The Works of Lord Byron

But, if you rue it after, blame not me.
Arn. Let her but live!
Cæs.

The spirit of her life
Is yet within her breast, and may revive.
Count! Count! I am your servant in all things,
And this is a new office :-'tis not oft

I am employ'd in such; but you perceive
How stanch a friend is what you call a fiend.
On earth you have often only fiends for friends;
Now I desert not mine. Soft! bear her hence,
The beautiful half-clay, and nearly spirit!

I am almost enamor'd of her, as

Of old the angels of her earliest sex.

3..

And when the spring comes with her host Of flowers, that flower beloved the most Shrinks from the crowd that may confuse Her heavenly odor and virgin hues.

Pluck the others, but still remember
Their herald out of dim December-
The morning star of all the flowers,
The pledge of daylight's lengthen'd hours;
Nor, mid the roses, e'er forget
The virgin, virgin violet.

Enter CESAR.

Cas. (singing.) The wars are all over,
Our swords are all idle,

The steed bites the bridle,
The casque's on the wall.
There's rest for the rover,

But his armor is rusty,

And the veteran grows crusty,
As he yawns in the hall;

He drinks-but what's drinking?

A mere pause from thinking!

No bugle awakes him with life-and-death call

CHORUS.

But the hound bayeth loudly,

The boar's in the wood, And the falcon longs proudly

To spring from her hood: On the wrist of the noble She sits like a crest, And the air is in trouble With birds from their nest

Cæs. Oh! shadow of glory!

Dim image of war!

But the chase hath no story,
Her hero no star,

Since Nimrod the founder
Of empire and chase,

Who made the woods wonder
And quake for their race.

When the lion was young,

In the pride of his might,

Then 'twas sport for the strong

To embrace him in fight;

To go forth, with a pine

For a spear 'gainst the mammoth,
Or strike through the ravine

At the foaming behemoth;
While man was in stature
As towers in our time,
The first-born of nature,
And, like her, sublime!

CHORUS.

But the wars are over,
The spring is come;
The bride and her lover

Have sought their home:

They are happy, and we rejoice;

Let their hearts have an echo from every voice:

[Exeunt the Peasantry, singing.

AHOLIBAMAH.

Anah.

I love Azzaiel more than

My sister, though -oh, too much!

What was I going to say? my heart grows impious.
Aho. And where is the impiety of loving
Celestial natures?

Anah.

But, Aholibamah,

I love our God less since his angel loved me:
This cannot be of good; and though I know not
That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears

Which are not ominous of right.

Aho.

Then wed thee

Unto some son of clay, and toil and spin!
There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved thee long:

Chorus of Spirits of the Earth.-Chorus of Mortals. Marry, and bring forth dust!

PART I.

SCENE I.

Anah.
I should have loved
Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet

I am glad he is not. I can not outlive him,
And when I think that his immortal wings

Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre

Of the poor child of clay which so adored him,
As he adores the Highest, death becomes
Less terrible; but yet I pity him:

A woody and mountainous district near Mount Ara- His grief will be of ages, or at least'

rat.-Time, Midnight.

Enter ANAH and AHоLIBAMAH.

Mine would be such for him, were I the seraph,
And he the perishable.

Rather say,

Aho.
That he will single forth some other daughter

Anah. OUR father sleeps: it is the hour when they Of Earth, and love her as he once loved Anah. Who love us are accustom'd to descend Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Ararat : How my heart beats!

Albeit thou watchest with "the seven Though through space infinite and hoary Before thy bright wings worlds be driven, Yet hear!

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

Thou canst not tell,-and never be
Such pangs decreed to aught save me,-
The bitterness of tears.
Eternity is in thy years,
Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes;
With me thou canst not sympathize,

Except in love, and there thou must Acknowledge that more loving dust Ne'er wept beneath the skies.

Thou walk'st thy many worlds, thou see'st The face of him who made thee great,

As he hath made me of the least

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

Oh hear !

For thou hast loved me, and I would not die
Until I know what I must die in knowing,

That thou foget'st in thine eternity

Her whose heart death could not keep from o'erflowing

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

An Eden kept afar from sight,

Though sometimes with our visions blent.
The hour is near

Which tells me we are not abandon'd quite.-
Appear! Appear!
Seraph!

My own Azaziel! be but here,

And leave the stars to their own light.
Aho.

Samiasa!

Whereso'er

Thon rulest in the upper air

Or warring with the spirits who may dare
Dispute with him

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

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

I call thee, I await thee, and I love thee.
Many may worship thee, that will I not:

If that thy spirit down to mine may move thee,
Descend and share my lot!

Though I be form'd of clay,
And thou of beams

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

Thine immortality can not repay
With love more warm than mine

My love. There is a ray

• The archangels, said to be seven in number.

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

I feel my immortality o'ersweep

All pains, all tears, all time, all fears, and peal,
Like the eternal thunders of the deep,
Into my ears this truth-"thou liv'st for ever!"
But if it be in joy

I know not, nor would know;

That secret rests with the Almighty giver
Who folds in clouds the fonts of bliss and wo
But thee and me he never can destroy;
Change as he may, but not o'erwhelm; we are
Of as eternal essence and must war

With him if he will war with us: with thee

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

No! though the serpent's sting should pierce m through,

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

And curse thee not; but hold

Thee in as warm a fold

Japh.
But they sooth me-now
Perhaps she looks upon them as I look.
Methinks a being that is beautiful
Becometh more so as it looks on beauty,
The eternal beauty of undying things.
Oh, Anah!

Irad.

Japh.

But she loves thee not.

Alas!

Irad. And proud Aholibamah spurns me also.
Japh. I feel for thee too.
Irad.
Let her keep her pride,
Mine hath enabled me to bear her scorn:
It may be, time too will avenge it.
Japh.

Find joy in such a thought?
Irad.

Canst thou

Nor joy nor sorrow,
I loved her well; I would have loved her better,
Had love been met with love: as 'tis, I leave her
To brighter destinies, if so she deems them.
Japh. What destinies ?
Irad.

She loves another.

Japh.

Irad.

Irad. But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.

Japh.

I must proceed alone.

Irad.

No, neither, Irad:

Then peace be with thee!
[Exit IRAD.
Japh. (solus.) Peace! I have sought it where it
should be found,

In love with love, too, which perhaps deserved it;
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart-
A weakness of the spirit-listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep-
Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm
Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by

The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs;
Such is the sullen or the fitful state

Of my mind overworn. The earth's grown wicked,
And many signs and portents have proclaim'd

I have some cause to think A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom
To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah!
When the dread hour denounced shall open wide
The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou
Have lain within this bosom, folded from

Anah!

Japh. What other?
Irad.

No; her sister.

That I know not; but her air, The elements; this bosom, which in vain

If not her words, tells me she loves another.
Japh. Ay, but not Anah: she but loves her God.
Irad. Whate'er she loveth, so she loves thee not,
What can it profit thee?
Japh.

For being happy,
Deprived of that which makes my misery.
Irad. I take thy taunt as part of thy distemper,
And would not feel as thou dost for more shekels
Than all our father's herds would bring if weigh'd
Against the metal of the sons of Cain-
The yellow dust they try to barter with us,
As if such useless and discolor'd trash,
The refuse of the earth, could be received
For milk, and wool, and flesh, and fruits, and all
Our flocks and wilderness afford.-Go, Japhet,
Sigh to the stars as wolves howl to the moon-
I must back to my rest.
Japh.

If I could rest.

And so would I

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

Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vainly,
While thine-Oh, God! at least remit to her
Thy wrath! for she is pure amid the failing
As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench,
Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anah!
How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst not;
And still would I redeem thee-see thee live
When ocean is earth's grave, and, unopposed
By rock or shallow, the leviathan,
Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world,
Shall wonder at his boundlessness of realm.

Noah. What doth he there? It is an evil spot
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Than even wicked men resort there: he
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she loved him,
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts
Of men! that one of my blood, knowing well
The destiny and evil of these days,
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge
In such forbidden yearnings! Lead the way;
Sooth further my sad spirit He must be sought for!
With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,
Shem.
I will seek Japhet.
Noah.

What would'st thou there?

Wherefore so?

Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with All evil things are powerless on the man terrors.

I must go with thee.

Irad, no; believe me

Japh.
I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil.

Shem. To the tents of the father of the sisters?

Noah. No; to the cavern of the Caucasus.

[Exeunt NOAH and SHEM

SCENE III.

Japh. By the approaching deluge! by the earth Which will be strangled by the ocean! by

The Mountains.-A Cavern, and the Rocks of The deep which will lay open all her fountains! The heaven which will convert her clouds to seas,

Caucasus.

Japh. (solus.) Ye wilds, that look eternal; and And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes!

thou cave

Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,

So varied and so terrible in beauty;

Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks

And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone

In perpendicular places, where the foot

Of man would tremble, could he reach them-yes,
Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,

Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct,
Yet Awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me!
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh?
Spirit.

Why weep'st thou ?

Japh. For earth and all her children.
Spirit.

Ha! Ha! Ha! [Spirit vanishes. Japh. How the fiend mocks the tortures of a world,

Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurl'd The coming desolation of an orb,

Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,
Which seems to lead into a lower world,

On which the sun shall rise and warm no life!
How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is

Shall have its depth search'd by the sweeping wave, Sleep too upon the very eve of death!
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!
And man-
-Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
Shall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
Alas! what am I better than ye are,

That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
While I had hope? or the more savage haunts,
Scarce less beloved, where I despair'd for her?
And can it be!-Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
And scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
Leaving it with a crown of many hues ?
No more to be the beacon of the world
For angels to alight on, as the spot

Nearest the stars? And can those words "no more,"
Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
He preserve them, and I not have the power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his mate,
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolong'd,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world,
Reeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this until
The salt morass subside into a sphere
Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguish'd sepulchre,

Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much

Breath will be still'd at once! All beauteous world!
So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,

Why should they wake to meet it? What is here,
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!
[Various Spirits pass from the cavern.
Rejoice!

Spirit.

The abbhorr'd race

Which could not keep in Eden their high place;
But listen'd to the voice

Of knowledge without power,
Are nigh the hour

Of death!

Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,

Nor years, nor heart-break, nor time's sapping

motion,

Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!
Earth shall be ocean!

And no breath,

Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave

Shall lift its point to save.

Or show the place where strong despair hath died
After long looking o'er the ocean wide

For the expected ebb which cometh not;
All shall be void,

Destroy'd!

Another element shall be the lord
Of life, and the abhorr'd

Children of dust be quench'd; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain

Shall nought remain

Unchanged, nor of the level plain;

Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain:
All merged within the universal fountain,
Man, earth, and fire, shall die,

And sea and sky

And night by night, thy number'd days and nights. Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye

I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but as
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think
Upon thy coming doom without a feeling

Such as-Oh God! and canst thou- [He pauses.

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Libros

The Works of Lord Byron: Embracing His Suppressed Poems, and a Sketch of His ...