University of Virginia Library

SCENE II.

—Same night. The Moon. Afrael standing on the edge of an extinct volcano.
AFRAEL.
(sol.
Meseems as though this nighest stage to earth,
This uninhabited and jagged ball,
Were unto Earth a travelling tributary.
For 'twixt yon living planet which is now
To my fixed passion chiefest point in space,
And this one, dead, whereon I halt and bide
The hour to bid me sweep to my sweet tryst,
The distance never widens nor yet wanes.
Yes, we are following, following, through the night,
Silently sailing in this azure sea,
Whose waves are all around, yet never whelm,
Along the track swayed by that pilot world.
Yet what a wreck this skyey bark appears!
Empty of spirits, empty of all life,
Pastureless, streamless, voiceless, tenantless;
No sound, no movement; silent as deep thought;
Bare or of trunk or herb; even no noise
Of falling waters or of flitting wing:
No growth and nought to grow in,—only bare rock,
Cavernous, rugged, huge, precipitous,
Rolled out in slippery unadvancing waves,
Volcanic writhings rigid now in death!
Is this the end of all fidelity
Unto the earthly? Oh! avaunt the thought!
Withal I ne'er have seen a sphere so scarred,
So faced with desolation, so extinct,
So shorn of comfort. Yet it follows still!
Perchance it is its fate to follow still,
Its punishment! Nay, rather let me think,
It is its supreme bliss, its one reward,
That doth outweigh all other penalties.
O melancholy wanderer! I would be
Charred even as thou, extinguished, desolate,
With nought but rock and ashes at my core,
Sooner than once surrender that last right
Still to pursue and worship from afar!
Move on! Move on! ye constellations calm,
That tell the watches of the night, and bring
Swiftly the hour I may indulge my love,
And leap the frontier of my banishment!
For æons unrecorded that mine eyes
Have watched yon marshalled vault, I ne'er have known you
Hasten or slacken in your solemn march;
But now to-night ye seem to me to lag
And fall into the rear of Time, whose rhythm
Is marked but by my own impatient heart!