University of Virginia Library

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9

The Lay of LILITH'S SON; Dreamer of Dreams, Seer of Visions, in the Morning Land.

‘Of Him, the Oldest Man—Methuselah,
Whose Death forenamed brought wreck on the huge World;
Of Noah, the rejected priest of Truth;
Of Wrong primeval, and the Father's Wrath;
How War lays waste, and Peace corrupts mankind;
Nations, and peoples; patriarchs, and kings;
Angels, men, demons; Earth, and Heaven, and Hell;
Lands without name, and Language without words;
The cataracts of the everlasting Height,
The fountains of the cöeternal Deep;
Antient of Days, instruct the solemn song.
—Omniscient Spirit, Presence of the past,
Rend, rend the veil; unblasted, let me look

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10

Into the Holiest: On that Dial's front,
Whose hours are ages, bid the Sun return,
That I may read their history aloud:
Disperse the mist from Ocean's monstrous face,
And purge my sight, that I may see beyond;
And, from the mystic, unrevealed profound
Of universal Deluge, may evoke,
As from a sepulchre, the Spectres dread
Of giant crime, of passions darkly great;
Imaginations awful, unexplored,
Begot incessant on the evil heart;
Dire brood of Mind rebellious, bold to scale
The hill of heaven, and dare the brow of God.’