Classic Poem

SCENE XI.

HEIGHTS OF MOUNT HERMON.

I SRAPHIL , A ZOARA , O RAZIEL , A STARTE , A NK .

ISRAPHIL .

Our power is gone from us; to tempt it more
Were but to perish; we await our doom,
The justice or the mercy of the Lord.

AZOARA .

Farewell my hope that was not hope! I felt
A consciousness that we were bound to earth.
Here we remain, the mark of elements,
Until insensible to suffering.

ASTARTE .

My sister, never! Suffering cannot quench
Our faith, that like a holy fire but tries
The love it proves, which on endurance grows
Oh, could I ever look into thine eyes,
My seraph-lord, nor draw from them support?
Or couldst thou turn from thy Astarte, now
Verging on our eternal parting? — No,
Our spirits join in one, mine dwelleth here.

O Earth, that I now feel how much I love,
Beautiful earth! thou art no more for me.
I look round — all is hidden — and above;
I feel, great Angel, but for thee,
For with thy gift of immortality,
How lonely wilt thou be!
Yet Thou, O God! that wrenchest us apart,
In its last pang wilt heal the broken heart.
Let him be saved, and I am blest;
Let him not suffer, for he is
Immortal; let him turn to happiness,
Nor vainly mourn for her who is at rest.

AZOARA .

What will ye do? say, whither will ye hie?
We do forget you in our agony.

ISRAPHIL .

Here we remain, and with ye die,
Or share the life that is our own.

AZOARA .

If the last accents thou shalt hear,
Of her whose love was once so dear,
Have yet a charm, if not a power,
Then, by the God we have offended, fly!
And at the foot of the Almighty throne
Thy human sin atone.
Oh, leave us! Even in this hour,
Hope, seraph-like, her wing above us spreads,
Lightening the storm; one faith unquenchable
Is ours, let the surge roll above our heads,
In your immortal breasts we dwell,
And cannot be forgot.
Leave us to death; our sister-hands are joined
As are our hearts, see, how we are resigned.

ORAZIEL .

Never! to share the lot
Of those beneath who strive in their despair.
Hark! how their wild cries pierce the air,
Lo, where they cling beneath the hill
To yon rock's ribs in vain,
Whirled off before the sweeping main,
Or transfixed writhing there
In agony hanging still.

ISRAPHIL .

Behold yon giant form that rives
The waters' strength through which he strives!
His shagged hair heaves around his head
Like branches by the whirlwind spread,
Fixed as the rock or skyey oak
That mocks the fire or thunder-stroke.
He gains the mountain, hurling back
The waves that rush upon his track,
As if he spurned the ignoble strife
Awhile that vindicated life.

ANAK .

Blind waters! ye are baffled; here
Your course is stayed; yet do I fear
Your wrath, ye ministers accursed
Of God — Wreak on me here your worst.
I live; I would not yield to fate,
Till I had stood upon this rock,
To pour the passion forth, the hate
That these weak elements doth mock;
To curse the day that saw my birth,
And kindred with the sons of earth;
To howl out to the dim deaf air
My wrath, defiance, and despair.

Onward, ye Waters, roll!
Blind slaves to the control
O'er which ye have no power, such am not I
One boon I ask of thee, thou One,
That dost my presence shun;
If by thy hand, Omnipotent! I sink,
Wherefore to look upon me dost thou shrink?
Show thyself, thou invisible Agency,
With the dread arms that thou dost wield
Behind yon lightning shield!
If that thou art whom I have still disowned,
'Tis where convulsion whirls around thee throned,
Thyself the central calm. Stand forth apart
From darkness, cloud, and whirlwind hiding thee,
Come forth, whate'er thou art!
Had I beheld thee, an embodied form,
An Energy none living might withstand,
Thine eye the lightnings, in thy hand
The cleaving thunders, thy wild breath the storm,
Then had I died
With the heroic pride
Of him who with undaunted eye
Doth falling look upon his enemy!

Ye Elements! I give ye back your dust,
Take this worn clay; and in your bowels hide!
The free-will that your rage defied,
Defies ye still; that will, my earliest trust,
And latest, in its hate and scorn
Proves that from you its spirit is unborn.
And thou, Destroyer! wheresoe'er
Thou art, that hid'st from my despair,
Look on me throned above thy anarchy;
Conquering or Thee, or the necessity,
Thy lord and mine, by daring first to die!

AZOARA .

Lo, tranquilly he strides to the abyss
As to a bed of happiness.
Like the based rock whereon he stood,
He sinks in the wild flood.
So may the will of death a mockery make.

ORAZIEL .

Yea, when thy nature thou dost thus forsake,
And his blind ignorance partake.

PATRIARCH .

Cursed be the wisdom that doth not accord
With human feeling! blessed be the Lord:
The act is His, decreed ere time began,
Wrought to regenerate the race of man;
They saw Him in his works on earth, above;
Warned not the Sire with a paternal love?
Yea, speaking tokens hath He sent
From the tongued earth and firmament.
They dared deny, and Him defied
In their idolatry and vainer pride.
Lo where on the wild waters they are rolled,
Their restless thoughts for ever now controlled! —
I raise my Voice against them, and declare
The justice of the doom I share.
Amidst the wrecks of life and death
I look up, holding my unshaken faith
In Him who bade me live, who sees me die.
I stand before Thee a frail thing of life;
But thou hast given me thought
To contemplate thy will;
Wherefore wage these wild elements their strife
'Gainst him a breath may kill?
But I am mightier than they, for I
Know that I perish, but these round me, wild,
And blind, and sightless torturers, know nought!

I raise my voice, last moment though it be,
Even while I suffer the great penalty
I, too, have merited, the sin-defiled,
But with my faith in Thee, I cease to fear.
Wherefore? those waves may crush me, can they kill
The immortal soul that lives 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 .

See where the waters hurl him like the dust
Before the whirlwind. Even so die the just;
Yet hath that Man approached the Angel's height,
Strong in his faith as in a rock of might!

ORAZIEL .

Behold the Ark
On the waste waters floating! round it clung
The sea-birds, borne off by the surge, concealing
Awhile that solitary bark.
Through the black clouds o'erhung
Flashes a lightning ray,
Its cloven path revealing,
That halos round, and will not pass away:
Portent 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,
Standing aloof to watch the great, and good,
And beautiful, succumb in the wild flood.
What gain they when this wreck shall cease? —
A few brief years to add to the cold past;
Clinging to life's ties to the last,
When we shall sleep in peace!

IRAD .

I call on thee; Astarte, hear!

AZOARA .

She heeds thee not, insensate in her fear.

IRAD .

Astarte! it is not too late.
Death or life for thee await,
Hanging now upon each word;
Answer — I call thee in the Lord!

ORAZIEL .

Hence, pale son of Noah! she
Hears thee not, but turns to me
As her refuge; life or death
Rests not on a mortal's breath;
I will bear her from this earth,
And renew her heavenly birth.

IRAD .

Canst thou save her? If thy power
Rules the inevitable hour,
Why delayest thou to fly?
Wherefore lingering should she die? —

AZOARA .

Ask the Eternal One on high
Why, if He be just, alike
Good and evil He doth strike?
Hence! we will not bear the stain
Of self-reproach and infamy.

ASTARTE .

Irad! hear me, for thou hast loved in vain.
I would have loved thee, but I felt
Subjected to a higher will.
Remorse with me hath dwelt
For duties I could not fulfil,
For anguish, wrought alas! for thee;
Forgive, and oh, remember me!
And when the waters o'er the world are cast,
And our last agony is past,
Think then on all I might have been,
Had not such love been sin
To an immortal being.
Pray for me, thou, to the All-seeing!
And while thou dost remember, give thy sigh,
Thy blessing, to my memory;
Thy prayer that she, too early doomed to die,
May her atonement make to the Most High.

AZOARA .

Pale seed of Seth!
Depart, and leave us to our death;
Enough thou canst survive
A buried world, that thou, without remorse,
Above our graves canst walk alive,
Be thy insensibility thy curse!
Or, if a greater may remain behind,
Be it in our forgiveness of thee
To grovelling life resigned.
Yet would we have thee own one great emotion;
That thou shouldst know, then, when the hateful Ocean.
Rolls o'er us, when life struggles with the will,
The strangling waters sweeping o'er,
We held ourselves the same inflexible,
And felt amid the elemental roar,
The joy, the triumph, the ennobling pride
That we, united, gloriously died!

Tread on the common earth,
That tombed and gave us birth,
Your few brief years, and in dull duty give
Thanksgiving due ye were allowed to live;
Then yield to the control
Of the same stern necessity.
The human pang we feel, the sole
Humiliation, that we were allied
To the same baser elements as ye;
That, when resolved to dust again,
Still to us clings the self-defiling stain
That in your hearts our memory must remain.

NOAH .

Away, and leave them! — See the sky
Changes! the lurid gloom o'erspreads;
Tempt we no more the destiny
That lowers above our heads.

IRAD .

Yet hear me! —

NOAH .

By our God, I swear
Thou meritest their doom to share.

IRAD .

Here cast me forth! — that death I dare,
I will not leave her.

NOAH .

Sons! come forth;
Your fraternal strength essay,
And drag this child of sin away,
Ere he waken God to wrath.
Close our brazen doors, that he
Nought without may hear or see,
Till silence shall the world's doom tell.

IRAD .

Astarte, hear! —

HAMMON .

Thou call'st in vain.

IRAD .

Farewell!

AZOARA .

All hope is over.

ISRAPHIL .

Be the last,
The mightiest, proved.

ORAZIEL .

Astarte! wake.

ASTARTE .

The bitterness of death is past;
I only tremble for thy sake.
Hear! — for we essay the word,
The utterance that calls the Lord,
Spirit-breathed, unspoke, unheard,
By the inmost thought avowed;
Lightning-like, from voiceless cloud,
Its power awakened shall unfold
Wings that on the whirlwind bear
Him who hath expressed it, where
Present God he shall behold.
Ye shall feel the spell, and fly
From dead earth. Ye shall not die
Ere before the gates of heaven
Ye stand to be received within
By mercy, and your souls forgiven;
We, the atonement for your human sin.

AZOARA .

O glorious trial of exceeding love!
What equal hath it in your realm above?
Seraph! thou dost o'erpower the heart
That dared to deem itself as high;
Yet never shall our love —

ASTARTE .

Depart!
Behold yon overhanging sky!
It is not fear: above the storm
I see, I see a giant Form!
Lo, his vast Shadow blackens through,
And gives the clouds a darker hue!
He stretcheth forth his hand, the sun
Burying in night, its course is done.
No light sheds o'er the lurid gloom,
Save faintly where from far
Glows the red glory of the star
That lights earth to her tomb.

AZOARA .

Fly, fly! —

ASTARTE .

Remember me.

AZOARA .

No more delay!
See where the waters howl and hiss
Over yon cloven peaks above the abyss
That mark where was the world:
Gathering they rise. One moment more,
O'er our devoted heads they roar,
Like weeds before them hurled.

ISRAPHIL .

Know first the Sign; its power thou shalt essay

ORAZIEL .

Hark! — our last summons!

ISRAPHIL .

The great hand
Of Heaven is on me where I stand.
My Azoara, I am borne away!
Farewell —

AZOARA .

For ever? yet that one word say?

ISRAPHIL .

For ever!

ASTARTE .

Thou, Oraziel?

AZOARA .

They are fled,
Buried in lightnings! Clasp me, the great deep
Engulphs us —

ASTARTE .

Mercy, Father! —

AZOARA .

Death or sleep.