 Imminent ; yea, the arm of God upraised, 
 And they so weak, supine, and unprepared ! 
 
 Lo, how the leaden-coloured Light doth gleam 
 Upon those masses of enormous Clouds, 
 And hides again behind them, darkly maknig 
 Their dreadful aspects manifest ; they bear 
 The shapes of hurrying and perturbed Forms : 
 But silent all ! more awful, than if they 
 Proclaimed in thunder and in fire the ends 
 Of their tremendous ministry. 
 
 Oh God ! 
 And shall it be ? — Ye horrid precipices ! 
 Looking as everlasting as your Maker, 
 Can the Deep hide your heads ? and will ye not 
 Still raise your shattered and gigantic arms 
 Up to the Stars, and be a refuge place 
 To the weak atoms who shall flee to ye 
 For life and safety ? Can those Waves which are 
 Hurled broken from the footstool of your thrones. 
 Usurp and strangle ye ? —they can ! —If He 
 Whose arm did raise ye there, abandons ye, 
 Your base is built on stubble ! 
 
SCENE X.] THE DELUGE. 65 
 
 Ere the day 
 Is done, what portents shall ensue ! A thrill 
 Of horror creeps throughout my veins, while standing 
 Upon the brink of such an awful change. 
 And yet, above the chaos of my thoughts, 
 One light is steadfast ; yes, Astarte ! thou 
 Dost rise before me still ! Oh, even now> 
 So strong in hope is love, I feel amidst 
 The crash of Elements thou shalt be saved. 
 And still, perchance, though late, be mine. Behold 
 A sign I — a lightning-ray doth shoot from heaven. 
 And lights upon the Patriarch's tent — 'tis gone. 
 
 NOAH, {without) 
 Irad ! where art thou ? 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Here. 
 Enter Noah. 
 
 What ! dost thou waste 
 The precious moments in repinings vain. 
 When with thy brethren thou should 'st be joined 
 In fervent prayer for being saved ; to gain 
 The strength of faith in Him to meet the trial 
 That now hangs imminent above us ? 
 
 irad. 
 
 How? 
 
 F 
 
66 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XI. 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 The Ark is built, and resteth on the peak ; 
 
 Ev'n now our tribe, where thou should'st be, have left it, 
 
 To where it best may float upon the waves. 
 
 A Voice hath warned that, ere the work is done, 
 
 The vengeance of the Lord shall be begun. 
 
 Fly from this spot — ascend with me the hill : 
 
 IRAD, [following.^ 
 Thou wilt save her, oh God ! I feel it still. 
 
 SCENE XL 
 
 The mountainous solitudes of Hermon. 
 
 ISRAPHIL — AZOARA — OrAZIEL— AsTARTE. 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Is this our doom decreed ? and must we stand, 
 And meet destruction face to face? and feel 
 The bitterness of death ere it be past ; 
 Without a hope in God or from ourselves ? 
 Oh, though I heard the threat, I deemed it still 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE, C)7 
 
 A sound ; I thought our Maker's mercy was 
 As infinite as his absorbing love. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 And does Astarte in her fears forget 
 Her Angel's presence ? that his fate is joined 
 Inseparably with hers ? — these doubts may well 
 Become the earth-doomed, not the loved of heaven. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Look at me ! do I tremble ? — though those clouds 
 Hang o'er our heads as if they could no more 
 Control their wrath ; although the sullen sounds 
 Of pent-up Winds and Waters meet my ears, 
 Doth this hand tremble that is clasped in thine ? 
 
 Oraziel ! no my weaker nature fails ; 
 
 Because it feels the will within resigned 
 
 To meet the death from which it shrinks ; it sees 
 
 The worst, and is prepared ; and, when it comes, 
 
 I shall look passively upon the sights 
 
 That sterner natures might appal. 
 
 Farewell, 
 O thou dear Earth — that I have loved so well ! 
 Farewell the dim and leafy places, where 
 These eyes first opened to the azure air, 
 
 F 2 
 
68 THE DELUGE. [SCENE XI. 
 
 And drank in all the glories of the Day, 
 Stamped in my heart, that cannot pass away ! 
 The love, the life, the beauty which there dwells ; 
 The Stars that seemed like God*s own oracles. 
 Making me feel, while gazing on each shrine, 
 Although they spoke not, that their homes were mine ! 
 Farewell the twilight imaging that heaven 
 I never now shall see : and my own flowers. 
 Mingling their sweet breath with my own ; 
 Gladdening the earth with their bright eyes, which I 
 Have loved as living things, and felt, 
 Watching them in my solitary hours. 
 They were my hearfs companions given : 
 That human sympathies within them dwelt ; 
 For in the sunshine I have seen them glad, 
 
 As if my joy they had ! 
 And droop their heads beneath the sky o'ercast. 
 With a fine sorrow ! — they, too, die like me. 
 
 But not alone ; 
 When their bright hour is past, 
 They leave behind them for their memory 
 Some odorous breathings, and a few light leaves. 
 Frail playthings of the wind ; the Wind that grieves 
 Or seems to grieve above them ! 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 69 
 
 / shall pass, 
 And die unknown: — lost— buried in the mass 
 Of a departed World ; I shall not rest 
 On ,the sweet pillow of some human breast : 
 1 shall not hear the soothing sympathies 
 Of human love ! the silent speaking eyes 
 Whose feeling found no vent in words, but made 
 Their silence, more than eloquence, pervade 
 The answering spirit ; until even to die 
 Became but slumber's last tranquillity ; 
 A blessing — on my loved one's breast reclined. 
 Feeling I left my love — my life behind ! 
 Oh, that I thus had died, and never known 
 Love's desolating passion ! but have flown 
 Lightly from earth as gossamer doth rise, 
 Serenely wafted to the twiUght skies : 
 Or slumbered like the violet unseen. 
 Known only by its breath that it had been ! 
 While human eyes and human hearts had found 
 My grave, and sanctified the holy ground ! — 
 With tears drawn from the memories of love : 
 With prayers that had been borne to me above ; 
 And made a haunt of that familiar spot, 
 While I, in death, should not have been forgot ! 
 
 (She throws herself on her Sister's bosom ) 
 
70 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XI. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Check this wild passion, oh my Sister dear ! 
 I strive to listen ; and, without a tear, 
 To inspire haughtier feelings — but I feel 
 Thy love subdues me ! — I would not conceal 
 The voice of nature answering thee here, 
 
 isRAPHiL, (to Azoara, while comforting her Sister.) 
 Nay, Azoara — weep ! I blame thee not : 
 The pride that is with thy soft being wrought, 
 Is, like my own, immortal : but thy tears 
 Are human ; and thy nature more endears 
 To him who shares with thee thy human lot. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 And where are they, the elect who shall be saved ? 
 Who tremble at the fate that we have braved ? 
 Who in their caves and corners shrink from death ; 
 The wretched remnant of the seed of Seth. 
 They of inferior race, and mind, and powers : 
 Strong only in their selfishness o'er ours. 
 And bartering love of gain ; strife we resigned : 
 Our triumph the supremacy of Mind ! 
 Shall thei/ be rescued, and we perish ? — Yes — 
 These are the things that live — ^'tis ever thus — 
 Wanting alike the courage and the will 
 To dare or do aught great in good or ill. 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 71 
 
 How carefully are they concealed from view, 
 Ere the great wrecks of life and death ensue ! 
 To watch from some safe nook, with placid eye, 
 The desolation of a World roll by ! 
 We must tread in our father's path, and bear : 
 And meet our fate, and die— but not despair, 
 While they eke out their dregs of human life ; 
 So let them — soon will end their petty strife 
 With wants, and agonies of which 'tis made. 
 We shall not have to blush that we betrayed 
 Our selfish fears, abandoning our kin. 
 The great and good, to meet the death of sin : 
 Shaming our nature, and our origin ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Despond not, Azoara ! they shall not 
 
 Triumph o'er thee : what certain signs are given 
 
 Of this impending ruin ? I behold 
 
 Nought but the Clouds, the heralds of the storm ; 
 
 I see the birds flee to their nests, the beasts 
 
 To cover. Look down on the earth beneath : 
 
 If men feared for a while, 'tis past; it was 
 
 A dream of Noah's ; but if tthe worst befal. 
 
 And all the Elements were crushed together, 
 
 We will protect ye through the very 
 
 (Thunders ) 
 
72 THE DELUGE. [SCENE XI. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Hark! 
 AZOARA, (wildly — clinging to Israphil.) 
 
 It is not thunder, for it spoke 1 heard 
 
 The articulation ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 'TWAS THE VOICE OF GoD : 
 
 He calls us back to heaven !— behold his Angel ! 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Lo — what a mighty Spirit is descending ! 
 How he floats, poised on those enormous wings, 
 That cast a shadow on the ground beneath, 
 As from a Thunder-cloud, and closing, sparks 
 Of intermitting Lightnings flash around him. 
 Yet they less bright than his immortal eyes. 
 What majesty invests his coining presence ! 
 What darkness gathers on his brows ! — methinks 
 I feel their dreadful meaning, as if told 
 With an articulated Voice ! 
 
 israphil. 
 
 'Tis xMichael, 
 The Leader of the Arch- Angels : he who sits 
 Closest the Throne of God : he brings great tidings, 
 Else had he not descended here. 
 
 E?iter THE Arch-Angel Michael. . 
 Angels ! another hour, and the rod 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 73 
 
 Of Vengeance falls on ye from high, 
 And ye shall be for ever unforgiven. 
 
 Ye cannot die ; 
 Nothing can quench your immortality : 
 But the chains bound on ye shall not be riven. 
 
 I chide ye not 1 stoop not now 
 
 To trace your evil's origin ; 
 
 I come, God's mandate to avow : 
 
 To warn ye of the death of sin. 
 Behold, ye erring Spirits ! — yon red Sun, 
 How darkness gathers round his dying brow ! 
 
 Soon will his light be dead ; 
 
 And then — your latest hope is fled. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Immortal Hierarch ! — if we 
 Have erred in loving daughters of the Earth, 
 
 We are not guilty of impiety : 
 Such passion was innate with our first birth. 
 But they are heavenly, too, like us, and have 
 The life that cannot die within the grave. 
 Have we led them away from God, as they 
 Who walked the earth before us say ? — 
 ASTARTE — {advancing, and kneeling lowly at ike Arch- 
 AngeVsfeet.) 
 
74 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XI. 
 
 OThou 
 Mightiest Creation of the living God ! 
 On whose serene yet solemn brow 
 I see, through lowering wrath, 
 The light of gentler feelings shine ; 
 As in its soft light I have seen peer forth 
 The Star in the wake of thunder-clouds ! Incline 
 From thy dread majesty to a child of dust ! 
 We bow to His decree, and own it just ; 
 But with His justice, too, is mercy blended : 
 Mankind have turned from Him, but we have not. 
 
 How have we erred ? in loving heavenly things, 
 
 How is their Maker unforgot ? 
 My spirit — could its will have given wings — 
 
 Had ever from this earth ascended. 
 
 To read the works of the Most High ; 
 And when I saw revealed before my eye 
 The star-like form of my imaginings, 
 What could my earthlier nature but ally 
 Its mortal life with immortality ? 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Daughter of Earth ! I come not to condemn, 
 But warn — to show the fiat of thy God. 
 
 Thou feelest thou hast erred : 
 Thy heart tells thee thou hast forgot His word, 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 7S 
 
 Leaving the human path thou should'st have trod. 
 Far heavier is the guilt assigned to them 
 Who have forsook their heritage above. 
 
 But thou hast turned from one who would have given, 
 
 In the deep quiet of affectionate love, 
 
 That happiness which most approaches heaven ! — 
 
 Love that doth make the heart with life content ; 
 While thou hast rather leant 
 
 On a frail reed, which, in the trial hour. 
 
 Shall, like all evil, be found impotent 
 
 Yet doth thy gentlest nature, even in sin, 
 Its own atonement win ! 
 
 For prayers from thy misgiving heart preferred — 
 Prayer — that hath ever power — 
 
 Have at the throne of grace been heard ; 
 
 And shall avert severer punishment. 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 I neither yield, nor dare : 
 
 But do not stoop to prayer ; 
 
 As on a rock, I do rely 
 On the unerring strength of my own Spirit ; 
 
 The light it did inherit 
 
 Or from itself— or from Eternity. 
 
 I have but its behests obeyed. 
 In worshipping the beautiful He made ; 
 And I will shield her 'gainst all evil — come 
 
76 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XI. 
 
 In whatsoever form it may ! 
 I will preserve her from Earth's tomb, 
 Or share the annihilating doom ; 
 Such is my Will — do ye your fears obey. 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Angels ! — look up — your eyes are clear 
 From the film darkening them ; look abroad 
 Into the depths of the Infinity ; 
 Behold the Handwriting of God ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 We see the Record blazing from on high : 
 That Lightning-scroll ! — 
 
 MICHAEL. 
 
 Read— that the Children of the Dust may hear ! 
 Time's latest moments roll : 
 Behold, yon veihng Sun ! 
 I fly the coming wrath — my task is done. 
 
 {_The Arch' Angel departs from Earth. 
 astaute, (faintly.) 
 Read— read ! 
 
 oraziel. 
 
 I cannot — 
 
 ISllAPHIL. 
 
 " Angels, hear I 
 " Ye havr wandered from your sphere : 
 " But your sins may be forgiven, 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 77 
 
 «« For your errings leaned to heaven. 
 " Earth is doomed : if ye are found 
 " Treading its devoted ground, 
 " The tie that joins to us shall sever, 
 
 " And ye shall be " 
 
 Great God ! oh never 
 Can I obey 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 I know it now : 
 I read it on thy pallid brow ; 
 The dreadful truth is graven there 
 In traces furrowed by despair ! 
 Ye hide it with a vain endeavour; 
 
 Your doom shall be " Destroyed for ever." 
 
 \_Both kneeling at the AngeVsfeet- 
 
 Sister, sister 1 kneel : oh, by 
 
 The God who calls ye from on high ; 
 
 By our earthly loves by all 
 
 The terrors round us that appal : 
 
 By your immortality, — 
 
 Leave, oh, leave us here to die ! 
 
 Let the Almighty know that we 
 
 Yielded to our destiny I 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Say that if we weakly erred 
 From his good, his holy Word, 
 
78 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XT. 
 
 Given for our rule of life ; 
 Great was our effort and our strife : 
 
 But our last thoughts, ere swept away, 
 Was not His will to disobey ! 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 The Earth is reeling from beneath me 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Hark! 
 To that mysterious and Almighty sound ! 
 That dreadful shock abrupt ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 'Tis done — 'tis done — 
 The Fountains of the Deep are broken up ; 
 The Waters are let loose upon the World ! 
 
 \_Astarte sinks down insensible. 
 Behold the Hills are heaving like the waves 
 In their great agony, and from their caves 
 And shattered brows are hurling torrents forth, 
 That, like Eternity, in their fierce path. 
 Sweep all before them ; or cast down below 
 The toppling rocks with each convulsive throe ; 
 Now flashing forth volcanic streams— now gone. 
 As if extinguished ; ever and anon 
 The Winds awake the Lightnings in their wrath. 
 From their deep womb of Clouds, which hurtle forth 
 Their arrowy vengeance ; every vale and height — 
 
SCENE XI.] THE DELUGE. 79 
 
 Each mountain —depth — and crag — and yawning cave — 
 
 Blazes one moment in intensest Light ; 
 
 Swallowed, the next, in Darkness as a grave ! 
 
 Through Earth's rent sides the waters of the Deep 
 
 O'er the low plains deliriously sweep, 
 
 In waves like rolling Mountains ; while the woods, 
 
 And towers of men are borne before the floods ; 
 
 Or, crushed in one enormous mass, delay 
 
 Their course a moment — until heaved away — 
 
 Then swept like chaff before the whirlwind ! — all 
 
 Sink in the Waters' universal pall. 
 
 Amidst the wreck the human race are lost ; 
 
 Appearing like the scattered ants : now tossed 
 
 Above — far struggling o'er the abyss profound : 
 
 Now in the overwhelming chaos drowned. 
 
 The Clouds in molten shapes are hurrying past : 
 
 While the grey vapours, wildly flying, cast 
 
 On the pale face of Earth obscured beneath, 
 
 A lurid light — as o'er the corpse of death ! 
 
 The screaming of the Fowls of Air — the roar 
 
 Of the tamed brutes that herd together cowed : 
 
 Even the Wind's howling sounds are heard no more, 
 
 Drowned in sky-cleaving thunders, where avowed 
 
 The Voice of God is heard — the lightning's ray 
 
 Showing his red hand manifest ! 
 
80 THE DELUGE. [SCENE XII. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Away ! 
 Away-^up to the mountain's loftiest peak : 
 
 AST ARTE. 
 
 My Azoara ! aid me — I am weak. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Here is thy resting-place, on this fond breast 
 
 Where else, love, would 'st thou seek support and rest ? 
 
 ISRAPHIL, 
 
 Away ! — from yonder loftiest peak we fly ; 
 There will we bear ye off, or with ye die ! 
 
 SCENE XII. 
 The inaccessible ridges of Mount Hermon. 
 IsRAPHiL — Azoara — Oraziel — Astarte. 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 It is in vain — in vain ! our strength is gone ; 
 To essay further were to perish : here 
 Are we chained down, and must await our doom ; 
 The justice or the mercy of the Lord. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Farewell, my fondest, latest, lingering hope ! 
 And yet it was not hope, for still I felt 
 
SCENE XIl.l THE DELUGE. 81 
 
 That we were bound to earth, and could not leave it. 
 No hope is left us : here must we remain 
 The mark of the remorseless Elements ; 
 Till we become, like them, insensible 
 To human sufferings, and to our own. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 My Sister— never ! suffering cannot quench 
 
 The fixed devotedness of woman's love ! 
 
 Oh could I ever look into thine eyes, 
 
 My Seraph-lord ! nor draw from them long draughts 
 
 Of feeling and afiection ? or could'st thou 
 
 Ever look coldly on thy own Astarte, 
 
 Now on the verge of leaving her for ever ? 
 
 No — no ! — our hearts are one, but mine dwells here. 
 
 Oh Earth, that 1 now feel that I could love, 
 Beautiful earth — thou art no more for me, 
 Alas, thou art no more for me ! 1 look 
 Around — within — but all is dark — above, 
 In vain ! — yet even this agony I could brook : 
 It is not for myself I feel, but thee ! 
 Yet thou, oh God ! that wrenchest up apart. 
 In this last pang wilt soothe the broken heart. 
 Uphold me in these latest moments ; give 
 Oh ! give me my last hour in peace to live. 
 
82 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XI I. 
 
 Let me, at least, spare him, and I die blest : 
 Let him not suffer, too, in me ; he is 
 Immortal : let him turn to happiness, 
 Nor vainly grieve for her who is at rest : 
 Let me, in this last act, my love declare ; 
 My deep — deep love — by hiding my despair ! 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 But what will ye do? whither will ye fly ? 
 We do forget ye in our agony ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Here shall we make our stand, and with ye die : 
 
 AZOARA. . 
 
 Peace — peace — these words are now a blasphemy. 
 If the last accents thou shalt ever hear 
 Of her whose love was once so dear. 
 Have still a charm for thee, though not a power ; 
 Then by the God we have offended — fly ! 
 Why should'st thou, cruel, look upon us die ? 
 'Tis come, the inevitable hour ; 
 We stand in death and in eternity. 
 And we shall sink ; it is our fate. 
 That must have come at last, though late. 
 But hope one sad sweet ray upon us sheds. 
 And mocks the horror and despair above ; 
 We feel that when the waves roll o'er our heads. 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 83 
 
 We shall live on, and shall not be forgot, 
 Immortal in the memory of love ; 
 Would ye destroy our last hope left behind ? 
 Then leave us now — see, how we are resigned ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 What ! 
 To share the dreadful lot 
 Of those below who strive in their despair ? 
 Hark ! how their cries pierce through the angry air — 
 Calling on God in vain ; 
 Or howling out their most unpitied paiu 
 To their deaf torturers, the crags and rushing main ! 
 Look, how the living strive 
 Yon slippery rock to gain ! 
 What myriads, far and wide, 
 Float dead on the huge mountains of the tide : 
 While others climbing desperately its side, 
 Are, screaming, swept away ; 
 Or crushed against it, writhing lie, 
 Rolling their eye-balls in their agony ; 
 Transfixed — and yet alive ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Such the award for human frailty : 
 Hark ! — from the hollow caves beneath, 
 Above the roar of life and death, 
 
 G -2 
 
84 THE DELUGE. [SCEXE XII. 
 
 What frantic voices rise at times, 
 Wailing, or glorying in their crimes ; 
 As faith, or frenzy, or despair. 
 Inspire their latest, wildest prayer ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Look at that Giant-Form who rives 
 
 The Waters with his nerved arm ! 
 
 As if he held within a charm 
 
 Guarding the life for which he strives. 
 
 He gains the crag — he dashes hack 
 
 The Waves that still beset his track ; 
 
 Disdaining the ignoble strife 
 
 By which he vindicated life ; 
 
 His heart is bursting with its passions — hear ! 
 
 THE GIANT MORTAL. 
 
 Accursed Waters ! ye are baffled — here 
 
 Ye cannot come, yet do I fear 
 
 Your wrath?— no — ye have done your worst; 
 
 She whom I loved from youth — and nursed — 
 
 Thou God ! — with what a fondness — she 
 
 Who was my life's idolatry. 
 
 Loved with a love man hath not known. 
 
 Hath sunk — and I am left alone ! 
 
 I live — I would not stoop to Fate, 
 
 Till I had stood upon this rock. 
 
SCENE XII,] THE DELUGE. tJ5 
 
 To pour the passion forth — the hate, 
 Which these weak Elements doth mock ! 
 To curse the day that saw my birih, 
 And kindred with the sons of Earth : 
 To howl out to the dull, deaf Air, 
 My wrath — defiance — and despair ! 
 Ay, ye blind Waters ! roll : 
 How I do loathe ye from my inmost soul, 
 
 Ye slaves to a control 
 O'er which ye have no power ! such am not I, 
 The unconquered Lord of my own destiny ! 
 
 \_Str etching forth his hands towards the heavens. 
 One boon I would have asked — but one ; 
 
 I ask it ! — even while I defy : — 
 Show thyself, thou Invisible Agency ! 
 By whom I die : 
 
 From whom I would not fly. 
 
 Could immortality by flight be won ! 
 Had I but seen Thee — an embodied Form — 
 An Energy none living might v»^ithstand : 
 Thine Eye, the withering Lightnings — in thy hand 
 The living thunderbolt — thy breath, the Storm ; 
 Then had 1 died 
 With the heroic pride 
 Of him who with undaunted eye 
 Doth, faUing, look upon his Enemy ! 
 
86 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XII. 
 
 Then, conquered, I had owned I fell 
 Beneath the arm of the Unconquerable ! 
 
 Ye Elements ! I give ye back my dust : 
 Take this worn form, and in your bowels hide ! 
 But my free will, that hath your rage defied. 
 Defies ye still ; — my will, my earliest trust, 
 And now my last— its innate hate and scorn — 
 Proves that from ye my spirit is unborn ! 
 Thou pitiless Destroyer ! wheresoever 
 Thou art — careering now the fiery air. 
 Or — as the God — pervading everywhere ; 
 Look on me — throned above thy Anarchy : 
 Lo — how I conquer Fate by daring first to die ! 
 
 [^Casting himself into the Abyss of Waters. 
 THE infidel. 
 Thus wert thou destined to depart. 
 Thou puppet with the lion's heart ! 
 Thou infant in the hands of Fate : 
 Which thee only did create 
 Thus to die ; thy boasted Will 
 But opposing — to fulfil. 
 With the Elements united, 
 Of whose stormier essence thou 
 Wert moulded, thou rejoinest now. 
 Thy wild idle wrath was nought: 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 87 
 
 The impulses of Mind o'er-wrought 
 
 By the tide of youthful blood ; 
 
 That, in its first ardent flood, 
 
 Overleaps all bounds, and makes 
 
 The fever, which time only slakes : 
 
 Ebbing slow with years, until 
 
 It is waveless, torpid, still. 
 
 Lo — how calmly Wisdom eyes 
 
 The World's doom : nor owns surprise. 
 
 Nor raves in aimless blasphemies ! 
 
 But with calm and equal heart. 
 
 Sees in this wild wreck of things, 
 
 A doom expected ; and a part 
 
 Of its own imaginings : 
 
 A natural change that still must come, 
 
 Making Nature her own tomb : 
 
 Till life she doth again resume. 
 
 That inly smiles at man's vain fears ; 
 
 His idle ravings, and his tears. 
 
 Fulfilling the sole end which he 
 
 Was destined from eternity ; 
 
 A part, the least of Earth's immortal soul : 
 
 An atom mingling with the mighty Whole ; 
 
 An unseen Water-drop that doth to Ocean roll ! 
 
 Lo, — how / rise above my weaker will, 
 
88 THK DELUGE. [SCENE XII. 
 
 And my own nobler destiny fulfil : 
 With the remoulding Elements I join ; 
 I came from them — the Spirit which is mine 
 I yield — with mightier being to combine. 
 
 \_The Injidel slowly descends into the waters, 
 
 AN AGED PATRIARCH. 
 
 {^Rising above the rest. 
 Curst be the Wisdom that doth not accord 
 With human feeling ! blessed be the Lord. 
 This work is His — this great avenging plan, 
 Sent to regenerate the race of man ! 
 They saw Him in his works on earth, on high ; 
 In their own souls indelibly impressed. 
 They felt the image of the God confessed ; 
 They /ej/^ — but would not own — then let them die ! 
 Did He not warn them with exceeding love ? — 
 Oh, never yet hath yearning Father strove 
 With half the fondness to reclaim his son. 
 By signs, or threats, than He— the Lord — hath done! 
 And yet, yea, in the very signs He sent, 
 The speaking tokens of the Firmament, 
 They dared disown ; and to the Stars above. 
 Bowed down idolaters — the fools ! to hide. 
 In worshipping His works, their earthly pride, 
 That would not own what they might not behold. 
 
SCENE XIT,] THE DELUGE. 89 
 
 Lo — how upon the Waters they are rolled, 
 Their restless thoughts for ever now controlled ! 
 I raise my Voice against them — and declare 
 The justice of the doom that now I share, 
 
 And glory in my destiny : 
 For, midst the wreck of life and death, 
 I can look up and hold my steadfast faith 
 In Him who bade me live— who sees me die ! 
 
 I raise my Voice — last moment though it be, 
 
 Even while I suffer the just penalty 
 
 I, too, have merited, but do not fear : 
 
 For why ?— those Waves may crush me— can they kill 
 
 The immortal soul I feel within me still ? 
 
 Never — I calmly kneel and perish here ! 
 
 The life Thou gav'st I humbly yield to Thee ; 
 
 Dust am I — ^nought in thy Infinity ; 
 
 Yet, in thy mercy, Lord — remember me ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Lo, how the Waters hurl him like the dust 
 Before the whirlwind J — even so die the Just : 
 Yet did that man approach the Angel's height 
 Strong in his faith as in a rock of might ! 
 
 ORAZiEL. 
 
 Behold the Ark 
 
90 THE DELUGE. [SCENE XII. 
 
 Floating upon the waves that hide the world ! 
 
 Frail fragment of a bark ; 
 Wreck from the drowning life around it hurled. 
 See, how the sea-birds hide it with their wings, 
 Till swept off by the mountain surge, that flings 
 
 Its spray above it, and awhile conceals. 
 Lo ! — midst the gathering darkness, how a ray 
 
 Steady and bright above its summit steals ! — 
 And hovers there, and will not pass away. 
 The sign that He who watcheth them, 
 
 And leaves us in the gloom 
 Of a wrecked world, doth thus condemn, 
 And shadow forth our doom. 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 They come— they come ! — 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 But not to save : 
 Oh, little know'st thou. Sister dear ! 
 How stern the Patriarch's virtue and austere : 
 He sees, but he will leave us here 
 
 To perish in the wave ! 
 And they will ride triumphant o'er our grave. 
 Let them — it is in vain to strive : 
 But we shall not survive. 
 And save our pett}' lives, when all the great 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 91 
 
 And beautiful have yielded to their fate. 
 
 Let them to selfish cold existence cling ! 
 
 And weary heaven with much worshipping, 
 What will they gain, at last, when this shall cease ? — 
 
 A few brief years to add to their dull past ; 
 
 And, while they cling to life's sands to the last. 
 We shall have lived, and loved, and sleep in peace ! 
 
 IRAD, (from the Ark.) 
 Astarte — hear ! 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 He calls thee, dear ; 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Alas ! it falls on an unheeding ear — 
 
 How wan her lips — how fixed her eyes appear ! 
 
 The pulse of life is frozen by her fear, 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Astarte ! it is not too late, 
 
 I call thee with the voice of fate ; 
 
 Yet may*st thou be safe — oh, yet. 
 
 And this dreadful hour forget 
 
 In a calmer happier lot ; 
 
 Come — oh come — reject me not ! 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Hence, pale son of Noah ! she 
 Hears thee not, but turns to me. 
 
92 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XH. 
 
 As on one whose life or death 
 Hangs not on a mortal's breath : 
 Who will bear her from this earth, 
 And share with her his heavenly birth. 
 
 IRAl). 
 
 Canst thou save ? If thou hast power 
 0*er this last— this dreadful hour. 
 Why dost thou delay to ily ? 
 Wherefore — wherefore should she die ? — 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Ask thy God who rules on high ; 
 
 What have all done, that alike, 
 
 Good and evil He doth strike. 
 Why are ye saved ? when there are 
 Hoher men, and wiser far, 
 Floating round ye on the flood, 
 Dead and weltering in their blood ? 
 Hence — we will not live, like ye, 
 A coward hfe of infamy ; 
 But with our Fathers nobly die ! 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Irad ! 
 Thou hast known what it is to love — in vain : 
 1 would have loved thee, but I, too, have felt 
 Ouv hearts are not in our own power : 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 93 
 
 Affection and remorse for thee have dwelt 
 
 Within me, in my solitary hour ; 
 That I, who would not give the least thing pain, 
 
 Should thus have anguished thee; 
 
 Oh yet, remember me ! 
 And when the Waters o*er the world are cast, 
 And our last agony of death is past, 
 Think then of all I would have been, if I 
 Had not been turned by my idolatry 
 
 Of an immortal being. 
 Thou wilt live, 
 Love, and be happy, when Astarte is 
 Forgotten, with her dream of happiness. 
 
 Then — then forgive ! 
 And when thou thinkest of her, let a sigh 
 
 Be softly given to her memory ; 
 A prayer — that she, so early doomed to die. 
 Might her atonement find with the Most High. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Pale seed of Seth ! 
 I do not heap upon thy head the wrath 
 Of words — to thee but idle breath : 
 
 Enough thou could'st survive 
 A buried world — the only thing alive ; 
 
 That thou, without remorse. 
 
94 THE DELUGE. [SCENE XII. 
 
 Above their j^-aves couWst eat and drink, and wive ; 
 
 Be thy insensibihty thy curse ! — 
 Or, if a greater can remain behind. 
 Be it in our forgiveness — thou slave 
 To groveling life, so patient, so resigned ! 
 Yet would we have thee feel but one emotion ; 
 When buried in our universal grave ; 
 That thou might'st know, then, when the hateful 
 
 Ocean 
 Rolls o'er us — even at that moment— when 
 Weak life will strive against the fixed will, 
 Amid the strangling Waters sweeping o'er : 
 Even in those moments, — we — inflexible, 
 O'er life itself asserted Will again. 
 And felt — above the Elemental roar, 
 The joy — the rapture— the ennobling pride. 
 That we together gloriously died ! 
 That we our fates allied 
 For good or ill, with those the Unforgot ; 
 The good — the brave — preferring for our lot 
 Annihilation — to a life with thee ! 
 This would we have ye feel — could ye 
 But for one moment live — it is in vain ; 
 Walk placidly and meekly o'er thy earth, 
 The Burial-place and Altar of the slain ! 
 
SCENE XI l] the deluge. 95 
 
 Crawl o'er the common grave that gave ye birth 
 A few weak years, and give 
 Thanksgiving that ye were allowed to live. 
 Then yield to the control 
 Of the same ruthless destinies ; 
 The only pang we feel— our sole 
 Humiliation— that our memories 
 In thy polluting bosom should remain ! 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Away— away — and leave them ! see 
 The light fades fast from us while we 
 Hold vain communion, they are sped ; 
 Let us not tempt the destiny 
 That hangs above our head. 
 
 Away ! 
 
 I RAD, (stretching out his arms to Astarte,) 
 Yet, hear me ! 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 By thy God ! I swear 
 Thou dost deserve their doom to share. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Then cast me forth 1 the worst I dare : 
 I will not leave her I 
 
 NOAH. 
 
 Sons ! come forth : 
 
96 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XII. 
 
 Your fraternal strength essay, •. 
 
 And drag this child of sin away. 
 
 Ere he waken God to wrath ! 
 
 Close our prison doors, that he 
 
 May nothing hear without, nor see. 
 
 Till awful Silence doth the world's doom tell ; 
 
 I RAD. 
 
 Astarte — hear ! 
 
 HAMMON. 
 
 Thou call'st in vain. 
 
 IRAD. 
 
 Farewell ! 
 \_The Ark is borne away over the face of the Waters. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 All hope is over 
 
 Must be proved- 
 
 ISRAPHIL, 
 
 No, the last 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Astarte ! wake ; 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 The bitterness of death is past : 
 I only tremble for thy sake ! 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Hear ! we now essay the Word : 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 97 
 
 The talisman that calls the Lord. 
 That must not be named aloud : 
 For, like Lightning from the Cloud, 
 Its power when awoke is told : 
 And gives instant wings that bear 
 Him who dares to breathe it, where 
 God himself he doth behold ! 
 Ye shall hear the spell, and fly, 
 And stand before the gates of heaven : 
 And ye will be taken in 
 By Mercy, and forgiven : 
 For we will be your sacrifice for sin ; 
 And take on us your earthly origin. 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 Oh, glorious trial of exceeding love ! 
 What equal hath it in your realms above ? 
 Yea, thou dost overpower my heart. 
 Even where it deemed itself most strong. 
 But never shall our love 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Depart ! 
 
 Behold that sky — I've watched it long 
 
 It is not fear — above the Storm 
 I see — I see a Giant Form ! 
 
98 THE DELUGE. f SCENE XII. 
 
 Look how his Shadow blackens through, 
 And gives the Clouds a darker hue ; 
 He streteheth forth his hand : the Sun 
 Crumbles to flakes — its life is done. 
 No light is left, save where afar 
 Glows the red furnace of yon Star ; 
 Whose meteor -light athwart the gloom 
 Shows the earth sinking in its own made tomb. 
 
 i AZOARA. 
 
 Fly— fly ! 
 
 ASTARTE. 
 
 Remember me I 
 
 AZOARA. 
 
 No more delay ! 
 See how the raging Waters howl and hiss 
 In yon upheaving mountainous Abyss, 
 
 That swallows up the world ! 
 They gather strength — one moment more, 
 O'er our devoted heads they roar — 
 
 Like chafl^ before them hurled 1 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 First — hear the word— its power thou shalt essay, 
 
 [Thunderings — the Lightnings hla%e round the 
 Angels. 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 91) 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Hark ! — our last summons 
 
 {The Thunderbolt falls — ploughing up the rock at the 
 ^ feet of IsraphiL 
 
 ISRAPHIL. 
 
 Ha — the hand 
 Of Heaven is on me where I stand ! 
 My Azoara ! I am borne away — 
 
 Farewell ! 
 
 AZOARA, {kneeling, and wildly stretching out her hands 
 towards him.) 
 
 For ever ? oh, that one word say 
 
 ISRAPHIL, {looking backward in his flight,) 
 For ever ! 
 
 [A%oara casts herself headlong into the Waters. 
 
 ORAZIEL. 
 
 Rash alike in death and life ! 
 So ends in peace her spirit's restless strife. 
 And I must follow— I must fly— 
 And leave thee here, oh God ! to die. 
 ASTARTE, {faintly.) 
 Oh, yet a moment stay with me ! 
 I feel thee struggling, love, ah no, 
 I will not strive — but do not go : 
 A moment more — thou wilt be free ; 
 
 H 2 
 
100 THE DELUGE. [sCENE XII. 
 
 And when God shall pardon thee, 
 Tell my faith, my hope in Him ! 
 I see thee not — my eyes are dim : 
 All is dark around — I feel 
 A coldness on my bosom steal ! 
 My heart is sinking — this is d^ath : 
 I feel it in my ebbing breath ; 
 Let me — let me take my rest, 
 My last — upon my Angel's breast ; 
 
 Oh ! how it grows, — this icy chill 
 
 Nearer, love, press me — near — yet nearer still ! 
 
 lAstarte dies. 
 ORAZiEL, (looking upwards.) 
 O thou Avenger ! have I lived for this ? 
 Farewell my love, my life's own happiness, 
 Thou soul of gentlest feelings ! thou hast been 
 The suffering martyr for thy Angel's sin, 
 And died— -yet blamed not the severe decree. 
 And is this all that now remains of thee ? 
 That form so breathless, motionless, stretched there, 
 As if the very passion of despair 
 Had on it sudden as the thunder broke ; 
 Again, perchance, to rise up from the stroke, 
 The first wild shock when over ; — no, oh, no — 
 That stillness tells how crushing was the blow ! 
 
SCENE XII.] THE DELUGE. 101 
 
 Those eyes that spoke thy thoughts before the tongue ; 
 Each hope and joyous feeling as they sprung 
 Like sunbeams from thy heart, but softened there, 
 
 Where love told they were given thee to share 
 
 Behold how changed ! — they open now, — and tell 
 
 The dreadful truth all silently — but well ! — 
 
 That all the passions, feelings, hopes which made 
 
 Thee the fond thing thou wert, and then betrayed, 
 
 Have all forsook thee ! falsely fled away, 
 
 Or died within their tenement of clay. 
 
 The life, the thrilling music of the mind. 
 
 Is fled, and left its shattered frame behind ! 
 
 And must thy fair form wither — and become 
 
 A thing to turn away from ? — no — that doom 
 
 Is spared. Earth opens for thee her own tomb. 
 
 Thy soul hath left its earthly mansion there, 
 
 It could not die — 'tis fled, — but where — oh ! where ? 
 
 I go — I fly to meet the award of Heaven, 
 
 Blest in my fate — so thou shalt be forgiven. 
 
 \_Oraziel departs from the World of Waters — 
 soaring upwards. 
 
 END OF THE DELUGE. 
 
NOTES TO THE DELUGE. 
 
 Note i. p. 10. 
 OrazieVs words. 
 
 Renchline* affirmeth that Adam had an Angel for his In- 
 structor, and when he was exceedingly dejected with re- 
 morse for his sinne, God sent the Angel Oraziel to tell 
 him that there should be one of his progenie which should 
 have the foure letters of Jehovah in his name, and should 
 expiate originall sinne. 
 
 Note ii. p. 15. 
 
 The Watcher's light is trembling oer the peak of Hermon, 
 
 The like offices of other Angels they mention to other 
 Patriarchs, and tell that every three moneths are set new 
 
 * Renchline de Arte Cabal., 1. i.— quoted by Purchas. 
 
104 NOTES. 
 
 watches of these Watchmen, yea, every tliree houres, yea 
 and every houre is some change of them. And therefore 
 we have more favour of them in one houre than another ; 
 for they follow the disposition of the Starres ; so said the 
 Angel Samiel (which wrestled with him) unto Jacob — 
 " Let me goe^for the day breaketh :" for his power was in the 
 night.^PoRCHAS. 
 
 Note iii. p. 17. 
 
 Mankind will worship thee as God, 
 Or God's own symbol : 
 
 The earliest Chaldeans conceived the earth to bee hollow 
 like a boat. R. Moses Ben Maimon, out of a book entitled 
 "de Agricultura i^gytiorum," attributed like things unto 
 them : that they belieued the Starres were Gods, and that 
 the Sunne was the chiefe God, and next to him, the Moon : 
 
 that the Sunne ruleth the superior and inferior world 
 
 They sacrificed to the Sunne and Moone, and Earth, to the 
 Fire, and Waters, and Windes' — Id. 
 
 Note iv. p. ^0. 
 
 Who bow down to the Stars, and Hosts of Heaven. 
 
 Tertullian, out of the Booke of Enoch, before mentioned, 
 is of opinion, that Idolatry was before the floud. Thus 
 to continue the memorie of mortal! men, and in admiration 
 
NOTES. 105 
 
 of the imniortal heavenly Lights, together with the tyrannic 
 of Princes, and policies of the Priests, began this worship- 
 ping of the creature, with contempt of the Creator ; which 
 now they increased by the mysteries of their Philosophers, 
 the fabling of their Poets, the ambition of Potentates, the 
 superstition of the vulgar, the gainfull collusion of their 
 Priests, the cunning of Artificers, and aboue all, the making 
 of the Diuels, worshipped in those idols, there giving answers 
 and oracles, and receiving sacrifices ; the Histories of all 
 Nations are ample witnesses. — Id, 
 
 Note v. p. 30. 
 
 Behold each day, from our high places, scenes 
 Of blood and rapine ! 
 The Earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth 
 was filled with violence ; and God looked upon the earth? 
 and behold, it was corrupt ; for all flesh had corrupted his 
 way upon the Earth. — Genesis. 
 
 Note vi. p. 49. 
 
 Whose soul is blended with immortal natures.* 
 
 " Visible is the Creator to those who have eyes and can 
 see. He whose faith is what it ought to be, hath heaven 
 within him and about him." 
 
 * A sentiment which I have since seen far better expressed in the 
 pure and beautiful language of Southey. 
 
106 NOTES. 
 
 Note vii. p. 72. 
 
 Michael, 
 The Leader of the Arch- Angels : 
 
 Ricius reckoneth ten Orders of Angells — Haias, Haka- 
 desch, OfFanrim, Erelim, Hasmalim, Seraphim, Malachim, 
 Elohim, bene Elohira, Cherubim. Some Diuines count 
 them thus out of Dionysius : — Seraphim, Cherubim, Throni, 
 Dominationes, Virtutes, Potestates, Principatus, Arch- 
 Angeli, AngeH.* — Purchas. 
 
 Note viii. p. 84. 
 
 Look at that Giant Forrn^ who rives 
 The Waters with his nerved arm : 
 
 There were giants in the earth in those days ; and also 
 after that, when the Sons of God came in unto the daughters 
 of men, and they bare children to them, the same became 
 mighty men which were of old, men of renown. — Genesis. 
 
 Note ix. p. 89. 
 
 TTie immortal soul I feel within me still ! 
 
 God created man to be immortal, and made him an image 
 of his own Eternity.— Ecclesiastes. 
 
 * From hence Milton drew his noble line : 
 
 " Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers !" 
 
THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 I saw a yision in my sleep. 
 That gave my spirit strength to sweep 
 iSdown the gulf of Time. 
 
 Thomas Campbell. 
 
DEDICATION. 
 
 THIS POEM, 
 
 WHOSE IMAGERY AND COMPOSITION WAS CONCEIVED, 
 
 AND, 
 
 FOR THE MOST PART, EXECUTED DURING SLEEP, 
 
 WAS ORIGINALLY DEDICATED TO 
 
 SAMUEL COLERIDGE, 
 
 BY HIS EXPRESSED DESIRE: 
 
 IT IS NOW REVERENTIALLY INSCRIBED 
 
 TO HIS MEMORY. 
 
TJIE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 They stood aloof, the scars remaining. 
 Like Cliffs that had been rent asunder. 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Vision came upon my sleep, 
 From the phantom land of Dreams : 
 And with its prophetic gleams, 
 Words were sent me wild and deep, 
 To tell all I did behold. 
 The ethereal fire is warm 
 That stamped on my mind each form ; 
 But the words which should unfold, 
 Are efikced from Memory ; 
 And the forms fade from my eye. 
 Faint as records graved upon 
 Fragments of some moulderinff stone. 
 
112 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 When the tale they told is gone. 
 I will painfully essay 
 To trace them in their decay ; 
 Ere, for aye, they pass away. 
 * # # * 
 
 11. 
 
 I came up from the hoary Sea, 
 
 Like Pilgrim from a far countree : 
 
 The path lay through an ancient Wood ; 
 
 A silent, solemn solitude. 
 
 I felt my human foot the first 
 
 That ever had its stillness burst ; 
 
 I heard a Voice that spake within. 
 
 And said such transgress was a sin : 
 
 That I, with an unhallowed tread, 
 
 Disturbed the precincts of the dead. 
 
 Grey shattered crags around were hurled, 
 
 The fragments of a former world : 
 
 For on their sides were records traced, 
 
 By Time, and bleaching storms effaced ; 
 
 Strange mystic figures graved thereon 
 
 By hands whose very dust was gone : 
 
 Thoughts of high Seers, their birth as breath. 
 
 Lost in the eternity of death ! 
 
THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 113 
 
 III. 
 
 But while I paced along, a change 
 Came o'er that scene so wild and strange ; 
 The shapes of Nature round seemed rife 
 With meaning and mysterious Life. 
 My Soul was opened ; and I saw, 
 With a sense of fear and awe, 
 How the Forms of Earth apart 
 Lived — moved by one inspiring heart ! 
 The jagged boughs, grotesque and bare. 
 Threw out abrupt into the air. 
 Leafless, and hoary, and moss-dried, 
 Their limbs of life now petrified. 
 The blind Crags, the Earth's giant-born. 
 Raised, with a wild air and forlorn. 
 Their bald and furrowed foreheads riven 
 With tempest, and the fire from heaven : 
 Like statues of that Titan brood 
 Who filled the world with war and blood ; 
 Until in wrath the God Unknown 
 Looked down— and stared them into stone : 
 
 IV. 
 The Moon shone o'er the dim Twilight, ' 
 Glimmering a grey and spectral light. 
 As, beneath her floating veil, 
 
114 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 She showed her brow so high, so pale ! 
 The ancient Crags caught fitfully 
 The tremulous light of her wan eye, 
 And with a cold and glittering gaze 
 Their bald brows met her pallid rays ! 
 The dark, deep Woods from forth the gloom 
 Emerged as from a yawning tomb : 
 And showed their locks with dews besprent, 
 And raised their arms by Lightnings rent ; 
 While, where was opening space, a ray 
 Stole in, at times, through that drear way ; 
 Where Fancy laboured to behold 
 Shapes that Fear hath not seen nor told ! 
 
 V. 
 I stood before an ancient Church ; 
 The carved and antique sculptured porch 
 Was open ; I passed slowly by. 
 And rested in the sacristy. 
 I entered in that solemn dome, 
 With breath withheld, and noiseless tread : 
 Like one who, drawn in holy mood, 
 Doth feel that Life should not intrude 
 Upon the precincts of the dead ! 
 I looked around — each mouldering tomb, 
 And fretted roof, and pillar grey, 
 
THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 115 
 
 Were wrought with strange Imagery : 
 
 Figures wild, that had no birth 
 
 Upon our famihar earth. 
 
 Traced upon the dim walls were 
 
 Scrolls in unknown character ; 
 
 Records only to be read 
 
 By those who slumbered with the dead. 
 
 VI. 
 Like an Organ-pipe profound, 
 Rolled the thunder's distant sound ; 
 
 Methought I felt its deep Voice say ~ 
 
 " See how the Mighty pass away !" 
 Then I prayed, and lowly knelt 
 Where their dust unhallowed dwelt 
 With the undying worm beneath : 
 With hushed breath as still as death 
 I leaned upon the chancel stone ; 
 And thought how all forgot, unknown, 
 Were the mighty who slept there : 
 Their souls in heaven — their fame in air. 
 
 VII. 
 An echo answered to my sigh ! — 
 I looked up : reclined on high. 
 In a niche of the grey wall, 
 Folded round with regal pall, 
 
 i2 
 
116 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 A crowned Monarch met my eye. 
 Mailed from head to heel ; alone 
 Seated on his stony throne. 
 In his hand a sceptre bearing : 
 On his brow defiance wearing ; 
 And despair, yet mingled pride, 
 That nor stone nor death could hide ! 
 He gazed upon the wall opposed, 
 Which a warrior King disclosed ; 
 East, and west, were Forms alike ; 
 Each — half rising — as to strike. 
 
 VIII. 
 They were of most ancient time : 
 Of primeval age and clime ; 
 Their armour was of shape unknown : 
 With strange lights their helmets shone. 
 On their shields the Hosts of Heaven 
 Were inwrought ; a scroll was given 
 Underneath each pedestal, 
 Their lives and mighty deeds to tell ; 
 But their records mocked the eye : 
 The language of a World gone by ! 
 
 IX. 
 I was made aware that they 
 Were the Kings Pre -Adamite ; 
 
THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 117 
 
 Of that giant race of might 
 Who o'er earth held regal sway. 
 They traced up their line to heaven : 
 To those Watchers who came down, 
 And forsook their heavenly crown 
 
 For that by erring Woman given ! 
 Thus they, in Ancestral pride, 
 Time, and death, and God defied. 
 They were mortal foes ; and made 
 Man to stand 'gainst man arrayed ; 
 And from Earth^s dark womb they drew 
 The steel with which her sons they slew. 
 And filled the world with slaughtering bands : 
 Then fell beneath each other's hands. 
 
 X. 
 But the Avenger held their breath, 
 And renewed their life in death ; 
 Fate reserved for none beside. 
 They died not ; their souls were bound 
 In the Statues of their pride. 
 And were fixed that Altar round : 
 To look on it from above, 
 And see, and feel how blest are those 
 On whom the peace of God o'erflows. 
 Together joined in bonds of love ! 
 
118 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 Such was the decree sublime, 
 Steadfast to the end of time : 
 Awful, but severely just, 
 To subdue the pride of dust. 
 I gazed upon those haughty Forms, 
 Which, through time and ages' storms 
 Had remained ; decreed to be 
 Seated there eternally. 
 XL 
 Behold, a Change wrought, yea, a wonder ;- 
 A flash of light, a peal of thunder 
 Rang along the vaulted dome ! 
 Deep and loud as that which told 
 That the oath of God was made ; 
 And man's sins should be repaid, 
 When o'er earth the Deluge rolled. 
 From his everlasting tomb 
 Slowly rose each Shape of stone ! 
 Their Souls burst, at once, the spell ; 
 Each King heard that dreadful knell. 
 And descended from his throne. 
 From their hands their sceptres fell, 
 While, with solemn steps and slow, 
 They towards the Altar go. 
 I heard the paved and clanging floor, 
 
xriK viblON OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 119 
 
 As their iron heels trampled o'er: 
 I saw their brows and eyeballs glazed, 
 As slowly each his helmet raised ! 
 
 XII. 
 From each side they met, and joined 
 Their mailed hands o*er the Altar's fire : 
 Then each King his head declined. 
 And knelt before that holy pyre ; 
 Their tongues were loosened — slow, they broke 
 Their silence of all dateless years ; 
 As if, withheld by human fears. 
 Their human natures dared not trust 
 The vouchsafed pardon from the Just : 
 Faith, strengthening in their hearts, awoke, 
 They believed — essayed — and spoke ! 
 Their dark words were in a tongue 
 Which 1 knew not : but peace hung 
 On their accents ; words of prayer 
 And forgiveness were there. 
 
 XIII. 
 With clasped hands they seemed to wait 
 The award of God and fate, 
 That his will He would reveal ; 
 One dread moment — then a peal 
 Of thunder told them they were heard : 
 
120 THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 
 
 Then, from hand to hand, each Brother 
 Took the cup, and blest each other ! 
 Breathless, I nor spake nor stirred ; 
 But I said in my full heart : — ■» 
 Oh, that this might not depart ! 
 This is a deep type to show, 
 That, though Kings may give below 
 Rein to their wild passions, they. 
 With their life, must pass away. 
 Revenge dies with the parting breath ; 
 
 All must then be joined in peace : 
 In the awful realms of Death, 
 
 All hate and envy cease ! 
 If we would join the Stars of Heaven, 
 
 We must be as pure and bright ; 
 And those, erring from the right. 
 
 Forgive — to be forgiven ! 
 The Spirit of Love that reigns above. 
 
 Hath sworn it shall be so ; 
 The Dead that keep their tranced sleep, 
 
 Have felt the oath below. 
 XIV. 
 I looked to where the Altar shone. 
 But the warrior Kings were gone. 
 Each shape had resumed his throne ; 
 
THE VISION OF THE ANCIENT KINGS. 121 
 
 But the Life within was flown : 
 
 Their souls had joined, and were at rest^ 
 
 In Heaven, united with the Blest ! 
 
 I rose, and stole forth from the Church ; 
 
 And passed through that ancient porch. 
 
 Thoughtful, wrapt, and silently, 
 I walked towards the hoary Sea; 
 Like one who turns, with restless eye, 
 From some disturbing Mystery ! 
 I left the land with Shadows rife : 
 And woke upon the shore of Life. 
 
ARETHUSA. 
 
 Now let me lose myself 
 In dreams of Grecian beauty. 
 
 Marlowe. 
 
 A DIM, rich, leafy covert ! musical 
 
 With hum of bees, and Waters' gurgling sound : 
 
 And those more low and stilly melodies. 
 
 From leaves, and brooks, and dying airs, that are 
 
 Voices of Solitude, which lull the heart 
 
 To quiet and to sweet forgetfulness ! 
 
 Hark ! — 'tis the mellow note of Dian's horn : 
 The chase is done, the huntresses dispersed. 
 Each to her woodland covert's wild recess. 
 And now a quick step rustles midst the leaves. 
 Now louder — the bird hears it, fluttering 
 
124 ARETHUSA. 
 
 From its light twig ; the branches wave aside, 
 And Arethusa gains at last her home. 
 
 She threw herself upon the bank beneath 
 The mossy tree that overhung the stream. 
 Her bow and shafts were tossed upon the turf: 
 Her head declined back, resting on a spray 
 That shot forth from its trunk ; and her white neck 
 Revealed, and heaving underneath the sky, 
 Gleamed whiter-from the depth of shadow cast 
 By the rich trees. — Her parted coral lips 
 Drank in the air like pulses of her life. 
 She lay exhausted with fatigue : her arms 
 Fell listlessly beside her : and she looked 
 Like some fair Statue left there in repose. 
 Cold, moveless, marble, pale, and beautiful. 
 Waiting the spark of Life's enkindling flame. 
 
 Slowly, and by degrees, the murmuring Voice 
 
 Of Alpheus' waters stole upon her ear. 
 
 And mingled with her senses soothingly. 
 
 And placidly, like dreams; its Voice was sweet. 
 
 But never heard so soft, so low, so deep. 
 
 So full of speaking melody as now. 
 
 It seemed as if she felt it had a charm 
 
ARETHUSA. 125 
 
 That wooed her to its bed. She turned her eyes 
 
 Half listlessly, and saw how calm and full, 
 
 And cold, and pure, and silently it rolled ! 
 
 She rose, and drew the sandals from her feet . 
 
 And loosed the golden zone that bound her robe 
 
 Beneath her swelling bosom : light it fell 
 
 As wreath of mist from some young dawning Star, 
 
 Leaving it brilliant in the quiet heaven ; 
 
 And for a moment she stood thus ; a Form 
 
 That bard or limner never imaged forth, 
 
 In finest visions of the Beautiful ! 
 
 Then, as if conscious that the Sky looked on her. 
 
 She loosed the crescent circle from her brow. 
 
 And let fall her rich ringlets like a veil, — 
 
 Who knows not Arethusa*s golden hair. 
 
 That even Dian envied ? Down they fell. 
 
 Those tresses in whose silken tangles seemed 
 
 A sunbeam to have entered, prisoned there, 
 
 And giving them a pale and amber light. 
 
 Yet still they hid her not ; her beauty shone 
 
 Through them, as Twilight through the shadowy clouds 
 
 Shows still its dim and softened loveliness. 
 
 She stood upon the narrow rim of sand. 
 
126 ARETHUSA. 
 
 That edged the stream ; a yellow, pebbly strip, 
 That, by the deep green grass, and odorous flowers, 
 Shone like a gold-fringed border. There she stood, 
 Watching herself reflected in the water. 
 Like Beauty dwelling on its shadow ! now 
 Shrinking into herself in playful fear : 
 Then, like a wayward infant, sportively 
 Dashing the water with her timid foot ; 
 Then with a sudden impulse threw herself. 
 Confiding, into its encircling bed- 
 She started from her rest, and gained the sand. 
 As swiftly as the bird flies to its nest. 
 That hears the summer thunder ! She stood there 
 In listening fear ; her head was raised — and turned 
 Half upwards — as if she would catch again 
 That sound, and be confirmed in her vague fears. 
 One hand was pressed against her heaving bosom ; 
 The other, raised in doubt, as if to mark 
 The signal of her safety or her flight. 
 Was it the Wind that murmured o'er the sedge, 
 Which syllabled that startling sigh so close, 
 So deep, so full upon her waking ear ? 
 
 With a quick movement then she turned — and saw 
 
ARETHUSA. 127 
 
 The object of her fears at once revealed. 
 
 The river-god, immortal Alpheus, leaning 
 
 Crowned and recumbent o'er his mineral urn : 
 
 And gazing, as if consciousness and life 
 
 Were for a while forgotten — lost in her. 
 
 " O Arethusa, hear !" — she heard the sounds, 
 
 But not the words, for she was gone : nor saw 
 
 How lowly the god kneeled before her, bowed 
 
 By awe and passion. Fear was in her ears, 
 
 And eyes : she fled like the affrighted fawn 
 
 Before the huntsman : but what speed outstrips 
 
 The will and motion of a god ? She felt 
 
 His breath upon her neck behind in flight: 
 
 She called not — for her voice was lost in gasps : 
 
 But the deep invocation which she felt, 
 
 Was heard, and answered swift as her own thought, 
 
 By tutelary Dian ever near. 
 
 Her feet were staid, and rooted to the earth 
 In marble pillars : and her graceful arms 
 Still kept their lightly curving arch on high. 
 But melted into Water ! and their veins 
 Their pale and azure veins yet tinctured them 
 With the pure colour of the heavens ; her eyes 
 Flashed their bright light amid the falling streams ! 
 
128 ARETHUSA. 
 
 And that rich hair of which a god might boast. 
 Kept its surpassing beauty, though transformed 
 In wreaths of myrtle and acacia ! drooping 
 Above the fountain ; graceful as the plume 
 That nodding waves above Minerva's helm. 
 Without its terrors ; wooing to its spring, 
 By the sole charm of its exceeding beauty. 
 
 And so she mingled with an element 
 
 Pure as herself — with the eternal Water ! 
 
 And whether that the spirit now was changed 
 
 That lived within her — for each least thing lives 
 
 In Nature — and now, being heavenly, yearned 
 
 Toward its kindred, or that Love decreed ; — 
 
 The rivulet that flowed from that sweet spring, 
 
 Spread widening through the fields ; and, winding then, 
 
 With a capricious and a wayward will, 
 
 As if avoiding still the River's bank, 
 
 And yet approaching — half reluctantly — 
 
 At length sank in it with a murmuring sound, 
 
 And mixed with its embracinor stream for ever ! 
 
129 
 
 THE DANCE OF THE JS'EREIDS. 
 
 THE GRECIAN'S STORY. 
 
 The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 
 The fair humanities of old religion. 
 
 The Power, the Beauty, and the Majesty, 
 
 That had her haunts in dale, or piny mountain. 
 
 Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring. 
 
 Or chasms and watVy depths ; all these have vanished. 
 
 They live no longer in the faith of reason ! 
 
 But still the heart doth need a language. 
 
 Schiller— by Coleridge. 
 
 I LEFT fair Athens with the morn : the Sun 
 Stood in his skiey temple, and inspired 
 Gladness and life into each living thing. 
 1 wandered on as free as the sea-breeze, 
 And to avoid the windings of the shore, 
 I struck into the woodlands. — Full of hfe 
 
130 THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 And joyous thoughts was I, for a^^ seemed glad 
 In Nature, and I shared her happiness. 
 The witchery of the azure sky ; the tune 
 Of birds, the fall of waters, and the near 
 Low murmurings of the soft and voiceful Sea, 
 Bore burthen to the universal song. 
 Anon among the dim glades that I passed. 
 Peeped forth the forms of Dryads half unseen ! 
 And in the creaking of the boughs I heard 
 Pan's oaten reed : or 'midst the rusf ng leaves, 
 The shy Fawns hurrying from me in their flight. 
 
 Thou know'st, loved friend, each haunt of that wild 
 
 path : 
 How, ever and anon, the soft grey crags 
 Start up among the rich and tangled copse, 
 And show their veteran brows o'erseamed with scars 
 Of tempests past, encircled round with wreaths 
 Of myrtle, meed to their endurance due. 
 And thou know'st well how thick the hanging Woods 
 Cling there together, sheltered by the cliffs : 
 And how the azure Sea, with dimpling smiles,* 
 Steals into the embraces of the land, 
 Its many arms, and covert nooks ; and fills 
 
 * ui'rfpiBfxov yeAaa/xa. — .EscH\i,us. 
 
THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 131 
 
 Each silent haunt through which it glides along, 
 With voiceful sounds of melody and joy ! 
 
 I journeyed on through these rich scenes, my heart 
 
 Was influenced by the Spirit over all, 
 
 And, like the lyre, was attuned to love 
 
 All I beheld ; and to respond to all 
 
 Impressions, vibrating throughout my frame. 
 
 With a light buoyant step, and lighter heart, 
 
 I bounded on : now lingering for a while 
 
 To mark the sinuous windings of the shores ; 
 
 Or some fantastic oak, or anything 
 
 To feed my wandering fancies ! Then I thought 
 
 Of blind Moeonides, the lord of song: 
 
 And how the gods once walked upon the earth, 
 
 And felt this was their chosen region. 
 
 When mingling with the dying breeze, I thought 
 
 I heard the faintest sound of Melody. 
 
 I look ed around — I stood in a deep dell ; 
 So deep and shadowy, that though the Sun 
 Rode high in heaven, he could not enter there. 
 Far — far above me crags, the mountain woods. 
 And summits, shaped fantastically, rose 
 Like clouds on clouds, heaped round the twilight sky. 
 
 K 2 
 
13'2 THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 BeDeath, within a bow-shot, lay the sands : 
 That I saw dimly through the straggling trees. 
 Which partly veiled it with their leafy screen. 
 
 I scarce had gathered breath, when lo — a sound 
 
 Stole upward from the bosom of the Sea, 
 
 A soft and breathing sound of melody : 
 
 An exhalation rising from the Deep, 
 
 And floating on the slumberous summer airs ! 
 
 A sound, so fine, so faint, it scarcely was : 
 
 Nought lived between it and existence ; — yet 
 
 'Twas audible to feeling : name it then 
 
 A flowing respiration ! sighing forth 
 
 From the still bosom of the infinite Air, 
 
 Opening the tongue of Silence into sound ! 
 
 It thrilled my soul with harmony, and steeped 
 
 My senses in a voiceless ecstasy. 
 
 I was entranced, and motionless with awe, 
 
 And joy and wonder. 
 
 When behold —from forth 
 The bosom of the Waters slowly rose 
 A Nereid beautiful as mom, and fair 
 As Ocean's feathery form : another came. 
 Till hand in hand twelve lovely figures joined 
 In circle on the yellow sands, and made 
 
THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 183 
 
 A reverence to the Sea, which gesture was 
 
 The harmony of motion. Lightly then, 
 
 As floats the gossamer upon the air, 
 
 Yet silent as the Stars in their bright course. 
 
 They met in the embracing dance ; they twined 
 
 Between each other's arms : now parting — now 
 
 Leaving a void in their loose ranks, now ifteeting. 
 
 Ordered and regular in phalanx joined. 
 
 Methought it might be my mind's fantasy 
 
 That, in their mystic dance, they shadowed forth, 
 
 The nightly courses of the Hosts of Heaven. 
 
 A trumpet sound then echoed o'er the Deep ! 
 
 They stopped— and joined in circle rapidly. 
 
 Then tripped down to the margin of the sands. 
 
 Old Triton rose and blew his spiral horn ! 
 
 Anon a crew of Sea Nymphs answered : I 
 
 Saw Galatea in her pearly shell : 
 
 And Thetis with her silver sandalled feet ; 
 
 And fond, reluctant Alpheus, who had stolen 
 
 From wanton Arethusa's azure arms ! 
 
 They bore a car that floated on the waves. 
 
 ■^Twas hewn from coral ; shaped like the pale Moon 
 
 When lessening her western horn. I marvelled 
 
 For whom was placed that empty throne ; when lo ! 
 
134 THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 A fragrant perfume stole upon the sense, 
 From incense burning round the car, and filled 
 The air with its faint exhalation, softening, 
 And wrapping up the sinking heart entranced, 
 In dreams of passion and delight. 
 
 Then rose 
 A Vision from the Deep ! for it was not 
 Like anything that eye hath fantasied — 
 She rose, — the Queen of love and passion, she 
 The Aphrodite to whom the gods bow down ; 
 Venus, confessed in her immortal beauty ! 
 As when she emanated first from foam. 
 As when the boy of Ida looked on her. 
 When his eyes dimmed and his heart sunk beneath 
 The majesty of beauty, and confessed 
 That Wisdom is a mockery to Love ! 
 Her long rich golden hair, with dew-drops starred. 
 Fell down her back, and hid its swan-like curve ! 
 And veiled her shoulders, and life-breathing bosom. 
 Her zone cinctured her waist with golden clasp. 
 Whose impress was united hearts entwined ; 
 And heaved reluctantly against the yoke 
 Her swelling breasts. She sate upon her shell. 
 And glided like a wreath of mist to land ! 
 Then, circling as the Stars around the orbed, 
 
rh£ DANCii Ol THE NEREIDS. 135 
 
 And stately Moon, the Sea-nymphs plied their tasks. 
 The one untangles her bright hair bedewed 
 With foam, and wrings it playfully away : 
 One plaits the graceful foldings of her robe ; 
 A third, her footstool, or her sandal brings. 
 Then, raising from their sides their chorded shells, 
 Softly they sung their aphrodital hymn. 
 
 Oh, then my joy was at its full ! I stood. 
 
 And gazed on their immortal forms until 
 
 My eyes were dim, and my heart sunk beneath 
 
 The weight of its emotions ; as it doth 
 
 To human beauty, when it owns how weak 
 
 Is the will struggling in the chains of love ! 
 
 I was like one entranced in some fond dream : 
 
 Passive to outward impulses : too wrapt 
 
 To think : my memory, yea, sense itself 
 
 Absorbed in Vision ; but their music now 
 
 Stole into me, reminding me it was 
 
 Reality : the thrilling strains were such 
 
 As Venus only hears : it spoke of love's 
 
 First emanation from the heart, as pure 
 
 As fountain rain-drops ere they take one strain 
 
 From earth. It traced its onward course, descending 
 
 From those heights where it never can return ! 
 
136 THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 Widening, and deepening, and embracing all 
 In its voluptuous bosom, giving back 
 The heaven that it receives and mirrors there ; 
 Or rushing on perturbed with darker course, 
 Ruffled with fiercer passions : perishing 
 In its own fall, or parting, dried and lost 
 In arid deserts. Then, with melting chords, 
 It pictured its first wild ecstatic tears ; 
 From fulness of its overwrought delight : 
 Its fond regrets, and jealous fears, and sighs 
 Dwelling absorbed on the delicious past ; 
 And hope still dreaming of the bliss to come. 
 
 She heard them not : her cheek was resting on 
 Her hand ; her hair half veiled her brow ; her lips 
 Were parted, those half opening coral-gates. 
 That tell the heart is absent, and hath left 
 The dwelling-place within deserted ! Wan 
 Was her fair cheek, perchance, more lovely thus : 
 And her blue eyes, though gazing on the azure, 
 Saw nought ; a living Statue she sate there ; 
 Perchance her heart was with Adonis, or 
 Wandering to him, her conquered Lord of War. 
 
 I gazed, until the measure of my bliss 
 
THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 137 
 
 Was overflowed : all impresses were joined : 
 The witchery of the sky, their melody ; 
 And their immortal beauty entered in me ; 
 Their music made me feel a prisoner, 
 Struggling to free myself from earth and die ! 
 I stretched my hands forth in wild ecstasy : 
 And from my covert rushed to where they stood, 
 To kneel and worship, and relieve my heart 
 From suiFocating fulness ; 1 — a mortal. 
 Heedlessly breaking on their haunted ground ! 
 When lo ! — they vanished from before my eyes, 
 Like summer lightning, from where they, erewhile, 
 Had stood as brilliant and palpable, 
 
 I trod the very spot which they had left ; 
 I looked along the sands, to find and mark 
 The traces of their heavenly steps ; to know 
 That gods had been there and had hallowed them. 
 The ground was ribbed with close and furrowed lines. 
 Which the tide left when ebbing from its bed ; 
 Clear and distinctly traced, and unconfused. 
 Unsullied, and unbroken. 
 
 Where were they ? 
 Did they stand on the earth, those glorious forms, 
 
138 THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 That looked so full of beauty, love, and life ? 
 
 Or were they things that live upon the air, 
 
 Resolved to their fine Element again ? 
 
 I stood alone — the Sky looked quietly 
 
 Above me, — and the unconscious trees around ! 
 
 And all the Visions of my hopes and joys 
 
 Were fled together. — Then, like one who wakes 
 
 Unwillingly from an absorbing trance, 
 
 A blessed dream, that, though unreal, a^"ed him 
 
 Awhile with heaven : sadly I retraced. 
 
 Thoughtful, and slow, my solitary way. 
 
139 
 
 ACHILLES' DESCRIPTION OF HECTOR. 
 
 You never watched him in the battle-field : 
 O it was beautiful to see him stand, 
 Mailed head to foot, and looking from his shield 
 As from an iron tower : breathing strength 
 In his own men, but terror to his foes. 
 Then, 'midst the shock of armies to behold 
 The plume of his high helmet tossing proudly* 
 O'er the dense hosts, the mark of every eye ; 
 While the loud brattling of shivered arms. 
 And shouts of fear, and wrath, and triumph, told 
 How fierce the tide of battle broke around him ! 
 
 Thou talkest of the majesty of Jove 
 Baring his arm from the Olympian height. 
 And hurling down the thunder — look on him I 
 And thou shalt feel how glorious is the sight, 
 
 * Kopv6aio\os 'E'crajp. — Homer— passun. 
 
140 
 
 Yea, how sublime, to see one mortal man 
 Oppose himself to hundreds, trusting only 
 In his own courage and unconquered mind ! 
 Then, to behold, as J have seen him, hemmed 
 Round with an iron circle; his dimmed shield 
 Bristling with javelins, and those who hurled them 
 Recoiling from the hissing of his spear ; 
 Feeling that Jove himself hath not dealt forth 
 A death more certain than that sweeping arm ! 
 Then thou should'st look on him recovering 
 From his spent blow, with forward planted foot, 
 And shield protended, and his sword advanced, 
 Standing above the heaps of heroes dead. 
 As self-collected as the God of War, 
 Waiting fresh sacrifice ! 
 
141 
 
 ODE, 
 
 WRITTEN DURING THE CLOSE OF A SUMMER'S DAY 
 IN A GLEN NEAR ILFRACOMBE. 
 
 I. 
 
 To be — to be — O God of Heaven ! 
 
 It is enough on such a day 
 
 To feel that Life alone is given ; 
 
 Life, feeling, and humanity : 
 
 To wile the sunny hours away 
 
 In one absorbing reverie ; 
 
 And in the earth, the sky, the sea, 
 
 Thyself — thyself alone to see ! 
 
 IL 
 Do we not wake, O Father ! feeling 
 Thy breath in every wind that blows ? 
 Disease and pestilence now healing : 
 Now — rustling dew-drops from the rose. 
 
142 ODE. 
 
 Is not thy deep, tny awful Word, 
 In the earth-shaking thunder heard? 
 Tell not the Lightnings as they fly. 
 How scathing is thy wrathful Eye ? 
 
 III. 
 When buried in the Woods I lie, 
 While burning noon-day scorches round, 
 When not a quivering leaf on high 
 Breaks on the stillness, nor a sound ; 
 Do I not feel the silent strife 
 Of Nature bursting into life ? 
 That life— that pulse, so full, so free, 
 Father of Mercies ! drawn from Thee. 
 
 IV. 
 When on the Twilight hues I gaze, 
 So soft, so fading, so serene ; 
 While on the deep the Sun's last rays 
 Still glorious, though subdued, are seen ; 
 Do I not see the type — the trace 
 O God ! of thy all-formless face. 
 Irradiate with smiles of light 
 When virtuous deeds rejoice thy sight. 
 
 V. 
 And when the sacred Day is done, 
 When the Stars ope their radiant eyes. 
 
ODE. ' 143 
 
 Thicker than sand-grains floating on 
 The shoreless Ocean of the skies ! 
 Though / hear not the music there 
 That silently thy works declare : 
 The love — the rapture in my heart. 
 Tells me, oh God ! there too, Thou art. 
 
 VI. 
 Then, while all Nature sinks to rest, 
 Folded by Darkness' solemn pall : 
 While, like an infant, man oppressed 
 Yields helpless to oblivion's thrall ; 
 Do I not feel, while Sleep and Death 
 Contend above each parting breath. 
 Each pulse — each breath, unknown to me. 
 Is watched. Omnipotent, by Thee ! 
 
144 
 
 PROMETHEUS BOUND, 
 
 Thou seest what wrongs I suffer ! 
 
 ^SCHYLUS. 
 
 I HAD a vision of reality : 
 
 Such as arise upon the eyes of Mind, 
 
 Intently fixed upon the past — the Past, 
 
 The Prophet of the Future ; shadowing 
 
 From deeds or thoughts of those who suffered here, 
 
 Lessons and prescience of the things to come. 
 
 A waste, interminable, icy plain, 
 
 Stretched onward without limit, until lost 
 
 In the infinity of distance, where 
 
 The Sky, arched downwards, made a boundary, 
 
 Apparent only. That wild, desolate waste, , 
 
 Was levelled. Ocean like, and broken up 
 
V PROMETHEUg BOUND. 145 
 
 In fissures ; black ravines, down whose steep sides 
 Lay the striped snows : or in low ridges swelling, 
 Like undulations of the heaving Sea, 
 Stopped in its full pulsation ; even, while moving, 
 Transmuted into stone, with semblance still 
 Of living motion which was petrified ! 
 
 Earth^s beautiful and all familiar face ; 
 
 Her eyes that are the liquid streams ; her veins. 
 
 The azure fountains ; her rich hair, the leaves, 
 
 And pendant Woods ; her Voice, the winds, and waves. 
 
 And thunder in its mightier intonations. 
 
 Were not — extinct as they had never been. 
 
 A lifeless, pulseless, soundless Wilderness ! 
 
 Where even Air was breathless, petrified. 
 
 And frozen as the ground. There, Echo died ; 
 
 That laughing and elastic Spirit, haunting 
 
 Else desolate solitudes to mimic life. 
 
 Which only hath departed to return, 
 
 Was not : the respirating breath withheld. 
 
 On which she lived. On that blind, lifeless surface 
 
 Was nothing left to welcome her, responding 
 
 That she was heard ; no fowl of air — no mute 
 
 Or creeping thing that lives and dies in darkness ; — 
 
 The Void of Nature — or her womb — or grave. 
 
146 PROMETHEUS BOUND. 
 
 Silence was there presiding Deity : 
 
 The Unreality became a Form ; 
 
 Her reign was felt, imparting mystery, 
 
 And awe, and fear : yea, even a thrilUng dread 
 
 To nothingness ; her power was on the heart, 
 
 Which peopled unsubstantial Vacancy 
 
 With Spiritual essence of its own. 
 
 One solitary ridge of crag shot up 
 
 From that iUimitable plain : abrupt 
 
 In isolation ; no communion held it 
 
 With the dead Earth, save where its base reposed. 
 
 Such rocks the elder Titan might have piled 
 
 To scale the heavens, urged on by that ambition 
 
 Whose human cravings are unsatisfied. 
 
 It rose in its Sky-cleaving altitude. 
 
 Not lonely ; its mysterious communions 
 
 Were with the rising and the setting Sun : 
 
 With the Winds rushing round it, answering back, 
 
 While welcoming their fury ; with the fine 
 
 And subtle motions of the Summer airs ; 
 
 The soundless, luminiferous Ether ! filling 
 
 The impalpable Ocean of the living Space ; — 
 
 With the Clouds folding round its giant sides : 
 
 With touches of ethereal Moonhght, coming, 
 
PROMETHCUS BOUND. 147 
 
 And vanishing like Spirits ; with the Stars, 
 Those everlasting Watchers of the Heavens : 
 Looking down in their brightness on that mass 
 Of ponderous Life, enduring as their own ! 
 
 One human being lived and suffered there. 
 
 To suffer is to live ; upon himself 
 
 The common burthen of Humanity, 
 
 All it can feel — think — hope — believe — endure : 
 
 All which it can aspire to — and dream, 
 
 Whose aspirations, waking, are despair ; 
 
 All which it doth exult in — and lament ; 
 
 And — its severer tests of trial — all 
 
 Which it can prove of active agony, 
 
 The pang that maddens — prostrates — the suspense 
 
 Of hope — whose death is hopelessness — was borne 
 
 Concentrated within that lonely breast. 
 
 Upon that open plain, the Arena spread 
 Before him and the watching heavens, his Spirit, 
 From effort of fixed will and stern resolve, 
 The discipline of self; from pride, not born 
 Of air-blown weakness — Wisdom's mockery. 
 Nor from the inflated mask of Vanity, 
 Hiding the impotence which it reveals, 
 
 L 2 
 
148 PROMETHEUS BOUND. 
 
 Now, disembodied from its earthlier part, 
 Watched there the sufferings it felt no more. 
 The Ordeal was over : suffering had become 
 A sense familiar; like despair, and hope, 
 Subjected to the Mind's supremacy : 
 Proving in its unaided faculties, 
 How nearly it approacheth the divine. 
 
 Midway, that solitary Form was bound : 
 
 A human form— man, as he walked on earth, 
 
 In his first growth developed ; when the Tree 
 
 Of life shot up and flourished : ere disease 
 
 Had sapped, time seared, or stormy passions shorn 
 
 Its first magnificent dimensions ; breathing 
 
 The living soul of Him who planted it : 
 
 The elemental energies which made him ; 
 
 Their power — and strength — and energy — and calm ! 
 
 His limbs were bound against that precipice, 
 
 As if he were its marble part : as fixed, 
 
 And as immovable. His outstretched arms, 
 
 Arched o'er his head, showed his extended hands 
 
 Chained to the rock with links of adamant ; 
 
 His feet no footstool had— nailed to the cliff. 
 
 Recumbent rest, which strengthens helplessness. 
 
 And nerves the body, was unknown to him. 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND. 149 
 
 All the beatitude of blessed Sleep, 
 
 Its soft abandonment to ease, reclining 
 
 In Sybarital luxury, or couched 
 
 In rest more sweet upon our Mother-Earth ; 
 
 Its dreams of hope, and love, or grief, made hallowed 
 
 By those who caused our tears again to flow. 
 
 To him were unknown ; the undying Mind, 
 
 The living Spirit of Thought in him was sleepless ! 
 
 Wherefore ? — to assert and prove its energies : 
 To expose the sufi^erings of mortality 
 In all their desolate truth ; to teach mankind 
 To oppose — and, in opposing them~to conquer. 
 Claiming an immortality withheld. 
 Or given — from consciousness of its desert ; 
 From its love of the true, and beautiful, 
 Unreached, though ever sought by life's recoil: 
 From conquering all desire save that of knowledge ; 
 From the Will whose resistance is repulse, 
 Triumphant in defence : the body's death 
 Leaving it unsubdued ; its shield, struck down. 
 Showing the freed and disembodied Soul 
 In its innate and naked strength revealed ! 
 
 Lo, there the recompense of that Ambition, 
 
150 PROMETHEUS BOUND. 
 
 Erring, yet godlike ; that could not descend 
 
 Into the pale of our Humanity, 
 
 To own the weakness which is ignorance ; 
 
 To the iron rule of destiny to bring 
 
 Submission unrepining ; to endure 
 
 The unreal Shadows of our dreaming Life, 
 
 Knowing them shadows ; and yet feeling still 
 
 Their infinite entailing agonies, 
 
 Closed in the waking certainties of Death ; 
 
 The grave — the worm — corruption— nothingness. 
 
 What his reward for all he thought and sufi*ered ? 
 
 The buried hope — the fear — the doubt — remorse — 
 
 The oppressions of despair — for ever checked, 
 
 Returning still — hurled, wave-like, from the rock 
 
 Of that impenetrable Spirit ! This, 
 
 The harvest whose vain sweat was drops of blood ; 
 
 This, the bare height attained with infinite toil. 
 
 To open on a waste of desolation ! 
 
 This, the Tantalean thirst, that, all unslaked. 
 
 Doth, scorching, live beyond the grave ! — these are 
 
 The unfabled Vultures that do prey upon 
 
 The engenderings of the heart which they have baffled ! 
 
 The Elements, whose life is change, wrought none 
 
PROMETHEUS BOUND. 151 
 
 On him : whether the rising Sun shone down, 
 
 Measuring its endless cj^cle of duration 
 
 On the Sky's everlasting dial-plate. 
 
 Or bade him o'er that howling waste farewell ; 
 
 Whether the fine airs of the Summer slept 
 
 Around him in the shadows of the rock, 
 
 Or wreaked on his defenceless head their fury ; 
 
 Whether the Stars shone glimmering on his form, 
 
 Or thunders, bellowing o'er him, gave to Night 
 
 A tenfold horror ; even at that hour 
 
 His eyes were sleepless ! his concentered Mind 
 
 Was working out its destiny. The Lightnings, 
 
 Swallowing the darkness, gleamed upon those eyes, 
 
 Frowning their mute defiance : on those lips, 
 
 Compressed with his high thoughts' intensity ; 
 
 And showed the. Will stamped on that marble brow ; 
 
 Stern — rigid — motionless — immutable ! 
 
 THE END. 
 
NOTE TO THE DANCE OF THE NEREIDS. 
 
 / heard Pan's oaten stop ;* 
 
 I take, or rather make, this opportunity' of paying my tribute, and 
 most fervently do I do so, to that true and Master-poet — William Col- 
 lins : — a poet to whom from boyhood I have turned with a feeling little 
 short of veneration, from having felt and proved, dviring nearly half a 
 life — and from being also a lover of Nature and Solitude— the wonderful 
 fidelity, the truth, and the purity of his inspiration : — a poet, whose 
 Odes Milton, at the same age, might have written ; while Collins might 
 as equally have written his Masque, his Arcades, and his L'Allegro, and 
 II Penseroso, at that early age when he died ; the martyr, as consummate 
 genius too often is, to every species of the keenest disappointment and 
 wretchedness. All his Odes, too few as they are, are finished Paintings 
 of the Master- Artist ; he is the'most picturesque of all poets, abounding 
 equally with the finest strokes of the Beautiful and the Sublime ; but his 
 Ode to Evening is a piece of poetry whose delicate and exquisitely 
 finished abstractions escape all but reflective minds ; and whose refined 
 and subtler beauties can only be appreciated by him who has worshipped 
 at the same solitary shrine of Nature, with a heart purified by love ; 
 and with, at least, one half the intensity of that fervid and enthusiastic 
 Poet. He is obscure only to the uninitiated : as Campbell has so justly 
 observed, " Nothing is common-place in Collins." He was indeed the 
 Priest of Nature ; and while Nature and Truth are one, it is a beautiful 
 and gladdening reflection to know that he can never be ranked with the 
 forgotten. 
 
 I cannot conclude this my inefficient tribute, without expressing my 
 delight in having seen this great Poet made, for the first time, popular, 
 by the large-minded Editor of " Blackwood's Magazine ;" himself a poet 
 of no secondary stamp ; and ever ready and able to assert the claims 
 of neglected genius -, — the same quarter, be it remembered, which re- 
 mained open and steadily firm to Lord Byron, and to the fine genius of 
 Shelley, when both were the marks of unjust assault and unmerited 
 persecution ; and, assuredly, one of the firmest comer-stones whereon 
 rests the so hardly earned, and so amply merited popularity of Mr- 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 * If aught of oaten stop, or pastoral song, 
 
 Collins'' Ode to Evening. 
 
ITALY: 
 
 ^ pern m &tx ia^antos. 
 
 WITH HISTORICAL AND CLASSICAL NOTES. 
 
 SELECTIONS FROM CRITICAL OPINIONS. 
 
 " Italy is a work of great magnitude, exhibiting the power, no less than 
 the courage, of a Poet conscious of his strength. The immediate design 
 of this elaborate Poem is to describe the author's impressions during a 
 tour in Italy, commencing with the wonders of art in Florence, and then 
 passing on to Rome and Naples, where still greater miracles of beauty 
 tempted him to expand his song. His finest passages — and this Poem 
 abounds with passages of singular splendour— come upon us like the 
 sounds of familiar music borne upon the winds ; but, as there are obvious 
 feelings inseparable from the contemplation of such sights, which must 
 arise with greater or less intensity, in proportion to the sensibility of the 
 individual nature, it would have been impossible to produce such a Poem 
 without discovering affinities that are likely to suggest, perhaps, an ap- 
 pearance of imitation, where, in reality, none whatever exists. 
 
 " The work is purely the result of the inspiration of the scenes amidst 
 which it was written. The intense love of Nature is everywhere visible, 
 associated with a kindred admiration of those arts which in Italy, more 
 than any other part of the world, must occupy a predominant place in the 
 mind of a Poet. His description of her works of genius have the grace 
 and grandeur of Statues — the delicacy, breadth, and vivid colouring of 
 Pictures ; Guido's Aurora, for example, 
 
 ' While with her roseate fingers she is shaking 
 Morn from her starry hair ! ' 
 
 leaps into life from the canvass in his eloquent verse ; and the Temples of 
 
Pompeii are brought before us with such pictorial fidelity, that they seem 
 to rise out of the grave like objects revealed in the gloom of chaos, by a 
 burst of creative light. 
 
 *' In all these delineations there is great power, and a feeling of eleva- 
 tion fully commensurate to the vastness of the subjects. 
 
 " Even the reflective passages have a rhetorical pomp and grace of dic- 
 tion, which enchain the fancy while they address the thought ; and the 
 Poem altogether is one without which no collection of the Poets of our 
 own time can be considered complete." — The Monthly Chronicle. 
 
 " This thoughtful and elaborate Poem was composed during a tour 
 made by its Author in Italy in 1834. The journal of the tour was com- 
 menced in prose ; until the Author, finally urged by the influence of his 
 views of Florentine, Roman, and Neapolitan scenes and arts, resolved on 
 giving his conceptions to the world in their natural form of verse. His 
 descriptions of the masterpieces in the Florentine Gallery, at the com- 
 mencement, show how well he was qualified for the task. It is evident 
 that Mr. Reade is a poet of a high order. He has graceful language, spi- 
 rited conception, with powers of Thought constantly awakening and ex- 
 citing his readers ; and he has, in this work, directed them to the most 
 attractive of all subjects." — The New Monthly Magazine. 
 
 " To the list of the leading Poets of the age a new name is now added. 
 In such an age of the neglect of Poetry, the publication of a Poem like 
 the present is a cheering meteor in our sphere of literature. The public 
 taste, however morbid, cannot fail to appreciate the merits of Mr. Reade's 
 * Italy ;' and no one who has read * Childe Harold ' should delay the 
 perusal of this noble production, forming an absolute contrast with the 
 gloom-inspiring Muse of Lord Byron. 
 
 " When we venture to prophesy that a portion of the fame accorded 
 to * Childe Harold ' will be surely, however slowly, extended to ' Italy,' 
 we utter an impartial opinion, uninfluenced by the dazzling light of a great 
 reputation, and unprejudiced in the favour of him whom popular feeling 
 may deem inimitable. The author of first-rate genius never yet missed 
 his aim, however low the ebb of Poetry might have fallen, however high 
 the tide of prejudice might rise against him ; (we have grieved to observe 
 that not a little has been exerted on this occasion ;) and, most surely, 
 the Author of so thoughtful, so comprehensive, so moral, and in very 
 many parts — more especially in the fourth and sixth Cantos — so sublime 
 a Poem as ' Italy ' — will not, or rather cannot, be the first to set the 
 example." — The Monthly Magazine. 
 
 ** The high elements of Poetry evinced by the author of ' Italy,' many 
 
years since, in his powerful Drama ' Cain the Wanderer,' have been ma- 
 tured without being cooled ; the fine tone of feeling he then manifested, 
 has been strengthened without losing any of its sweetness ; the intense 
 love of Nature which he then displayed, has been taught to worship at 
 new Altars without detriment to its intensity ; and he has obtained a more 
 perfect mastery over the flow and expression of versification — so much so* 
 that we have scarcely noticed one rugged line in the six thousand which 
 the work contains. 
 
 " The stanzas on the Genius of Death alone, in the first canto, also 
 on the Moses and Antinous, which we have selected in preference to 
 others equally fine, on more known Statues, will show at once the powers 
 of genius and the feeling of the writer. The pictures and descriptions of 
 St. Peter's, Rome, Venice, and perhaps, above them all, of Naples, Ve- 
 suvius, and Peestum, only make us regret we cannot extract from each. 
 Yet we trust it will be enough to engage the lovers of poetic genius to 
 dwell on the whole of this powerful production. Episodes of legends, 
 and other compositions in various verse, are well introduced to break the 
 monotony of the Spenserian stanza ; and brilliant passages treat of Milton, 
 Byron, and other luminaries, now living only in their immortal works ; 
 whilst history, the arts, the sciences, the passionate taste for natural 
 beauties, and many other graceful features, are profusely displayed in 
 such language, and with such powers, as are only indicated in the brief 
 illustrations to the choice of which we have been unwillingly confined." 
 — Literary Gazette. 
 
 *' Mr. Reade's Italy may justly be described as the noblest poem that 
 has appeared since the Childe Harold. Partaking of much of the pictorial 
 grandeur of that work, it is pervaded by a wiser philosophy, by a more 
 expanded and cordial sympathy, and a minuter analysis of the influences 
 of the Past upon Imagination. If it be not so gorgeous and exciting — if 
 it be less profound in its delineation of those glorious sights that enter into 
 the subjects of which both, as far as they bear each other company, treat 
 in common — it gives us a nearer view of them, and possesses an air of 
 freshness and of nature that makes a closer approach to the poetical reali- 
 sation of Truth. 
 
 " The reader of this poem cannot fail to be struck by the exquisite 
 beauty and the fidelity of its descriptions of those grand objects — the 
 monuments of Art, and the sublime wonders of Nature— which cover the 
 face of Italy ; its historical and classical episodes \ its eloquent bursts of 
 feeling, and the consistent morality of its sentiments, which are never 
 darkened by a spirit of scorn or resentment, but which, all throughout, 
 are full of a fine and enlarged hungs^nity. 
 
 " The peculiar merit of the wori^* may be referred to the fact that it was 
 
written on the spots it describes, while the power of the scenes was yet 
 strong upon the writer ; and that it therefore may be said to convey im- 
 mediate impressions, printed off at once in the forms of language they 
 inspired at the moment." — Atlas. 
 
 *' In this barren season of our poetical literature, a poem like that which 
 the talented author of ' Cain the Wanderer' issues to the public, is a 
 truly welcome and valuable gift to all who know how to appreciate ster- 
 ling Poetry. The most noble trait in this poet's character is, that on 
 every occasion — in the notes as well as in the text — he has borne ample 
 testimony to the greatness of Lord Byron ; and by this line of conduct, in 
 a Poem that actually claims the same ground as ' Childe Harold,' the 
 author ought to have disarmed the prejudices of reviewers, the more so, 
 as the whole tone of thinking and feeling in ' Italy ' is so wholly opposed 
 to the former. In taking leave, after our many extracts, of this the most 
 important publication lately issued from the English press, we can only 
 pronounce it to be one that will not fail to clothe its author's name with 
 those honours which posterity has awarded to the names of our literary 
 men which are preserved to us." — Sherwood's Miscellany. 
 
 ■ " We hail with pleasure the re-appearance in the literary world of the 
 author of ' Cain the Wanderer.' His long silence had made us think 
 that the ' iit audience, though few,' which such Poets as he are destined 
 to find, had failed to satisfy his ambition, and that he had thrown down 
 his pen in disgust, at not attaining that mere popularity which, if he had 
 attained, would have gone nigh to prove that the appreciators of Poetry 
 were hasty in the estimate they had formed of his capacities. 
 
 " Every change which time has worked upon the writer is for the better. 
 Whatever he has lost is that which stood in the way of his just appre- 
 ciation by poetical readers — whatever he has gained is a step in advance 
 towards that goal to which, during half a life, he has been aiming. If 
 his former works displayed the native capacities and aspirations of the 
 Poet, as they are accustomed to work themselves out in the first vigour 
 and wealth of their youthful vitality, this last result presents itself such as 
 we might have expected from the future products of such a root planted 
 in such a soil." — The Courier. 
 
 '* Mr. Reade has ventured upon one of those bold attempts which can 
 only be justified by success, and if, in this instance, he were disposed to 
 exclaim with a brother bard of antiquity — ' Nee caeca meas audacia vires 
 fallat,' every reader of ' Italy,' provided he were a genuine lover of Poetry, 
 would assure him that the resvdt had fully authorised his not unambitious 
 claim. The admirers of ' Cain the Wanderer,' a production of the same 
 
author, published some years since, will have been prepared for a lofty 
 and impassioned strain of Poetry, for an admiration of Nature amounting 
 to intensity, for etiergetic diction ; but they will hardly have anticipated 
 the chastened taste, which, avoiding all the crudities of his earlier muse, 
 has enabled the author to mellow his enthusiasm by blending it with a 
 refined and polished amenity. Nor can we doubt its winning the ap- 
 plause of his 'fit audience though few,' which was so desiderated by 
 Milton himself, nor fail to gain that tardy popularity which is now making 
 atonement for the neglect of Wordsworth. The copious notes are replete 
 with interest and information ; and we should recommend their study 
 after the perusal of the Canto to which they appertain. The descrip- 
 tions of Pompeii and Paestum are perhaps among the very finest por- 
 tions of this fine poem ; but as they are beyond the limits of extract, we 
 must imitate the pedant in Hierocles, and content ourselves with pro- 
 ducing a single brick as a sample of the house which we are anxious to 
 recommend." — The Brighton Herald. 
 
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