The Judgement of the Flood :: :: University of Virginia Library

To re-create the Past, and to create
Being, and Passion for its occupance,
Are mine. What poet but might quail beneath
The solemn task? What excellence of thought,
What strength of soul, it needs to wrestle well
With the Antient of such far-off days obscure.
Though wounded in the conflict . . though my brain
Be with the effort in the end collapsed,
Dilated, till enfeebled, then o'erthrown . .
Yet I will on, until it be complete.
What should I fear to lose for my theme's sake?
Yea, the great globe is valueless, and void.
My country or the world may guerdon me—
So let, or let them not; . . and to themselves
Be deathless shame, or honour on us both:
For Time discovers Truth; and, where 'tis due,
The eternal meed of Fame, though late, confers.

What hindereth, too, that in the world, beyond
The shadowy boundaries of maternal earth,
Our memories may survive, and residence

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Perpetual win; forewarning new-create
Intelligence, experienced guides, and guards
From evil snare to godlike virtue high,
Aiding the soul by gradual, sure ascent,
To the Supreme? Haply, the mighty noise,
Wherewith the visible heavens shall pass away,
May fail to silence Milton's trumpet-song:
Nor shall the wreck of elements dissolve
Even his of Rome; though, to the lyre attuned,
His strain be gentler, and the harmony
Of texture delicate, and like the light
Of the pale moon, a reflex from the orb
Of bolder genius, Melisegenes.
And, though the sun be shattered from his sphere,
Turned to a chaos dark, and void; that orb
Of most heroic glory shall remain,
Kindling new Maroes in the world to come,
Surpassing even himself in the degree
That spirit body excels. The expanded sky,
Wherein the angels have been wont to write
Their starry poesy for man to read,
Shall be upfolded like a shrivelled scroll;
Yet may the poesy of man endure,
And hallow the frail leaves of human wit.
—The firmament shall melt with fervent heat,
And the foundations of the earth dissolve
Into a molten sea, and all depart
Into the liquid flame: heaven, and the stars,
With sun, and moon, and all material things,
Tower, temple, palace, pyramid, and grove;
How gorgeous in their unessential shew
Soever they appear, like shadows, they
Depart. But the Eternal Book, wherein
Poets, historians, patriarchs, registered
The Word of the Omnipotent, shall dwell
In its own consecrated destiny

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Secure. His Word shall never pass away:
But as the Prophecy of Enoch came,
Thorough the Flood, transmitted to late time,
In this diurnal, mutable sojourn,
And in the text of Jude existent still;
So that the doom, and trial fiery
Shall bide, and come out thence, by proof divine,
The indubitable Word of the Most High.
—Some say, archangel Michael shall descend,
And, 'mid the fierce combustion, pluck it thence,
By hard assay approved, and glorified,
Victor sublime. In that eternal land
Of spirits undying, in the energy
Of being, shall all things exist entire;
Nor there in partial memory survive,
Or but in name, like Enoch's prophecy,
(In this uncertain transitory state,
Dim valley of the shadow of gaunt Death,
Sorrow, and wasting doubt,) till some bold hand
It rescue from the oblivious deep, and by
Pathetic commune with the living soul
Of the mysterious universe, revive
In his own spirit the revelation old.
Soul of fallen man, look forth; thine estridge thoughts
Have heavenward ta'en their flight, and built their nests,
Abiding nests on high. Thither reach mine,
And so absolve the adventurous task I dare,
Of young presumption, by success mature,
And give to hope the sanctity of faith.

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BOOK THE SEVENTH. The PREACHING OF NOAH

I. The Tomb of Adam

Meantime as one new-risen from the dead,
Unlike his former self, by friend and foe
Unrecognized, came Samiasa nigh
The City of his name—but from the wild
Not free'd, nor from his doom. Nor would he pass
Into the public ways, though sternly urged
By Palal, who there left him for awhile,
Alone within the Desert. There he lay
Three days, a passive brute; but on the fourth
He was a-hungered, and fierce appetite
With bestial rage stirred in him, and he scoured
The Wilderness for food. In fury thus,
A Lion crossed his path—on it he seized,
With more than giant might. Long time they strove
In mutual war, but the ferocious man
Was braver than the merely animal,
And him before the inferior creature quailed—
Even by the teeth asunder rent the jaws,
The noble Lion slain lay by his side;
Anon, stript of its skin, a royal robe
For him who slew it; and of flesh deprived,
Its victor's royal meal.

Now, Sabbath brake,
And Samiasa saw what desperate feat
He had performed, but not with triumph felt;
And earnestly resolved within his breast,
How to regain communion with his kind.
Not that he had not been beheld by man,

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But whoso saw him shrank from him in dread,
And he from them in shame, but proudly shewn.

And now rose Noah early, as was wont,
On Sabbath-morn, with Japhet, Shem, and Ham,
To duly visit Adam's sepulchre,
And warn the multitudes upon the plain
Assembled, not for worship but for sport;
And ready found Zateel, and Tamiel come,
To bear them company, and aid the cause
Of piety. No loiterers they, yet were
The Youth, and Scribe arrested in their speed,
To gaze on Japhet's growing handiwork—
The yet unfinished Statue of the Seed
Who should the Serpent bruise—unfinished yet,
Yet all but finished, moulded to that point
Of execution, where alike begins
The Artist's pleasure and the Admirer's both;
Almost adorable, yet something left,
To shew the labour human, not divine.

Brief space for converse, none for censure now;
Noah broceeded forth, and, on each hand,
The frendly train. With Tamiel was the Book
Of Enoch, and with Shem the yearling Lamb.
Along he vales they went; between the hills;
And into that mid vale, which opened wide
Upon the plain, and by the leafy way.
—Forthight into the plain, they now immerge,
Emerging to the people. There, behold,
As on a continent the enormous throng.
Well knew they him. “Ho, ho;—the Prophet comes—
The Ark-builder, and his Sons. Hence, ye profane.”
The scorn of multitudes was in the air,
And everyecho heard it loud, and long.
The noise of waters, when their demon howls
Round some predestined bark, less than that din

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Of multitudes, the universal din,
Which made heaven's vault to tremble, as with shout
Titanian. Then surceased heroic spot.

Passed, fearless, on the faithful Man of God.
Before him nameless awe prepared the way;
Awe, yet not holy, though of holiness,
Mere superstition's awe: for souls embrute
By sin perceive with gross predicament
Aught spiritual, or sacred: Conscience blends
Extremes; in better men the voice of God,
In evil, but the memory, whereon
Fancy wild shapes begetteth, as in dreams.
Such straights are theirs, who from all holy things
Alien the unwilling ear and sceptic eye:
They see not, hear not; yet must hear, and see,
That which the imaginative mind of man,
And the indefatigable faculties,
Create;—then whatsoever is not, is.
O'ersceptic ever is o'ercredulous.

Passed, fearless, on the faithful Man of God:
Followed, in pairs, Japhet with Shem, and Ham
With Tamiel. This was all the preacher's train;
Strong in himself, and with his virtues graced.
I' th' centre of the plain, the Sepulchre
Of the First Man, a pile of unhewn stone,
Stood eminent: the Columns of his Son,
Inscribed with old traditions true, beside;
By their ancestral founder meant to speak,
Ay, of the grave, and of the world beyond.

There Voices had been heard, and Visions seen
By holy men; thence issued Oracles
Of Death, Eternity, and Fate, and God.
—Now as a goal, the rivals in the race
Looked to them for the Crown, afar.

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Arrived,
Noah the Altar-Tomb demands; but Ham,
Proud of his Father's patriarchal sway,
Did with no gentle voice rebuke the crowd,
Did with no gentle hand oppose the press.

‘I preach of Peace, and Truth hath its own power;
No might of man it needs, his anger less;
Forbear, my son,’ said Noah. Calm he stood,
And quiet in his greatness; then surveyed
The populous scene.

Frequent, and full the tents;
Plenteous the boards, and manifold; with feast
Burthened, and overflowed with wine, and oil:
Copious were the libations . . Bacchus reigned,
And Mirth allied to Madness. Morning saw
The grape's blood, evening that of man, outpoured.
—Nor wonder: sanguine were his festivals.

For him Beast shed, in rampant sport, the blood
Of beast. Encaged were they on that wide field,
And kept apart awhile, awaiting war
With hunger stern. But now, they lift the doors
The Cells dividing; and, with rush, and bound,
Tiger, and Bear, Leopard, and Buffalo
Are huddled in the midst.

At once, his horns
The furious Bull plied on the sluggish Bear,
And tossed him to the roof. Then, on him sprang
The Tiger, and his dewlap tugged away;
But not himself unwounded, for his head
Was gashed, and ran with gore.

The Leopard slunk
From conflict—but not long. For now the stage
Was entered by Rhinoceros, and on
The spotted animal he came in wrath,
And roused him to the fight. Anon, in death
The lovely lay.

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Then with the many-horned
The single 'gan to strive: fight terrible
And horrid: but, with many instruments,
Choice meets confusion oft; while, but with one,
One simple aim drives straight to its effect.

Next, the large Elephants were armed against
Each other—on a sandy islet placed,
Making the middle of an ample lake.
Driven by their Riders, with a mighty shock
They intermingled, their probosces twined
With violent repulsion; till the Brute,
Wiser than man who him abuses so,
His adversary's strength confessed, and turned
Flying, not unpursued, nor unannoyed,
Attacked in rear. Nor further harm had come,
But that on them fierce Tigers were let loose;
And various deaths, with fury, rage, and blood,
Made glad the feasting heart of gazing man.

What wonder, then, at last the feasters bled?
Nay—not the blood of Beasts alone—but Man's,
His blood flowed with each wine-cup. Men were slain
For sport. There gladiator Giants strove;
Strength in each nerve sublimely agonized;
Dilated every muscle, and artery,
Into the majesty of human might;
Defiance in their attitudes, and loured
Courage upon their brows. How beautiful
The human form in extreme energy . .
Soul was in every lineament, and limb:
Fiercely they died. Their spirits went abroad,
Inflamed congenial souls, already inflamed
With banqueting; whence they in heat arose,
Flown with pride, insolence, or vanity,
With madness more than all, and fell in broil.

Away the prophet turned his sickened eye,

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And looked into the East; and, in the far
Horizon, sum of all the prospect, saw
The Mount of Paradise. The Cherubim
Still waved the excluding brand of angry flame
Above, around the place once fortunate,
Where bloomed the Tree of Lives, a fiery guard;
A living miracle, and constant sign;
A caution manifest, and visible;
The presence of God's vengeance, to warn man,
If aught might warn, of sin, and truth persuade:
Of more especial note, and greater power,
Than if the bourn of death had been repassed,
For a returning spirit to convince.
—Nor this alone:—but on the hill-side too,
Arose the appointed Ark, the Deluge-ship,
For which the axe had long the forest shorn;
Birds with its terrour scared from their retreat,
And beasts the violated woods expelled:
The labour of a century; and yet
So vast a wonder, though a work of time,
Of such endurance, who beheld it, deemed
That nothing less than miracle performed
Strange fabric so capacious, yet so strong.

And in the sight of all the people there,
Did Noah lift his hand toward Eden gate,
And bade men look upon the present God.
—Shem slew the yearling lamb, and straight disposed
The sacrifice upon that Altar-Tomb:
Then Noah bowed his face before the Lord.

II. The Sacrifice

Before the Lord, beside that Altar-Tomb,
The Sons of Noah, with the Scribe, erect,
Each in his mantle hid his countenance,
And worshipped in his heart. A rushing sound

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Aloft, as of wings rustling, stirred the air.
The Spirit touched the offering, and consumed;
Then to its native heaven the flame returned.
So potent, and so piercing was the flame;
The bones of Adam kindled in the grave,
And in the corse the pulse heaved with half life:
But chiefly on the humble heart's deep shrine
The flame descended; and the Preacher's heart
Felt the pervading presence; and he rose.

‘He hath not left us yet . . the Comforter . .
He heareth yet man's prayer, and answereth.
—How like is man unto this altar-tomb.
This fleshly pile is but a sepulchre,
Where the soul sleeps, ere the affectionate will
Bow down, and offer up the human heart,
The heart, and all its faculties to God—
A sacrifice devout. The vital spark,
Then, sends He forth in whom life's issues are,
And kindles man into a holy life,
Whose issues in good words, and works restored,
Human becomes divine—Man walks with God,
As Enoch once on earth, in Eden now.
—And walk ye thus, ye sons of God, and men?
Walk ye as man with man, even? On the soil
Ye trail your slime; and taint, and crush the flowers
That deck the bosom of your mother—Earth.
Ye soar not; ye aspire not: ye trace not
Your lineage from on high; and, strong in soul,
Claim fellowship with angels as your right;
But ask a brotherhood of worms, and call
The grovelling reptile, sister. Ye restrain
Within its fleshly nook the spirit of man,
Tame her ambition down to appetite,
Then quarrel for a sty. Therefore, from you
The insulted angels have gone back to heaven,

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To talk with Wisdom, and commune with God.
They hold no converse with corporeal sense:
Of other strain are they; and so is man.
—Behold, I speak a proverb . . dust to dust . .
Of dust ye are, to dust ye do return—
Your souls are ashes; not one ember left,
My breath may kindle. Oh, the breath of God
Is extinct in the life of man. Hear, heaven:
Earth, wonder. There Death bideth—Death-in-Life
Walks, a day spectre, in the sun's broad beams,
Till cold obstruction melt his fetters off,
And rank corruption in God's nostrils reek.
—Bow down the knee: lie prostrate in the dust:
Thou camest out thence; it clipt thee like a womb.
Remit thee to thy native quarry—man.
Thy spirit is gone forth. Bow down, and wait
Till God reanimate thy sluggard clay,
And make thee what thou wert . . a living soul.
—The Sculptour, sembling his own form extern,
Maketh a thing of beauty unto sight;
Yet though he carve a mind upon the brow,
It wants not only life's variety,
But life. The mighty Artist of the sky
Stamped his own image on the soul of man,
Himself a living spirit, bade him live.
Keep ye his image whole? keep ye it in
The beauty of holiness 'twas shadowed from?
No; ye defile it, mutilate, destroy.
Oh, right: oh, truth: oh, peace: oh, liberty.
—Hear me, O Enoch. Waft aside the flames,
That veil thy being from us; and descend,
In glory visible; and call aloud,
That man may hear, and be convinced, and live.
Yet why should man disturb thy holy rest
Thy Sabbath is eternal. Yet thou speakest.
Thou dwellest still with us. Thy Testament

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Survives. This Book endures;—rich legacy,
Memorial wake of thy departure hence;
Who wast not; for God took thee to himself.
—Believe, oh, man; and live. The Day—the Day
Cometh—the morning goeth forth: for pride
Hath budded; violence, and evil earth
Do fill. But Judgement cometh, and an End.
The End is come. It watcheth for thee. Lo:
The Day of trouble, and destruction; not
The founding of the hills, but their uprending,
Darkles the jealous heaven, from east to west.
Silence shall brood, at eve, o'er Nature's heart,
An incubus on a forgotten grave:
Repent ye—’

More the man of God had said;
But, then, advanced the Rephaim, giant-twins;
Strong, as the oak; and, as the cedar, tall;
Valiant, as eagles; headlong, as a flood.
Strange brood of discord.—Could essential heaven
Blend with embracement earthly, spawning forth,
As from the slime impregned with summer's sun,
Monsters forbid, whence mind idolatrous
Its gross imaginings might incarnate;
Abortive, and abominable births
Of spirit on sense begot; till spirit become
Degraded unto what it blends withal;
Which its capacious vision might have raised
Unto the High, and Holy One, who doth
Dwell in his own eternal energy,
Yet deign to shrine him in the contrite soul?
—Born in one hour, doubling the labour-pang;
With iron courage them their mother bore,
Stern daughter of the stern, seed of the strong:
With amazonian scorn, the bitterness,
Though as of death, yea, and of death, she 'sdained;
And, when her travail was o'erpast, had joy

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More than a mother's—her own dauntless joy,
A victor's or a stoic's over pain.

As she was wandering from the wanderer's land,
On quest of booty, in the robber's trade;
With rival anguish from her iron womb,
'Twas in a cavern wild, they rent their way,
Wherein she refuge sought with savage beasts
Unterrified; for with their nature hers
Held sympathy. Hyæna, there, was lodged,
With Elephant, and Hippopotamus,
And Unicorn; war each with other waged,
And of the conquered still the victor made
His eager meal; no fear yet touched that heart
Incapable of trembling. There she lay,
And the wise Elephant more feeling shewed,
Than she acknowledged. On her state forlorn
The meditative brute compassion took,
Admonished well by nature; shielding her,
And with her sharing his diurnal food,
Till with the giant-twins she travelled forth.

Worthy was she of Cain's intrepid line,
Her ancestor. Of mingled stock derived
Was their bad sire; the unseemly fruit of one
Of Seth's degenerate, and apostate sons
With a fair atheist of the murtherer's race;
Hence, rather in their veins lascivious blood
Than purer stream might revel; purer once,
Now worse pollute, I ween: entire in guilt,
Redemptionless, and lost in loss itself,
Without what natural grace to that might cleave,
Maugre its lapse from God's supernal grace,
Whence Nature's is: lost unto both; abandoned
Unto the powers of evil utterly.
—Fierce they advanced, and seemed as they might claim
Lineage, (if not the origin to be,)
Of whom the old poets fabled; the huge sons

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Of Ouranus and Tella, in whose womb
They grew to godhood, and brake prison thence,
Armed for rebellion 'gainst the Ancestral Power.

Urged by the fiend within them, and the hell;
Furious they came, and raised the loud long shout,
At once derision, and defiance: proud
Of strength, and bulk, and confident in bone.
From mere disdain they smote the man of God,
He should more force to reason yield than might,
And deem with words religious to subdue.

III. Zateel, and Samiasa

Noah was silent, not from wrath, but ruth;
With pity scorn, with patience spite repaid.
Before him leaped his Sons. Then tumult rose,
Loud clamour, and the cry of blood. Blood flowed.
More had been shed; but, on the mountain-skirts
Of that apparent continent, silence crept,
And awe increased.

'Twas the habitual hush
Wherewith mysterious horrour cowed their souls,
Whene'er that Presence on their wonder came,
Who entered now; with slow, and solemn step,
And uncompanioned in his greatness. On
He came. Wild his array: a lion's hide
Hung o'er his shoulders broad, and on his breast
Down flowed the shaggèd mane; the face-skin frowned,
Hollows for eyes, the maw without a tooth,
And terrible in its deficiencies.
Bare was his knee, and hairy all the leg,
And every limb enlarged, and clothed with hair.
—Look not upon his countenance: ye must;
But dare not look again, although ye would.
That gaze is savage, and each lineament;
Yet, in their madness, undefined command

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Of no barbarian grace is eloquent.
A memory lingered there of loftier days,
Haunting, with shadowy gleam, his brow's proud curve;
Till grew his aspect spectral, and his eye
Flashed fitfully, even as a paly ghost
Flitting athwart a place of sepulchres;
Or underneath a once triumphal arch,
A ruin now loved by the shades of eld.
—Profuse, his locks, like a wild horse's mane,
Free of the winds, compact of massy curls,
Shaded his ears with ringlets dusk as night,
And with his beard fantastic circlets blent,
Like a vine flourishing in a wilderness,
Hanging its tendrils loose on thorny brake,
And briary underwood—so bearded he.
Where his large forehead loured, his ample locks
Disparted; and upcoiled, like serpents, back
From eyebrows huge, that, like two promontories,
Horrid with crag, suspense, the flashing orbs
Encaved. Now, like a blasted oak, or tower
Magnificent, scathed by heaven's lightning shaft,
He stood. Atlas he seemed, groaning beneath
The universal weight, a world of woe,
A penal universe, and he condemned
To the aye-during burthen for his sins;
A penance, but magnanimously borne.

Of all that throng, but One might look on him;
And he in admiration, how intense,
Gazed, sword-supported; beautiful in youth;
The attraction of all eyes. Amazement strange
Guided fond vision to that monument,
More perfect in such quiet attitude
Than ever statue was; and recognized
The valourous Boy who rushed into the fray,
A timely aid to Noah, and his Sons,
Oppressed by numbers. Of the giant-twins,

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One had on Tamiel seized, and from his grasp
Essayed to wrench the Book. The youth, Zateel,
Did wound the robber hand; did save from death
The weaponless, and undefended scribe;
And from the impious, and profane destroyer,
Rescued the sacred tome. Then gradual stole
That hush of horrour toward him, and his ear
Soon caught his neighbour's whisper—‘'Tis the king
Of streams,.'tis Samiasa’—for among
The crowd was Palal; and by him the name
Was uttered to Zateel. Anon, declined
Sudden his sword; and fixed its point in earth.
In graceful admiration on its hilt
He leaned, and thus intently watched advance
The Monarch Maniac with emotion deep.
Deep in that pause his meditations were;
On the King's lips expectant still he gazed,
Breathless. He knew how eloquent they were.
Once, when they spake, were sages wont to blush,
And pause for answer. Nor less potent now.
And much he trembled, when these words he heard.

‘Well done, young man: preserve, Zateel, for aye,
The Scripture that aye-present doth preserve
The God of gods to memory. I forgot
Him once, who to remember him had cause.
The Spirit which deified me was from Him,
Whom I rejected, and straightway became
A God-abandoned man, unto himself
Abandoned, and that self-sufficient strength
Whence he presumed, but which on trial failed,
And ever must. Hearken, ye fond of strength,
Who have disturbed my oraisons—(ye might
Have worshipped with me.)—Mark yon hill's proud crest;
'Tis obvious to the mount of Paradise,
And to the glorious vision there displayed,
Glorious in terrour. There, it is my wont,

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'Scaped from the Desart and the Fiend, to come,
Even with the day-spring of the sabbath morn,
And look on Eden, and its fiery guard,
And watch for the uprising of the sun,
The kindling of the hills whence goeth he,
Fresh as a racer anxious for the crown—
How bright, how high. Of all created things
Yon ardour is most like a deity.
Shall dim, and puny man, then, call his soul
The standard of perfection, and contemn,
Vain of his own originality,
His Maker's image, and invent a new,
Better, or worse, he recks not? Only He
Who made him what he is, can make him more.
—Man's semblance is Death's shadow; for his soul
Is murtherous, abject, cruel, and corrupt.
Witness, ye heroes. Ye do well to boast
Of thews, and sinews; and in force of limb
Triumph, and in the courage of your hearts:
Impulse, though blind, hath joy, which ye obey,
And is derived divinely. 'Tis heaven's life
Abused, meant to beget new life, and deeds,
Wherein heaven-guided piety might trace
Symbol humane of Origin divine.
By you Death conquers; life, crushed in the germ,
Limps, issueless—foredone. The human form
Erect . . divine . . lies prostrate, lies defaced.
Approach it . . lo, the fragrance, and the flower
Have left the withered stalk, and barren stem.
Of its once comeliness no grace remains;
Its strength is weakness, and its glory shame.
There is no beauty, excellence, in death.
The eye . . term it the presence of the mind . .
Is all-extinguished. Things that it perceived,
Phantasm, or substance, shadowy qualities,
Visions that Fancy made her own, and built

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A gorgeous world thereof; her world, and this,
Into inanimate gloom they fade away.
This erst was her dominion . . her's, and man's.
Now narrow is his dwelling; dark, and lorn;
Within a populous, yet silent land:
He dwells alone within a quiet house,
Alone, yet crowded in his solitude.
No moon, nor sun may visit it. Within
A desolate, and dreary realm it lies;
The realm of winter. Silence, and the night
Only inhabit there. Heaven-moulded from
Returns to Chaos. Blood cries from the ground.
—Witness, ye rulers of the fettered earth:
Ye do well also. Triumph in your crowns,
Your sceptres; those of thorn, of iron these:
Ye conquer, then enslave. Man's attitude,
Lost unto freedom, and in soul abashed,
Vails its bold front, and crouches at your feet,
As ye were gods. Children of men, be warned.
Lo, ye, worse slavery, enchain yourselves;
Your passions labour at the tyrant's forge,
And mould the links of avarice, and lust.
—Witness, ye elements: and testify,
Ye worshippers of earth. To God alone
Do homage. Dost thou bow the coward knee
To power? is power divine? Why yield it, man?
One boasts the attribute, and many quail;
Straightway, a demigod is he; yet him
The thunder daunteth. Ye succumb to fear,
And make out of your fear a deity.
So, when the tempest doth pass by, ye see
A demon in its blackness, hear a fiend
In its loud roar; and cry them mercy. Ye
Have power, had ye knowledge, o'er the winds;
Nay, all the elements were slaves to you,
And would perform your bidding, were ye brave.

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Were but your virtue adequate to dare,
Ye might restore the never-changing spring
Of Paradise; and win companionship
With angels, as of old; and satisfy
The craving soul with everlasting truth:
And thus, indeed, become like unto God;
Knowing all things, and ruling all, by love.
—But now ye conquer, and are conquered: now,
Hark—the poor man, and feeble testifies
'Gainst your oppression; while God listeneth,
Yea, while Jehovah listeneth, to avenge.
For her right sceptre Equity hath lost,
(In whom God's Image is the most express,)
And unto gods, which are no gods, ye pay
What is not due, from wantonness of will:
But Him, the True, and Faithful, ye defraud
Of due obedience, gratitude, and love.
His sabbaths ye reject, his wrath despise.’

IV. Rumel

The Monarch ceased. Forth stept an Oratour,
Fluent, and pert; armed with proof rhetoric
'Gainst truth, and reason; with bland sophistry,
To lull the one to acquiescent pause,
Silence the other, contemptuous, or abashed,
And thus even for a while o'er both prevail.
But they have their own hour, their own good time,
Sure victors; and their conquests shall abide
Eternal in the heavens. God shall award
Their amaranthine wreath; himself divulge
Their deathless fame through infinite expanse.

The voice of Samiasa had aroused
The torpid awe his presence did impose:
Thus will the sunny breeze of spring awake
The icy stream, until it gradual gush,

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As if again the Spirit o'er its face
Moved, as of old, o'er darkness, when the void
Of nature did conceive with life, and form.
Part lifted up their eyes, and dared his look,
And hurried breathing became audible,
Sound half afraid of its own entity.
Then from the press forth stept the Oratour:
Curious in phrase, and nice of attitude;
His accents modulating, and his hand,
And features timing to the expressive turn,
The swelling cadence, and the solemn fall
Of his discourse elaborate; but to the ear
Easy, and flowing, like a river's lapse,
With not a pebble to obstruct its step,
But for the music, as it gently glides
Unto the naiad's cells, in the calm depths
Of the unfathomable ocean. Thus:

‘Submissive to the shadow of thy power,
As to the substance once, to thee, O king,
Grant that thy servant, Rumel, may reply.
Think not I wrestle with thee for the crown
Of eloquence; for who may strive with thee?
And what am I? . . thy sometime worshipper.
High on the throne of thine imperial state,
Too bright for earth, like a divinity,
Thou satest, exalted, . . One. The dazzled sight
Swam in thy presence; therein pride was not:
Erect humanity forgot itself,
Bated a cubit of its stature; yea,
In prostrate adoration kissed the dust.
A happy realm thy habitation was,
And in no earthly paradise thou dwelt.
Celestial fortunes thy companions were,
And they accompanied thy goings-forth,
And glory heralded thy comings-in;
And thou wert perfect in thy majesty,

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And in thy spirit thou wert excellent;
And thy dominion was o'er shore, and sea;
The limits of thine empire who could tell?
The heaven scarce seemed to circumscribe thy sway.
To thee the Founder of the pyramid,
The co-eternal rival of the sky,
The deep-based column of the firmament,
Enslaved his mighty art, and built for thee.
And nations did adore within its gate,
Hero, and sage, youth, beauty, childhood, eld;
And with the myriads who worshipped there,
Thy servant worshipped with a grateful heart,
And willing to thy service would return.
Thou didst look down from thy sublime repose,
And, from amid excessive glory, smile
Great approbation, and ennobling joy;
And thine acceptance was far more than wealth,
Thy grace than treasure. Honour in thy hand,
And in thy voice abounded length of days.
Then they found favour in thy sight whom now
Thine anger doth rebuke. Wherefore art wroth?
O thou, our king, and god. Wherein have we
So grievously offended, thou withdrawest
Into thy mystic nature's solitude,
And art not unto men for many days?
Then, reincarnate in this strange disguise,
Comest forth, afflicting fancy with wild fear,
Speaking to us a language all unknown;
Ah, how unlike the native dialect
Which made thy former days, and fortunate,
A full-orbed diapason of rich sounds.’

Deep then was Samiasa's agony.
He rent his hair in bitterness of soul,
And cast himself upon the unpitying earth,
In more than phrenesy; and there he sate,
Sublime in misery, and great in grief.

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‘A god indeed; look I not like a god,
A very god? This is my heaven. Behold
My cloudy throne; this bare ground is my sky:
These locks my glory, and this skin the robe
Of majesty divine. Hero, and sage,
Monarchs of earth; bow down, and worship here—
My hand grasps lightning. Hark—the thunder peals.
Earth's centre is my footstool. Thither plunge,
To do me homage; as becomes a god
Of state like mine, exalted thus, so high;
A deity so jealous, and so proud.—
Let gods themselves come to it, and adore.
There is no god but God.—No god but He
Who reigns in heaven. He is the God of Heaven,
And Earth. Jehovah, He is God alone.
And He shall break in pieces mighty men,
When he ariseth to shake terribly
The earth; . . then shall ye seek the rocky clefts,
And climb the ragged summits of the rocks,
For fear of him, and of his majesty.
All hands be faint, and each man's heart shall melt;
For He shall come upon ye suddenly,
In the roar of many waters, and the rushing
Of many floods. Earth shall be drunk therewith;
And reel, as if with wine. Jehovah, He
Is God—Jehovah, He is God alone.
He did create the heavens, and stretch them out;
He spread forth earth, provides what cometh thence.
'Tis He who giveth breath to man thereon,
And spirit unto them who walk therein.’

Great fear fell on that multitude: abashed,
And silent, they retired; and, one by one,
Sought each man out his dwelling; and, ere long,
On that immeasurable plain was left
None, but the King, and Noah, and his Sons.

‘Prophet, and prince, have pity on my sins;

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Pray to thy God for me:’ . . the Monarch cried.
‘If I should pray, would he be merciful?’—

‘Have we not daily instance?’ Noah said:
‘Whence, but from mercy, are the wicked spared?
And what am I, that in his sight I should
Find such abundant grace? Have faith, and live.’

What Christian knows not, in the hour, and power
Of darkness, with what cheering influence
The light of truth beams on his troubled soul,
From Holy Writ reflected, if aright
Read in the spirit, and thus understood?
Even the world's Saviour, in the agony
Of crucifixion sharp, such solace found;
And in the psalmist's words exclaimed aloud,
Unto the God who had forsaken him.—

Will it not soothe torn Samiasa's soul,
To hear the Scripture read that Enoch wrote?
So deems the king; and, straightway, down they sate,
And at his bidding, then, the Man of God
Right audibly the Oracle intoned,
The Bible of the World before the Flood.

'Twas by the Tomb of Adam that they sate,
Against Seth's pillars, which about the place
Were as a temple reared, and sacred made.
A grove of Pines, wherein they were retired—
The sea-green Pines, laden with yellow fruit,
And both in harmony with Earth, and Heaven.

Vans of the tempest; do your thunders sleep?
Spread ye abroad, like eagles’; cleave the rocks,
And break the mountains to your might opposed.
Heave up ye earthquakes; be ye heard, and felt;
Shake ye the solid ground, and the great sea,
As with the throes of childbirth.—Element
Of Fire; encircle, clip me in with flame:
Till I be like to you.—They have past by.

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Come Spirit of the Eternal, co-eterne;
And of the dædal universe divine,
The choral soul, the prime intelligence.
Come Dove celestial; who, with procreant wing,
Broodest o'er Hades ere that light became;
Pervadest Nature's constant travail still;
Impregnedst old prophets' hearts with wondrous seeds,
Whose autumn time will garner; . . yea, whose power
O'ershadowed her whom generations bless—
The Virgin-Mother of the Holy Thing,
Messiah, God incarnate—uncreate.
Thou, with the Father, from eternity;
And with the Son, adorable; descend,
Essence of essence, into my shut mind;
A still small voice, such as Elijah heard;
Make it thy temple, there light up thy shrine,
Thine altar be my heart, and there dwell thou;
That I may utter oracles aright,
Of old by Enoch written, scribe inspired.

END OF SEVENTH BOOK.

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BOOK THE EIGHTH. THE BOOK OF ENOCH

I. The Symbols

The Words of Enoch, which the Patriarch wrote,
Ere he to heaven ascended visibly,
In letters taught by God, in love to man.

Whoso would Wisdom know, must learn her birth.

Never is Silence. Love with the Beloved
Still communes, in the Spirit uncreate:
Desire immortal for the Eternal One,
In One Immortal; Substance Infinite,
In one Unchanging Form; fruition, too.
Love, hid in light, self-mirroured, looks on Life;
When in the eyes of him on whom he looks,
Grows Likeness of his glory, and his grace;
The Lovelike, and the Godlike: speaking, straight,
He names her, ‘Wisdom, the Beloved One;’
—Whence she responds, ‘O Truth, my spouse thou art:’—
Thus he replies, ‘The Beautiful art thou.’
She, silent, then, in modesty submiss,
Bows to sublime perfection; cheered, anon,
And shielded by the shadow of his power.
—Offspring to them are born, fair progeny
Of intuition, Angel called, or Man;
Exhaustless Plenitude, and boundless Love,
Whose everlasting Blessedness delights
In the eternal Lovelike; of himself
The undecaying Wisdom, indistinct,
Inseparate from his essence; and in her
Creates, anew, perpetual Beauty's self,

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Of her the Image, as herself of him,
Both in his Word summed up, the Word in them,
God all-in-all, and Man in his Idea,
The Lovelike object of creating Love.
One Being Man, of various characters,
Companion of the Angel, type to all
The hosts of heaven, well named the Sons of God,
As he to all the sons of men on earth;
Hence one called Adonai, Heaven's Lord,
First Adam, he, and second; one, Lucifer,
Star of its morning, regent of its dawn,
To whom is given of Paradise the charge.

Never is Silence. The Eternal Word
Bespeaks the Eternal Love for evermore.
‘As Thee I contemplate, so Man to me
Looks up, and by the Vision held, sees nought
Distinct, not even himself, and we but make
One age, one life, whereof each other flows.’
Hence are the Generations of the Heavens,
The Earths: such is the Principle unchanged,
Wherein subsists the changing Universe;
The Mystery wherein All lives, and moves,
And hath its being; One the Father—Love,
One Son, one Spirit, and the Wisdom one,
That springs from their communion, ever fair.
And thus revolve the Days in that One Day
Eternal, wherein He—the First, and Last—
Makes all the worlds, ere yet they roll in space,
And every plant, and herb, ere in the ground,
And Man, and sons of men, ere in the womb,
Ere space, seed, ground, or Man, or Woman is.
Such are the Words, and Works, and Days of God.

Increase, nor diminution suffering,
The sum of matter in the universe
Remains the same, each atom, force or power
Interdependent, needful to the whole;

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No time could ever have been wanting one,
Else had at once entire Creation lapsed;
Wherefore, Creation's act is simultane,
The Whole coeval with its sundry Parts;
Presuming an Idea, wherein the Whole
Preceded them; in whose perception Time
Has his beginning; in whose interchange
Stormy, or calm, in progress, or at rest,
Not absolute, Time hath his history.
The Whole, withouten Parts, is the Eternal;
The Parts, contained Creation. Know, the Point
That is without or depth, or length, or breadth,
Is God; the prior Whole of substance, God:
And the Idea which contains the whole,
The Principle, Beginning absolute,
Eternity. Yet further to explain
What thy inquiry would demand, learn this:
“Withoutness” is the Bound extern; as 'twere
The circles' sphere infolding its contents—
“Withness” is just the sum of its contents,
Short of the limit. To the Universe
Such bound, and limit is the Infinite;
Such Infinite is God. Express it thus:
—In his Eternity, the Eternal One
Produces simultane his Universe,
And Infinitely bounds it; Heavens, and Earths.
Or thus:—In his Beginning, the Divine
Quickens, initiates, and comprehends
All other Being. Ask you, what is that
Beginning? I reply—his self-beholding.
—Divine Intelligence, by an eterne
Self-contemplation, from his being throws
The Intelligible, as his act, his image—
An absolute whole—one Work, or wondrous World,
All works, and worlds including—one great Word,
Or Affirmation, all the languages,

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And modes of affirmation: whereupon
He looks for aye, whereto he ever lists.
Such act, the primal point in motion; thus
Its proper space, and sphere describing; grants
Enough to him who seeks such postulate,
Whereby to frame the Universe at will.

Whilst I was sitting lonely in my tent,
Chewing the cud of thoughts abstruse as these,
Thoughts of our Father, Adam, thronged my mind.
And, ah, the dearness of his memory
Is very tender; how intense the love
Wherewith on it we dwell. ‘Yet death,’ said I,
‘Will make the loving mute, like the beloved.
Their forms, indeed, in lasting marble dure,
Or live awhile in colour; but their words
Die mostly with articulated air.
How few survive in signs—that want the flow
Of rapid speech, the continuity
Of sequent eloquence, of which they give
The meaning scarce, expression not at all—
Figures of things, and creatures visible,
By the peruser self-interpreted.
And love, and duty may wax cold in most,
As they have soon in many; and the lips
Of witnesses reluctantly repeat
The things that once they knew: and, at the best,
They mingle minds, and feelings in the tale.
O that a record might be found, which, like
The stars, might shine unaltered; like a moon,
Reflect the shadow of each absent sun.’
—Then on the Altar built by Seth I looked;
And on the holy Symbols there engraved,
The Sun, and Moon, and girdle of the Stars;
On Eve, and Adam, on those mystic Trees
Twined with the Serpent, and that Form Divine,
Who, more than Angel in serenity,

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Spake to them all. Next, meditating deep,
Thus I rehearsed the meaning of the same,
My evening task, for better memory.

From Eden's wild, the Word of God brought Man,
Whom he had formed of dust, and into whom
Had breathed the breath of lives; and planted him,
Eastward of Eden, in a Paradise
Prepared for his reception. From the ground
Grew every tree, was pleasant to the sight,
And good for food:—also, the Tree of Lives,
Within the Garden's midst; and, near, the Tree
Of Knowledge, bearing fruit of good and ill.
From Eden, too, there went a River forth,
To water it. The new-made Man was placed,
To dress and keep his fair inheritance.
Of all the garden he might freely eat,
Save of the Tree of Knowledge—‘this the Law,
Which violated, thou shalt surely die.’
Man was alone; to cure his solitude,
Were brought to him the cattle of the field,
Beasts of the forest, and the birds of air;
And what he called them, that the name of each.
But this sufficed not. He was more alone,
They absent, than before. Then slept the Man;
And while he slumbered, from his opened side
The Word took substance; of it Woman formed;
And shewed her to him waking, saying then
To them—‘Your name is Adam.’ Naked both,
The Man and Wife, yet unashamed were they.
Visions had Adam in the creant sleep
That teemed with living Eve. ‘Methought,’ said he,
‘I was embraced, almost absorbed in God,
So strong divine attraction; when a shock
Repulsed me from his bosom, and I lay,
Confused with terrour, smitten on the earth;
Alone; and felt me Man. Nought else I felt,

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Nought else distinctly; for the earth itself
Seemed only part of me: nor felt apart;
For all seemed felt at once. Each power, each act,
Law, principle, idea, thought, and thing,
Were present in the selfsame consciousness,
As if to prove me being; these I named,
In marvel at their number, then as one
Resumed, and called them all myself. But, soon,
I yearned for Otherness; and, as I yearned,
An Image of Myself formed in my heart,
And took the shape of Eve, whom then I loved,
Ere, with these eyes, I saw. She when beheld,
Earth was not, for her Beauty proved a veil
On nature; only sense for her I had,
And all created else was unperceived.
At length, the veil withdrawn, a little space,
I looked up to the heavens, then to the hills,
And gazed upon the slope, the winding streams,
The valleys, forests, and the flowered grass;
Then, turned again to her, saw only her.
Then her would I bespeak, and she reply,
And when I next looked forth, I spake to them,
And winds, and torrents answered—sounds, not words.
Then questioned I; if they, like us, had mind?
Till on a day they were revealed in glory,
For all whereon we looked became as water,
Wherein we might behold ourselves reflected.
There stood Two like Ourselves, more radiant they;
Female, and male: Divine humanities;
The Eternal Word, the Wisdom Infinite.
Brief while, they stayed; for then the sunset came,
Twilight, and darkness; prayer, and sleep, and dreams.’

Now, was the Serpent of more subtle kind,
Than any living creature of the field—
And he found voice, and to the Woman spake,
Of that same Tree of Knowledge. She replied,

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‘We may not eat of it, or even touch,
Lest we should die.’ ‘Ye shall not surely die.’
The Serpent answered—‘but shall be as gods,
Knowing both good, and evil.’ Soon she saw,
How good for food, and pleasant to the eye
The Tree prohibited; desirable
To make the eater wise: she plucked, and ate;
And to her Husband with her gave of it.

Straight were their eyes enlightened, and they knew
That they were naked; sought themselves to clothe
With fig leaves sewed.

'Twas in the cool of day,
When walked the Word of God in Paradise—
They heard his voice, and 'mong the garden trees
Concealed them from his presence. ‘Where art thou?’
Thus spake the Voice—and Man responded thus.
‘I heard thy voice; being naked, was afraid,
And hid myself.’ ‘Who told thee,’ spake the Voice,
‘That thou wert naked—hast thou broke the Law
And eaten of the Tree?’ The Man replied,
‘The Woman gave to me, and I did eat.’
The Woman said—‘The Serpent me beguiled.’
Then to the Serpent thus—‘For this thou art
Otherwise doomed than any creature else;
To crawl upon thy womb, and dust to eat:
Between thee, and the Woman; and between
Thy seed, and hers; is henceforth Enmity.
For he shall bruise thy head, and thou his heel.’

Thus spake the Voice; next to the Woman said,
‘Thy travail, and conception multiply;
In sorrow shalt thou bring thy children forth;
Desire thy husband, and be swayed by him.’

Last to the Man. ‘Appointed is the ground,
Because of thee, in sorrow to be reaped—
For thorns, and thistles shall grow up therein,
Though of the herb permitted thee to eat.

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The sweating of thy brow shall earn thee bread,
Till to the ground, whence thou wert formed, restored—
For dust thou art, and shalt to dust return.’

His doom thus heard; the Man his Wife addressed,
‘Thy name be Eve; Mother of all art thou.’

Then Death was known. For He who spake to them
From the slain Lamb bereft the woolly skin,
And covered Adam, and his Wife withal—
Saying, ‘Behold, the Man has now become
As one of Us, of evil, and of good
Intelligent. Lest he his hand put forth,
And pluck the fruitage from the Tree of Lives,
And eat, and live for ever, fit he go
Forth from this paradise, to till the ground
Whence he was taken.’

So he drave him forth,
Eve following; and placed his Cherubim
East of the Garden, templed in the flame,
A fiery pillar, turning on itself,
Irradiant, guarding thus the Tree of Lives.

So meditating, lost in deepest thoughts,
My heart burned. Then forth issued I, to fall,
Adoring, in the presence of my God,
Before the Cherubim that guard the gate
Of Eden. There I came. How gloriously
The fiery pillar, self-involved, revealed
Its glory, from the glory inshrining it,
Its tabernacle. Ever as it rose
Sublimer, in pyramid majesty,
Back on itself in wrath divine it rolled,
Averting from the sinner penal death,
In act reflex, and terrours merciful.
So thick the terrours, I nought else discerned;
Yet thus I prayed to Him whose name is Love.
‘Creatour, thou hast made thy universe

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A pattern of thy power, a mirrour gross
Of things divine, invisible. And all
Thy works are words: and every word of man
Embodies, in created thing, the thought
Thus only understood. Even as himself
Was in thine image made, and only there
Finds image of himself, in what of thee
Inferiour image is. And thou hast set
Thy Cherubim, the representatives
Of majesty divine, thy witnesses;
And gloriously they testify of thee,
When from the bosom of the thunder-cloud
The lightning flashes, and the choral peals
Reverberate thy holiness, and shake
The mercy-seat whereon thou sitst enthroned.
And human thought than lightning swifter, words
Impetuous as the thunder, ill reports
Aught foreign from the spirit whence they came.
Thine is that spirit, and its skill is thine;
Thou taughtest language to our father: now
Teach wisdom to his sons; and, of the same,
Perpetual register for memory,
An adequate memorial for the mind,
Surer than speech, and ampler than what eye,
Albeit excursive, comprehends alone.’

Thus prayed I, and was silent. From the Cone,
The Living Spirit audibly pronounced
My name. I lifted up my eyes, and lo,
Michael before me stood; his glory veiled,
As man with man, in majesty subdued.
‘Thy prayer is heard,’ . . he said. ‘The Lord, who gives
All understanding, and intelligence,
Hath heard thy prayer, and answered it by me.
—This Tablet take, and deeply contemplate,
Which God shall teach thee rightly to peruse.’
'Tis of the Six Days' Work, and Seventh's rest.

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What there thou findst transcribe; and add thereto,
What thou hast learned of Providence, and God.’

With grateful heart, I took the precious gift;
Nor left me then the Angel, but, with kind,
And affable attention, me beside
Stood, while I read, and helped me to the sense;
And, after I had read, departed pleased.

II. The Tablet

This is the Record which the Tablet bore,
Of Wisdom to the Elohim listening,
Apt to reveal in song the mind of God.

First, the Beginning is; wherein is hid
In Unity of Being, all that can
Be manifested in diversity,
Involved, but not confused, though Chaos called;
Both Spirit's womb, and Nature's; Heavens, and Earths,
Or, all in each, the Heaven, the Earth, alone.
First, is Jehovah, the Elohim next;
Then Adonäi, image of the First:
Jehovah, One in All—the One in Three—
For in the Three abides the Universe,
And in the One the All projects the Twain.
Before the Worlds is Wisdom; with the Three
She sits; Bride, Sister, Daughter of the One,
Herself thus Three in One; and, one with Love,
(Receiving the fecundity divine,)
Teems with creations endless, brings them forth
In everlasting Order. Heaven, and Earth
Roll in her eyes, upon her bosom globe;
Twin orbs, that to her countenance are as eyes,
And to her bosom ever-swelling breasts,
From whose twin founts the milk of mercy flows;
Circles of being, though distinct, conjoined,
Spirit, and Nature, inseparable mates;

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Mother of all, yet Virgin though betrothed.
Hell is not yet; anon the Heaven, and Earth,
Within the mirrour of the universe,
Shew, to herself, herself; well-pleased, she looks,
And dwells in them, as her inhabit they;
In heaven as Wisdom known, Beauty on earth.

Nor place, nor state, alone; but Heaven, and Earth,
Intelligent, and loving, live to love,
For generation live, and procreant bliss—
Spirit with Nature plays in amorous sport;
And Being, from their chaste embraces, grows
In number; from their mother, Natures named;
The eldest, Nature, as by excellence,
Masculine nature; but by various names
His Brethren known; a perfect brotherhood,
A brotherhood of Seven; the youngest called
Eternity, in tongue celestial; Time
In dialect terrene. High Powers are all—
But them the Spirit celestial, in his care
And love mysterious, hides; and over them
A veil of darkness throws: is called the sphere
Of their concealment, Hell. But they in gloom,
Though each be solaced with a sister's love,
For freedom pine, and supplicate for light.
Them hears Terrestrial Nature; wild with woe,
Their cry she echoes, and the passionate moan
Doth pass 'tween Hell, and Earth, and Chaos fill.
‘Vain,’ Earth exclaims, ‘that I should children own,
Yet at my nipples they should never nest,
And my capacities of mother-love
Turn inward, so to madden. Love Divine—
Why are my chambers unarrayed, and void,
And Darkness on the Chaos where I lie;
A desolate vessel, floating an abyss?’

The youngest of her children then found voice—
‘Appeal not thou against the will of Heaven:

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Both wise, and just is he;—but know, thy strong
Desire is as a spell within my heart:
Free me;—when he descends, it shall prevail.’

Clad in the gloom of glory, Heaven, as wont,
Descended to embrace maternal Earth,
Hovering diffuse. On the material deep
Spirit paternal broods; whereat therefrom
A yearning harmony of sighs, and sounds
Arose; a charming music—sweet, as 'twere
By Wisdom's self even uttered; and, indeed,
Her mind it was Eternity informed,
And gave him all his power. Subdued by Love,
Heaven melted, and more tenderly embraced
Imploring Earth; more ardently impressed
Spirit the deep of Nature. What should be
New-born, was free to build, and occupy
The desolate spaces formless wheresoe'er.
Nor what is sworn by Heaven, by Spirit vowed,
Fulfilment may delay. Beauty at once,
Emerging from the deep, made Chaos glad,
And mighty Powers, Heaven's offspring, peopled Earth.

But Light is not; then Love, to be revealed,
Again speaks in thy heart, Eternity;
And gives to thee, and to thy Bride a Son,
Known by the glorious name of Lucifer.
By him is Light borne even into Hell,
And every Nature, fettered there, released,
With him, the eldest, masculine, who bore
Maternal appellation. Him they own
As most excelling; yet from gratitude,
Confess the youngest, who, by name of Time,
Governs both them, and all material powers.

But gratitude by greater benefit
May be outbid; and Light on Darkness grow
Unto the perfect noon.

Mysterious Time,

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As day the night, bright Lucifer usurps;
And the obscure Eternity, displaced
By the progressive Hours with radiant hair,
Retires to higher Heaven: So Wisdom wills;
So Love ordains.

The godship of the world
Thus Lucifer receives; and whom his light
Had franchised, they on him confer their gifts,
And hail him Prince of Air; the Lightning his,
And his the Thunder that succeeds the flash.

Thus Light was first revealed, unsphered, unorbed,
Shining upon the genesis of things,
A fluid mass, unshaped, unoccupied,
Informing it, and peopling Earth with Powers,
Ere yet the Ages in their cycles rolled.
—All is creating yet, created nought:
And Love creative acts eternally
On forces motionless, and nebulous,
Within the silent, dreamless mystery;
'Till Light appears, and Love, beholding, sees
That it is good, distinguishing the light
From darkness.—Loth, be sure, his reign to lose,
He wages conflict endless, and still pleads
His elder right. On him, and on his brood,
Light yet persistent wins, from less to more;
And with his triumph thus One Æra crowns.

So Wisdom wills; so Love. This War eterne
Is still of Love. Where Wisdom, Order is.
—Still Love ordains that, 'midst this sum of powers,
Order, made manifest, distinction make,
'Twixt power, and power; and whatso is above,
From whatso is beneath; forenaming it,
(As still the visible firmament we name,)
Spirit celestial, or the expanse of air,
Or, in the plural, the Disposing Heavens.
—For know, the Spiritual Heavens as many seem,

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Material Earths but one; yet, learn the truth,
That in the One is Many, and in the Many
One only, with the All preceding both;
Hence Love decrees, that Order, simply one,
Affirmed should be for Powers manifold,
Or rather Omniform as All in All;
Seven spirits waiting on the Throne of one,
Yet omnipresent through the Universe.
Darkness, meanwhile, with Light, in loving strife,
Contests supremacy; till victor Light,
New triumph won, a Second Æra crowns.

So Love, so Wisdom wills. Let Order rule
The subject living forces, and assign
To these a rare, and those a denser form,
Distinguishing the simple, and concrete;
And Love, contemplating their dual kinds,
One Fluid calls, one Solid; goodness sees
In each; and bids the womb of Matter teem
With Life, developed full, or in the germ;
Productive each of offspring, like itself,
Of solid, and of fluid each combined,
Proportional; organic. Ever Love
Looks on, and ever sees the work is good;
While on the shore of Darkness, like a flood
After long ebb, Light steals, and covering it,
New triumph won, the Third great Age completes.

So Love ordains, so Wisdom. Fit the Light
Should be constrained, and within spheres confined,
By All-disposing Order; in the Heavens
Displayed, gemmed on the bosom of the Air,
And sailing in the Spiritual Deep.
—Straight the Divine Intelligence impressed
Each passive force with motion. One and all,
Their centre seek; and, mingling in the chase,
Condense, and crystallize; and, circling round
The point of rest, with progress equable,

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Of solid, liquid, and ethereal, form
Both Sun, and Moon, and Planetary orbs;
Bearers of Light.

Then there was War in Heaven—
For Lucifer with Wisdom, conference high
Maintaining, had discoursed; and she, his parle
Repeating, of the Word Eternal gained
The passionate suit that it was Death to plead—
‘Grateful Vicissitude of Day, and Night,
Of Light, and Darkness; mutability
Wedding to Time as his terrestrial bride,
Whose law by marriage contract his became’—
—So sang the Hours, in hymeneal song,
Bridesmaidens they, erelong themselves to wed
The dark-browed Youths whose locks were raven black,
Children of Darkness; spite of their Old Sire,
Abhorring change, prohibiting revolt;
Darkness thrice-nameless, thrice-unknown; now named,
Now by the Stars invaded, and revealed,
Or wandering, or fixed. Then Knowledge rose,
Fair Wisdom's youngest brother, and would prate
Of Good, and Evil, in his frolic mood,
Which Darkness would not brook—and darker grew
With anger, frowning tempest.

Longer now,
The Battle might not wait; for Motion was,
And power, by power attracted, or repelled,
Shewed love, or hatred, in one sphere combined,
Or formed opposing worlds. The solar god
Poured, hot, and bright, his influence through the mass,
Erst cold, and dern, and modified at will
Material form; himself thus suffering loss,
Whereat was Darkness pleased, but soon repaired
By the pervading Lucifer, whose aid
Might omnipresent seem; such power was his,
Though short of that, the balance to preserve,

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Of qualities by constant interchange,
And revolution. Meet, howe'er, the god
Soon moderate his wrath; for its fierce heat,
Invading matter, else will all dissolve;
Diffused all form in space aëriform.
Some of resistive temper stubbornly
Maintain coherence; but, already, more,
Capacious of less heat, compactness lose;
A few of warmth impatient, melt at once.
Anon, his passion cooled; and all was safe,
Each form concrete held in its central place,
And new were still begotten—for the war,
Though furious, yet by Love was overruled.

Then there was born to Earth, and Heaven at once
The Angel Victory, who, with rapid flight,
Chased Darkness into refuge, where he reigns
Among the planets which no light has reached,
Two thirds of space. Thus the Fourth Age had end.—

Then Wisdom 'gan complain. ‘Lo, here is change
Of Night, and Day; and Signs, in the Expanse,
Are set for Seasons, and for Days, and Years.
And lo, my Brother Knowledge reads them all;
Ourself enthroned above.’ Then spake the Word.
‘Wouldst thou descend? Observe example first—
Life is in me; hence Light in Lucifer:
See, where he shines on high, the Morning-Star.
In him abiding, Light begetteth Life,
Which he would multiply in living shapes,
As Light in me begat Life Infinite,
And made thee Mother of all things that be.
—So let the waters teem with things of life,
The air with volant creatures. It is good.
Blessèd be ye. Increase, and multiply;
Fill ye the waters of the sea, make glad
The expanded air betwixt yon Heaven, and Earth.’

Thus while he spake, bright Lucifer unsphered

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His glory; and, his state forsook, became
The mystic instinct, and sagacity,
Of those who thus were blessed, the inhabitants
Of sea, and air; genius of winds, and streams;
His life their light, exalted in his fall;
Mutation constant, till the Fifth Age ends.

Which seeing, Wisdom sighed: ‘I yearn for Death.’
Answered the Eternal Word: ‘Have thy desire:
Thy death, by law of Love, makes needful mine;
But I consent to both, for love of thee.
—Let, therefore, Earth bring living creatures forth;
Cattle, and creeping things, and forest beasts,
According to their kinds. Lo, it is good.’

Thus earth was peopled. But there needed yet
A lord to rule this heritage of life,
The wild of savage natures, reptile forms.

Then spake the Word again. ‘Let Lucifer
Be mind to them, according to his prayer,
Which the Elohim grant. Befits that We,
Structure, sublimer far, intelligence;
More lofty front, and attitude erect.
For Love hath spoken, both in thee, and me.

‘Let us make Man, our Image, like Ourself,
Both male, and female; let them rule the tribes
Of Ocean, Air of earth, and Earth herself,
And the seed-bearing herb, and fruitful tree,
Possess for fruit.’

Then Wisdom, glad, exclaimed,
‘So my delights long promised shall arrive,
And with the Sons of Men shall I disport,
Within the habitable parts of Earth.’

Whereto the Word replied: ‘Wherefore myself
Must Man become, be born, and suffer Death;
And thou, the Universal Mother, yield
Homage, as Woman, to a mortal lord,
Travail with Time, and bring forth Truth with pain,

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To perish in an agony of fire,
Only regaining thus immortal life,
By me redeemed from sorrow, and the grave.
Tempted by Lucifer to this result,
Forewarned; by strong desire, and love compelled;
That thou, though wise before, shouldst learn to know,
And with experience fill the reason's void.’

The Sixth Age ended; there was Rest in Heaven.

Jehovah, the Elohim, one Jehovah:
O Word, O Wisdom, O Eternal Love;
O ninefold Mystery, uncreate, unnamed;
Darkness profound, impenetrable proved
By Light's excess, that blinds us as we gaze;
Most hides itself in that which most reveals;
And teaches Man, that God may not be known.
Both Good, and Evil are His ordonnance;
And Light, and Darkness; He created both.

When I had read, I bowed my pensive knee
To the great Parent of the Universe;
And ordered, then, a solemn Sacrifice,
In presence of the people. On the tomb
Of Adam, the devoted Lamb I slew,
And took his skin, and with his blood transcribed
A sacred Song; first sung by me, and them,
As, then and there, the Spirit had inspired
Me, erst by Wisdom made a Friend of God,
And Prophet, as she makes all holy souls,
Who welcome her, when she would enter in.

Before all Being, Love is God. Of Love,
Light-giving Love, the Father gives the Son
Life in himself to have, and propagate.
None shall the Father see, at any time,
But he to whom the Co-eternal Son

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Himself reveals, revealing so the Sire.
Such the decree. Paternal Throne of Love,
Unutterable, inaccessible,
Abides in Light that aye shall limit round
The universe, and nought shall comprehend
For ever, and for ever. None shall hear
His voice, the filial Word except, and he
To whom the Word his will supreme reveals,
Within whose bosom I consorted live.

Eternal Silence is not. Love bespeaks
‘The Son—I am:’ and the Word answers—‘Yea,
Father, thou art, and I in thee!’ To whom
The Eternal Father:—‘Lo, I swear; of thee
And for thee are the Heavens, and the Earths:
Both the Beginning, and the End art thou.’
Where to the Son—‘According to thy will,
I constitute the Ages.’ And, at once,
Beginning is, the Heavens, the Earths are made;
Nor void, nor formless, nor in darkness hid
To the Creatours, though, unuttered yet,
In the Beginning lives the Word with Love;
Profound, unfathomable abyss, anon
Inspired, and vocal, . . Love become the Word,
And the far Spirit circumscribing space,
That Wisdom may complete the Work of Power.

Behold; the Heavens outspread, expanse of Air
In motion, destined to dispose the place
Of worlds innumerable, radiant orbs.
Nor Light is not. The Spirit obeys the Voice
Eternal; and, in floods of ether, Time
Transpicuous, from the agitated deep
Electric, . . whirling as a wheel, by force
Of the strong wind, that, like an eagle's wings,
Flutters above its waters, as a nest
Where life is teeming, . . soars, empyreal youth,
And beautiful as young. Thereat the Light

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Comes forth to welcome him; he, at her breasts
Cradled, grows in her aspect lovely, till
She diadems with day-beams his smooth brows;
And ancient Darkness hides but half a world.
Thereat to hail him is the rush of Floods,
And Heaven itself descendeth to divide
Their rivalry. The Land and Main appear,
And own his domination. Then with dance,
And voice of melody, and lyres of gold,
The choral Stars rejoice, with Sun, and Moon;
The finny nations of the watery deep,
Winged people of the aëreal hemisphere,
The children of the forest, and the field,
Make earth, and air, and ocean, glad with life.
Shout loud with joy the sons of Love in heaven—
Soon silent, for the Elohim speaking thus:

‘Let us make Man in our own Image.’ So
In his own Image, Love createth Man.
—Thus are the Heavens created, and their Hosts;
The Earths with their Inhabitants are made,
Creating yet, creating evermore.

Six eves, and morns the work divine endures,
And the profound knows motion; storm, and calm
Meting the days, and making each an æra.

Perfect in its completions, Love beholds
His Universe, and all pronounces good;
Fit altar for his worship—temple fit
For Man to dwell in: and, by seeing Love,
In nature visible, conform his works
To his exemplar, . . perfect, and preserve
His breathèd soul's similitude divine.
Then Love into his solitude retires,
And hallows his repose; hence sanctifies
The Seventh Day to man, recurring sign
Of his perpetual peace . . memorial aye
Of his creation, and completing joy.

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III. Death and Obsequies of Adam

Hear now the Words that Wisdom spake to me.
‘Before his Works of Old, thus ere the earths,
And heavens, ere the hills, and skies, and floods,
In the Beginning of his Mystery,
I Wisdom dwell with him, and with his Word,
Whenas his Law gives Order to the Heavens,
And his Commandment binds the Waters in,
And his Decree establishes the Earths,
Rejoicing in the Fountain of all Love,
Who still becomes Intelligence, and Life,
In Angels, Man, and creatures still express.

Nor Earth to me is not, nor void of Man,
Its habitable parts unpopulous.
But with the Sons of Men I still delight,
Partaking my Divinity with them,
Even to self-utterance.’ Wisdom, while Man speaks,
Prompts the pleased mind, and Beauty charms the soul—
Whence Eden, with her smile irradiate, blooms
A Paradise of joy; the common earth
Blossoms into a Garden sanctified,
Whose streams are nectar, whereat Angels drink,
Ornate with Trees whose fruit is food for gods—
Charms all too much. In her Immortal Form,
Man seeks Eternal Substance; and desire,
Creative in subsistent Loveliness,
Fruition finds. So twain becomes of One,
And Male, and Female rule the World of Life,
The Image that of Love; of Wisdom this.

One Being Woman, communed with by Man,
High Knowledge gaining, and, therewith, desire
To contemplate the Beautiful that should
Reflect herself, the Beauty in all Forms—
Thereto by the Atoning Cherub led,
The radiant Lucifer, thence Satan called,

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Whose heart by his own brightness now seduced,
To make division in the works of God,
Would with his own ambition prompt the Eve,
So name the Woman, of all women type.

Fresh from the feast of Knowledge, and of Death,
With more than nectar, or with food divine,
Filled, elevate, sublimed, enrapt, inspired,
To full voluptuous joy; Eve aimed at Heaven,
Nor less than Wisdom's self, the Bride of God,
Felt in her own esteem—spiritual pride,
Wherewith the soul reels drunken in excess;
And in her beauty thus, serene, severe,
With loveliest invitation, dalliance soft,
Wooes to the banquet rare her yielding lord.
Spell-bound by her desire—her will made his—
His life within her lap dissolves away,
She dying in his arms; from which sweet death
Both rise again, she teeming with new life,
Conceived in sin, but born to be redeemed.

Hence Many of the Twain. Hence All the Forms,
In Men, and Women, of the Wise, and Fair—
Emblem of very man, not very man,
Emblem of woman, not true woman, each;
Such as their everlasting archetypes,
The Word, and Wisdom that with God abide.

Distinction first, then Separation comes,
But not Expulsion; till the Cherub dares
To lure the loving Will to outward act
Of Knowledge mixed for pure, both good, and ill.
Distant from Paradise, two Sexes then,
Of earthly generatours earthly heirs,
Sad exiles to a world that travails still,
By Labour win a Garden from the Wild,
And die—to know, what else can not be known.

No Image, hence, of Love is fallen Man,

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But Symbol mere of Wisdom, partial sign;
And Woman but of Beauty the mere type,
Who should have been of Wisdom Image fair.
Yet Hope survives, though Innocence depart,
And Faith, and Love shall triumph over Death.
The Soul consumes the Sin wherein it burns,
With glory crowning, and transfiguring
The house of Death into Life's elements,
Making it radiant ere invisible,
Hallowed, and hallowing. Transgression thus
Preludes Salvation, which of twain makes one,
In dissolution but renewal finds.

Befits, in truth, such mysteries be veiled—
For Shame would Nature's nakedness defend,
And Grace in pity clothes the shrinking soul.
Better than words the hallowed symbols suit,
Which our revered progenitor himself
Bade to be pictured on his altar-tomb.
Lo, the Elohim breathe into the man,
Created of the dust, the breath of lives,
Whence he of clay becomes a living soul.

I, Wisdom, give instruction unto Men,
For I am Understanding, and with me
Is Prudence, Wealth, and Power from everlasting;
The Word of God the Genitor of all,
Through Him in the Beginning filiate;
Father of Spirits, Love Ineffable,
The Saviour, the Redeemer, evermore.
—With the First-Born, the Man his Mother hailed
As Him the Hope of Ages yet to come,
I communed from his birth; but Labour made
My lessons hard, whereby would Cain deserve
What else I proffered freely. Wroth he grew,
Full of the rage to know, and wish to merit;
Yea, and in all that he would still deserve,
And still would know, the Fury recognised,

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That appetite of thirst, and hunger keen
Kept in his soul alive. Thus outwardly
Possessed, as still within; companions fierce,
Shapes of strange anger, Terrours without name,
Him from me wooed, and carried thorough realms
Of Death, and Hades; in whose murmurs wild
He learned the lore of War, and 'gan rejoice
In battle for the love of victory—
Debating, first, in words what, in the end,
Yields but to the arbitrament of blows,
Charged with the death of either combatant.
So Cain his brother slew, disputing first
The creed that both had heard from infancy;
Hence, 'twixt their rival altars, Abel fell.’

I write what ye do know. My words are truth,
Whereof, O fathers, witnesses are ye.
Adam, our Father, gave me in command
To gather, as the youngest of them all,
The patriarchs together, that they might
Be present at the death of the First Man,
To whom the Spirit had his end foretold.
Ye came, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel,
And Jared; and, with me, and with my son,
Methuselah, around the couch of age,
In grave solicitude, and silent awe,
His words attended, while he thus began.

‘Our God is good, Jehovah—God of gods—
Our dwelling-place before the mountains were,
Heaven's canopy was spread, or ocean flowed.
In his own likeness, God created Man,
And placed him in a happy Paradise,
And wedded him to Woman. On the law
Of God we meditated with delight;
To covet not, even knowledge, though divine.
His law was love, obedience loving him;

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Love strong in hope, and fortified by faith:
And doubt was not until was tempted Eve,
To effort vain, of knowledge without power.
Then was revealed the Love we dared suspect.
—Evening came on: On the refreshing breeze
Walked great Jehovah's Voice—the Merciful—
And question done, and judgement passed, resumed
Such condescension, that I hailed aloud
Eve, Mother of all Living; so decreed,
To manifest the perfect Man divine.
—‘Why doubtedst thou Our love, who gave thee life?
Why fearedst that They from thee should knowledge hide,
Who made thee in their image, nor in this
Dissimilar? We would that thou shouldst know
Thy strength, but he thy weakness who seduced.
Election made, necessity begins.
Go—win by labour what free grace had given:
Aim to be gods; and be such but in aim:
So lose the end in the endeavour, till
Toil be the whole, and nothing the reward.
Earth shall ask sweat enough, and nature veil
Herself to much enquiry . . oft to all.
Such is the curse. Yet shall salvation be
Wrought, though with trembling, out. A race shall rise,
The kings, and priests of men, who shall uphold
Faith, or for good, or evil, and attain
Knowledge, or power; and human fears, and hopes
Shall hang on mortal wills: and these shall mount
Exalted to celestial seats, and earth
Adore them—heroes, demigods, and gods:
Till One shall come, who from their hands shall wrest
Their sceptres, shall dethrone them from their skies.
Meantime must God, and Man be twain, till He
Shall reunite:—In sign whereof, observe
What now I do, and oft the rite perform.’
—Thus saying; straight he of earth an altar piled,

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And on it laid an holocaust, and slew
The anointed beasts, as I do now, and said,
‘Lo, Adam, this is Death.’ We saw—were thrilled—
‘Fear not, for this shall your last refuge be
From sorrow . . here behold the gate of Heaven.
And now the Fire of heaven that ye will need,
Thus willingly I render to your use—
The life that ye have shed, Heaven shall accept
And reunite unto its fount above—
And thus ye are atoned. In proof whereof,
Be clothed ye with these sacrificial skins,
Cover from shame, and armour for defence
'Gainst elemental nature, waked to strife
By your transgression. Thus by wisdom live—
And art and patience, faith and fortitude,
Obstruction shall subdue, or if not, death.’
—The while he spake, the flame descended there,
And quaffed the blood; and o'er our limbs he spread
The skins from off the holocaust; as now,
The flame descends upon our sacrifice,
And ‘I invest thee, Seth, with this same skin,
And consecrate thee Patriarch, and Priest.’

And while Seth knelt, as, prescient of his death,
Adam on him the hallowed raiment put,
He said: ‘This done, the Merciful pursued:
‘But now ye have become like us, to know
Both good, and ill, and much ambition shewn,
And less submission; ye may deem to thwart
The doom of death, and, plucking from the Tree
Of Lives, become immortal in your sin,
And earn eternal sorrow. Hence it needs
The way be barred, that Life be not outlived,
And Paradise become unparadised.
Therefore, without its walls, I do return
With you unto the Place whence thee I brought,

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O Adam; there to till the ground wherefrom
I took thee.’ So he drave us forth, and left,
East of the garden, there his Cherubim,
Whereon he rode in living majesty,
To frustrate all return, until the hour
When death sets free the soul, and that great time
When for the world atonement shall be made.
—My hour is come. Farewell. Restore to earth
Earth's perishable dust.’

So Adam died.
—Six days were past in sorrow. These elapsed,
The race of Adam at his obsequies
Assembled. Seth, the Patriarch, and the Priest,
Amidst the multitudes, where now I stand,
In venerable dignity, prepared
The sacrifice of burial. In cold earth
The body of our father he entombed;
Saying, ‘As thus the chamber of the grave
Within, his mortal frame reposes here,
Thus in the bowers of Paradise his soul,
In visionary slumber, findeth peace,
Till their re-union in the end of time.’

Tears then were shed; a loud lament arose
From thousands, and from thousands. ‘And is this
The hope of man? Are all his days of toil
Decreed to this reward? Hath Adam died,
Even like the holocaust we sacrificed?
Perishes man as perishes the worm,
And, mingling with the dust, is seen no more?’

Loud sobs were heard, and then the clamour ceased;
At length, a Stranger from the Land of Naid
Rose in the midst . . and, asking with his hand
Attention, thus began: ‘Such are the hopes
Of miserable man. Knew ye not Death
Before? I knew him, King of Terrours, ere
Your generation was; for I beheld
Young Abel die, whose blood cried from the ground.’

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Hereat was raised the question, like a shout—
‘Cain? art thou Cain?’ . . He answered, ‘I am Cain:’
And, taking off his iron crown, exclaimed—
‘Behold the sign upon my writhen brow,
Branded by God, devoted Fratricide,
First witness of man's death, first murtherer.
I rose against him in my wrath, for he,
Who shed blood of the firstlings of his flock,
Was pleasing to his Maker; while I—I—
Who offered of the produce of my toil,
Was hateful in his sight. I tilled the earth;
I fattened it with sweat, and watered it
With tears, . . for food, . . all to prolong this life,
This miserable life, whose end ye see.
He ate the food who earned not; but his days
Passed idly, contemplating with delight
The soil accursed, whose stubbornness would yield
Only to labour—painful, and severe.—
Alas, my lovely brother. I esteemed
Thy life but vanity . . and what is mine?
Vanity only more laborious, cursed.
A curse—a curse—a curse is on the earth,
And death within its bosom, night, and hell,
Populous hell, and night depopulate.’

Then from the ground rose Eve; where, weeping, she
Had sate, and ran to clasp her long-lost son—
Spurned rudely.—‘Cain,’ she cried, ‘my first-born son:
A happy mother I, when thou wert born:
When I to Adam said, that I had got
The man Jehovah.’—

‘I the first-born man—
Why by another are these rites performed?
Behold, a king am I. Lo, I am crowned.
The diadem conceals a branded brow—
Ye have no kings among you, . . look on me; . .
The blood I shed did consecrate me such;
Fearful my name, and sacred made my life.

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Thou art Sin's mother—Death was my red son,
Who, like an harvest man asweat with toil,
Perspires all gore, dissolved in bloody dews—
Anon, he makes huge havoc with the race,
Long-time preserved, of Adam, the Unborn,
Yet dead. And soon his father shall he slay,
And I will bid him hail, and be no more.’

Then spake the youngest of the fathers there,
Enoch: . . ‘Why are ye silent, sons of God?
Ye fathers of the family of men?
Man was by God created, and was found
Of him, by nature ignorant, and wild,
Spread on the ground whence he had taken him:
Then did he lead him by the hand into
A Paradise of pleasure, and contract
With him a gracious covenant, that he
Might soar by wisdom, on the wings of faith,
To blessèd life, to immortality,
From carnal lusts abstaining; and appoint
A righteous law to manifest his sin,
If he transgressed. Then did he drive him forth,
To win by labour what the soul, absorbed
In sensible indulgence, indolent,
Left unattempted in a state of ease.
And know ye not, prophetic Adam taught,
Death is not final, but transition mere
To an immortal state for weal, or woe.
And while we speak, his spirit hovers near,
And weeps for pity at this blasphemy.’

Then Cain laughed loud. ‘His spirit, even now
Ye said, had sped to Paradise—'tis here,
'Tis there—or any where; but where it is,
Ye know not, . . ay, or that it is.’ Then tears
Channelled his rugged cheeks. ‘How oft have I,
In the lone visions of the night, with loud
And earnest prayers, and groanings from the soul,

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Called upon Abel to appear to me,
And soothe my spirit with his presence once,
In sign of pardon, or that I had not
Extinguished all his being. He heard not
My supplication; had he heard, he would
Have come, . . for he was ever gentle. No—
There is no hope for man. But on the grave,
The gate of hell, sits, like a fiend, Despair.’

And saying thus, he vanished; and the rest
Departed sad, a mournful company.

Returning to the realm o'er which he ruled,
Cain, the man-slayer, the death-angel slew;
By touch ethereal slain, and not by man.

IV. Translation of Enoch

How swift the years fly past, yet not as flies
The traceless arrow through the closing air.
Body, and soul, they do impress on man
The signs that they have been; for what are they
But motions of his own activity,
Whose very thoughts imperishable are,
Inscribed by God within his Book of Doom?

Upon the race of Seth, the words of Cain
Sank deeply, with the death of the Unborn,
The first-created man. Dispute ensued,
High argument; nor might assurance high
Of angels, visiting the sons of men,
Celestial testimony, to convince
The sceptic mind suffice; who'll not believe,
No satisfaction, even in knowledge, finds.
Nay, even to demon oracles recourse
Was had—of whom Cain's race enquiry made,
And oft received forged answer. Conference,
And intercourse succeeded. Then the Sons
Of God the Daughters saw of men, how fair,

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How lovely, how adorned, how sweetly wise
And amiably accomplished, and they took
Them wives at their election. Pure alone
The children of the blood-devoted dead,
Abel, who all impurity abhorred,
And, in simplicity of faith, and deed,
Continued shepherds of the sacred flocks
For sacrifice appointed, whence the shame
Of man is covered, and his sin forgiven,
And man is reconciled unto his God.
Thus was the faith preserved—but not without
The martyr's peril; and thereon was one,
Enoch the Scribe, who looked with much concern.

Soon to the holy mountain he retired,
And fasted . . forty days; and, all that time,
Trances, and visions kept his soul alive,
Though weeping, and in sorrow. Him none saw,
His tears hid in the fountain of his heart.
But angels his companions were; by night,
Their sympathy was in the star-light shed,
By day in the thin clouds that veiled the sun,
Too garish for his grief; and He in heaven
Him saw in secret, and consoled with gleams,
Unspeakable, and therefore never told,
Of joys celestial. Abstinence hath charms,
Earnestly lovely . . such that ye would say,
The beautiful, and true were in her face,
So mingled that the fair were the unfading—
So gracefully severe, the enamoured heart
Might ne'er believe that it was changeable—
Nay, Faith of its eternity would dream.
Thus oft into the Eternal 'twould transport
Thought as he gazed, and in the ravished soul
Wake the prophetic faculty, whose pens
Climb heaven, entering that Other world to come,
Which yet now is, even here, and every where.

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Then came the Word of God to Enoch's soul,
And Michael, prince of human virtue, stood
Before him in his martial majesty,
Warriour of heaven, and said:

‘Offence abounds,
Man doubts the life within him, God-inbreathed,
And fear with hope hath vanished from the earth;
Twin-sisters they, wings of the soul; and force
Rules dominant, till murther bid him pause.
Therefore go thou, and take thy Book with thee,
Which thou hast written with sacrific blood,
And to the Mount of Paradise repair,
Where, at the orient gate, the Cherubim
Entrance forbid; there, where I gave thee once
The Tablet of Creation; summon there
The people; they shall hear the voice of God,
And thou shalt prophesy as he shall prompt,
Sufficient for the time. Yet they shall scorn,
At length, thy sayings; nay, the voice of God
Reject, albeit now the sons of men
Be on this side of the baptizing flood,
That o'er the world shall spread the pall of death,
Redeeming so the earth from violence.
For though no veil the glorious throne obscure,
And from the presence of his God divide
Man, or from spiritual intercourse
Debar, with angels, or with demons; yet
Fail even Hope's present objects to secure
Faith in the promises. Hence, is it writ
In heaven—the decree is written there—
Death shall between man, and his hopes stand dark,
And faith come by the ear—nought by the eye:
Until the grave the Place of Hope expand,
Where, till the time of consummation, rest
Her spirits disincarnate, prisoners,
Region of vision, but itself unseen.’

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And Enoch did appoint a solemn day,
And Eden was assembled there, before
The sacred hill, in presence of the Lord.
The mountain melted, and the Cherubim
Paled to the nothing of obscurity
Before Jehovah's shadow. Him the cloud
Hid, him the fire concealed, him round about
Thunder, and lightning girt; the mountain quaked
Beneath the footsteps of Omnipotence.
Unto the midst of heaven the mountain burned,
And fire, and darkness his pavilion were.
He rent the heavens, and came down; and man
Dissolved in fear before him, as in death.
The trumpet pealed between; and as it waxed
Louder, and longer, Enoch raised his voice
As on an eagle's wing, and, strong in faith,
Spake; and to him the Voice of God replied.
Thus summoned, Enoch entered up the mount
Into the darkness of excessive light,
And held mysterious commune for awhile.
Anon, returned to earth, his countenance
Dazzled the gaze of men, and awed them back;
Then he the Coming of the Lord proclaimed:

‘He cometh with ten thousands of his saints,
Judgement forthwith on all to execute,
And all that are ungodly to convince
Of their ungodly deeds, and their hard speech,
Which against him, Most Holy, they have dared.
Upon the living Tablets of your Hearts
His Laws are written; all have read them there;
And yet, as if unwritten, and unread,
Like beasts ye live whom God created men.
Hither, thou trembling Sinner. Stand thou forth,
And answer for thy sin. What God is thine?’

And he who thus was called upon replied;
—‘I bow the knee unto the Teraphim,

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And they have answered me, and made me rich
In herds, and wives, and numerous progeny.
Their glory is less terrible than Their's
That flash, and fulmine over Paradise.’
Then rolled the thunder louder, and the hill
More wrathfully cast out consuming flame,
And lightning smote the sinner to the earth.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.
‘What is that graven image in thy house?’

‘'Tis of my father, for he taught me much
Of knowledge, and my hand instructed so,
That, by its cunning, I can touch the harp,
And organ to such harmony as wraps
The soul in ecstacy. Divine his art,
And he adorable.’

Scarce had he said,
When rolled the thunder louder, and the hill
More wrathfully cast out consuming fire,
And lightning smote the sinner to the earth.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.
—‘Why callest thou upon the name of God?’

‘His name escaped my lips, for o'er my frame
Cold shudders crept, and so I uttered it,
As I am wont in terrour, or surprise.’

And then again the thunder louder rolled,
And wrathfully the hill blazed high in heaven,
And the just lightning smote the sinner dumb.

Another, summoned to his doom, advanced.
—‘Why, on this high and holy day, wherein
God rested from his work, that spade bearst thou?’

‘I was a-working in my field, when men
Told me of what was passing here of strange,
And wonderful; so from my work I came,
Who seldom, if at all, vacation know.’

Then rolled the thunder louder, and the hill
More wrathfully cast out consuming flame,

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And lightning smote the sinner to the earth.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.
—‘Why with such scorn lookst thou upon that old
Woman, and man—thy mother, and thy sire?’

‘For they are old and feeble, and in age
Ridiculous, mere objects of contempt.’

Then rolled the thunder louder, and the hill
More wrathfully cast out consuming flame,
And lightning smote the sinner into dust.

Another, summoned to his doom, advanced.
—‘Why with such scowling brow gloatst thou on him?’

‘He is my enemy—I slew his sire,
And him will slay; for they have done me wrong.’

Even while he spake, the thunder rolled aloud,
Fierce burned the mount, and him the lightning slew.

Another, summoned to his doom, advanced.
—‘What woman she with those lascivious eyes,
Who hangs upon thee fearful, while yon man
Creeps close behind you, with desponding look?’

‘He is her sometime husband—I am now.’

Loud rolled the thunder, fierce the mountain burned,
And the just lightning smote the sinner blind.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.
—‘Whence gottest thou that staff?’

‘It lay beside
An aged man asleep, a useless thing;
I took it thence to help me on my way.’

Even while he spake, the thunder rolled aloud,
Fierce burned the mount, and him the lightning smote.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.
—‘Why doth that man upon thee thus exclaim?’

‘He is my neighbour, whom, before the judge,
I charged with deeds which ne'er, he saith, he did.’

Loud rolled the thunder; fierce the mountain burned,
And the just lightning smote the sinner dumb.

Then came another, summoned to the bar.

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—‘Why lookest thou with such a stedfast gaze
Upon that ass whereon thy neighbour rides?’

‘I do affect it for its strength, and shape.’

Again the Mount of Paradise burned up,
Alive with the avenging Cherubim,
Into the midst of heaven, with thunderings,
And lightnings, and the noise of trumpet. Then
Spake Enoch, and the ungodly so convinced
Of their ungodly deeds; even while they feared,
And shrunk back from the radiance of his brow,
For their hard speeches them he thus reproved:

‘Ye murmurers against the ways of God,
O ye complainers for the doom of man;
Ye who prefer to feed upon the dust,
Like serpents, yet disdain the serpent's doom;
Who lose the sense of immortality,
No longer worthy even of transient life,
And therefore justly dread eternal death.
What proof ask ye? If ye have none in you,
None can be given—avails no miracle—
Nor such vouchsafed, but that the sensual man
May be without excuse. Yet, after death,
Know ye, is victory, or discomfiture—
Victory to him who's valiant to the end,
And overcometh. Wrath, and shame to him
Who fails with sin to war, and is subdued.
But that ye may have reason to believe,
I do ascend the sacred Mount of God,
And, without dying, enter Paradise.’

So saying, calmly, and in majesty,
He did ascend the cherub-guarded hill,
And passed the flaming sword. He walked with God,
And was not, for his God accepted him.

These are the words which Seth spake, in the day
When he received the Book that Enoch wrote,

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Unto Jehovah, who created him.

Thou art Jehovah: terrible art thou
In mercy. On thy horses thou didst ride,
Thy chariots of salvation bore thee on.
From midst the myriads of the hosts of heaven,
The Holy One with glory clad the sky,
And fire consumed the mountain where he trod.

Perfect in beauty, and in wisdom full,
Anointed Cherub: who, in Paradise,
Garden of God, his new-created Man
Didst cover with unshamèd innocence,
Within the Holy Mountain; till, profane,
Thou wert cast out from 'mong the Thrones of Light.
Thine heart was for thy beauty lifted up,
Thy wisdom was corrupted, verily,
By reason of thy brightness. Thou art now
Brought to the dust, O thou who hast defiled
Thy sanctuaries with iniquities.
Therefore will God bring forth, from thee amidst,
A fire that shall devour thee. Thou shalt be
A terrour, and shalt perish utterly.

Jehovah is in judgment terrible.
When him I heard, my bowels shook, . . my lips
Quivered, and rottenness was in my bones;
They trembled under me, and for the day
Of tribulation groaned my inmost soul.

O terrible in judgements; thou in wrath
Rememberest mercy. Wherefore waxst thou hot
'Gainst Man seduced? Ah—wherefore should the Foe
Say, that for mischief thou revealedst him?
Jehovah: thou art God, and thou wilt be
Gracious to whom thou wilt, to whom thou wilt
Be merciful. Jehovah, God of gods,
Gracious, and merciful—long-suffering—
Bounteous of truth, and goodness, laying up
Mercy for thousands, and forgiving all

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Iniquity, transgression, sin; and thou
Wilt not excuse the sinner, visiting
The sire's iniquity upon the child,
Unto the generation third, and fourth.

I ever in Jehovah will rejoice,
In God, my Saviour, ever will exult—
Jehovah, the Almighty, is my strength,
And I will trust in him for evermore.
For of his Bounty he created man.

And Enoch left a Widow, and her name
Was Edna, and she dwelt in Armon with
Seth's household. Calm was Edna in her grief,
If grief it were that, in the certitude
Of Enoch's immortality, rejoiced.
Nor was she lonely. With her Son was she,
Methuselah; and many Sons, and Daughters
Beside surrounded her, a numerous tribe—
Ay, and beneath her heart she bare a Babe
Unborn, and when her days of travail closed,
The Mother in her Infant's face beheld
The shadow of her smile. Then on her heart
She pressed the Child, and named her from herself—
She called her Edna. And the Daughter grew,
As like to her in nature as in name,
In every feature like, in stature like,
Gesture, and act, and attitude of grace.
And so her heart was cheered for Enoch gone,
By this the living Pledge he left behind,
His Testament to her, as was his Book
Unto the Race of Men . . . a Word, not dead
As that is unto many, but with life
Still breathing, glowing, beautiful and fair.
And Seth did build two Pillars by the tomb
Of Adam—by that altar-tomb he built them,

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And them inscribed with old tradition true.

Stern Cain spake to his Mother, while she wept;
‘Sin was of thy conception, Death of mine.’
For Cain had smitten Abel as they worshipped;
Since God accepted Abel's sacrifice,
And Cain's rejected. Firstlings of the flock
Meek Abel offered, first-fruits of the ground
Cain. For Cain said: ‘The Lord of life was Lord
Of earth—one God breathed spirit into man,
And brooded o'er the void of formless earth.
Sent he not cold, and heat, and stubborn soil
Of culture difficult, and pain of toil,
Sickness, and sorrow, and infirmity
Of flesh, whence evil, and remorse, and fear?’
—So to appease vindictive Deity,
He offered of his works, that he might heal
In them what needed labour, and caused grief.
But Abel's prayer was to the God of Love,
Who chastened thus the creature, that the soul
Might be made perfect, and the will renewed;
Which else would die of ire, by God consumed
In mercy, lest worse evil all destroy.
Willing, life offered he to him who gave,
Submitting to the Chastener, even to death,
So he might be redeemed, and manhood saved.
Such the discourse they held; but Cain was wroth,
And rose against his brother, smote, and slew.

Then spake to Cain Jehovah—‘Where is Abel,
Thy brother?’ And he answered, ‘I know not:
Am I my brother's keeper?’—Then God said:
‘What hast thou done? Voice of thy brother's blood
Cries from the ground to me. Accursed of earth:
Whose mouth has opened to receive his blood . .
Thy brother's blood from thy unrighteous hand;
Now when the ground thou tillest, it henceforth

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Shall not yield of her strength to thee; become
A fugitive, and wanderer in the earth.’
Then Cain Jehovah answered: ‘Punishment
Like this is mightier far than I can bear;
Exiled from face of human earth, and thine,
A fugitive, and wanderer, whoso
Shall find will slay me.’ But Jehovah said:
‘Vengeance seven-fold on him that slayeth Cain.’
And of his will in this straightway a sign
Miraculous appointed. From the wild
The savage Steed he called, and on its mane
Laid his almighty hand, and it was tamed;
Then on its shoulders placed the fugitive:
In fear he crouched upon the horse's neck;
But the Compassionate raised then his head,
And, touching thus his brow, left there a trace
Of wonderous power, the fingers of a God.
So, from the presence of the Cherubim,
Went forth sad Cain, and in the land of Naid
Dwelt, east of Eden; father of a race.

And Adam knew again his Wife, who bare
A Son, and called him Seth; for God to her
Another had appointed in the stead
Of Abel, whom Cain slew. And this is he
On whom the Book of Enoch was bestowed,
Who built these Pillars, and these Words inscribed.

END OF EIGHTH BOOK.

259

BOOK THE NINTH. THE PYRAMIS

I. The City

The Book of Enoch read, the Monarch's soul
Was solaced. ‘Let us hence,’ he cried: ‘I will
Once more look on the City which I built;
Yet not to pamper pride, but smite it down,
Heart-wounded with remorse. Thou shalt behold—
Thou shalt support me. I have not the strength
To go alone; the abiding fortitude,
To contemplate how vain was all my toil,
The labour of my hands, and of my soul.
Prophet of God: O thou shalt hear my voice;
My spirit shall repose on thine. Report
My words unto the people; they may be
Rich by my loss, and in my folly wise.’

‘Amen;’ said Noah: and they went along.

From Eden's Hill four Rivers are derived;
The consecrated Garden of the Lord
Their sacred Fountain boasts; each cedared aisle
It waters, myrtle porch, and verdant shrine,
In that primeval temple, holier far,
Richer, more beautiful than Solomon's.
Nor other temple did Jehovah own,
In these first ages of the world of man.

By the Fourth Stream, the vassal of his rule,
The Monarch shaped his melancholy course:
Whatever realm it wandered, homaged him;
How famous each, and all.—'Twas his renown
Which gave to them a soul, and bade them live;

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Who now scarce lives himself; whose nature is
Degraded to the perishable brute.
The King went on: they followed silently.
—Soon, at the city gates, they overtook
Zateel, and Tamiel entering; who, behind
The people, lingered in desire, and fear,
Wishing, yet dreading, to remain with them,
The Monarch, and the Favoured of the Lord.

The portalled arch magnific entered now,
Whose massy gates were made for giant throngs,
And on the enormous hinge were now thrown back;
Left by the panic-hurried multitude,
Unfolded, wide displayed; like a huge book,
A dead magician's volume vast of page:
—(With their companions, diversely disposed,
Shaming the brazen gates of Babylon
In their excess of number, and of size:)—
Behold, the pavement of the expanded street
They tread; a populous solitude, now thronged,
Now empty: for each man within his house
Harboured his fear, nor once reverted look,
Dreading again that Monarch's countenance,
And hearing his approaching step, in thought,
Following hard on each apprehensive heel.
Silence was conscious of his presence; yea,
She deepened as she felt it, and became
Thrice hushed—thrice lonely Solitude became.
Silence of Solitude seemed nurse; and stilled,
Even as a mother would a sleeping child,
Its recent slumber to profounder rest;
And, like a mother, on surrounding things,
Inanimate, or human, quietude,
As with a frown significant, imposed.
—On the broad pavement of the expanded way,
Were heard not their feet-echoes. Stealthily
They walked; and street, and square, and every high

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Locality of the metropolis,
Did visit, and each edifice sublime.
The traveller from Babylon, or Rome,
Had marvelled, in the palmiest days of each,
Had such a city for his survey been.
Arch, column, monument, and pontifice,
Palace, and garden, temple, and theatre,
Were there for him to question, and admire.

'Twas noon: and the hot sun shone on the stone;
And all the capitol, as molten glass,
Reflected its own glory on every hand.
Then to the Palace of his pride, but now
Of his humility, the Monarch led
The solemn way. Shrunk back on either side
The menials, thus surprised, with awe; and each
Interchanged with his fellow eager looks.
—The spiry staircase now ascended he;
Through lofty hall, by ample corridor,
And mile-long gallery, he went: then, roamed
The vacant presence chamber, rooms of state,
Titanic in dimension; as vied art
With nature, seeking to distend herself
To her god-made capacity; superb,
And sumptuous, and with ornament enriched,
With pillar, and with statue: swelling high,
In alabaster multiplicity,
To a wide ceiling, like a firmament,
Moving in constant revolution o'er,
Showering down perfumes, and sweet waters; as
By subtle magic. On a gorgeous couch
Reposed the Sorceress; in as gorgeous robes
She lay, magnificent in slumber. Still
She slept, with heat meridian sore oppressed,
And study of strange charm. Her indoor craft,
While all the people were gone forth the gates;
Regal in her seclusion, seldom seen,

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Wild invocations Amazarah spun,
The mother of the king. He saw her thus,
And blessed her, in the hope that God ere long
Would cause her to repent. He waked her not,
And so departed. On the Terrace he
Forth issued, and the pendant Gardens, built
Arch above arch, fair paradises: thence,
Dilated in wide circuit, saw, beneath,
The spacious City; saw with other eyes
Than once, and wept: then hastened from the view;
And, with precipitate return, regained
The threshold of the dome. Away—away,
Unto the Temple of the Pyramis.
Beyond the extreme of yon suspended Bridge,
Ascends the Pile stupendous. Now, the stream
Surmounted, they arrived at its broad base,
Where those earthquake-defying foundations delved
That bore the astounding fabric. Them about,
A Temple, like a wallèd square, inclosed
An ample area. At the foot, behold,
A Man of giant stature, and huge limb,
Recumbent, scaled with his ambitious eye
The punctual summit of the ascending spire,
Till it distinguished through the crystal tube,
With exquisite distinction, the nice point
That tapered into air, like air itself.
—Alas; his look was melancholy; bent
To earth, dejected; when returned from that
Sufficing, soul-dissatisfying theme.

He saw the Monarch now, and rose in haste,
But straight assumed his re-collected state,
And stood erect in proud equality,
Barkayal—the transcendent Architect.
Drawing his purple robe about his loins,
Displaying in his hand his gold-leaved book;
Instant he 'gan to sketch his vast conceits,

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Creations which alone his mind might dare.
He was the Founder of the Pyramis.

Art vaunteth ever. Enter ye within
The enormous porch of that stupendous fane,
Co-eterne temple of the pyramis,
That had beginning, but no end shall have:
Such was the builder's hope, whose large heart heaved
For more than diuturnity, to him,
And his creations. In those days, man's life
Had that extent, and term. Existence mere
Of corruptible body, then, surpassed
That of ethereallest spirit now;
If her hereafter be but in the fame
Of deeds, or words, or silence—wisely timed;
For 'tis occasion maketh nobler act
Of noble thought, though act extern be none;
(Witness the seven days' silence during which
Lamech affliction bore; then cursed his birth,
As if to prove how hard what he had borne,
And, by impatience, illustrate how vast
The patience he displayed when he was dumb.)
—Let me not wrong the bubble, though they bruit,
It breaketh evermore, and mortal end
The most undying reputation hath.
Do we not ken the blind old Man of Greece,
No shadow, through the unsubstantial mist
Of thrice a thousand years? Yea, liveth not
Solomon in his wisdom even yet,
Only his follies dead? or, more remote,
The Shepherd who, upon no oaten stop,
Declared, yet with simplicity divine,
The sempiternal Origin, and Source
Of this green earth, and yon cerulean sky;
Do we not know the meek man, and the brave,
Lawgiver, warriour, prophet, priest, and king?
Of the Progenitours of human race,

264

We know the name, and where they dwelt, and how
Erect they stood in regal innocence,
Their free, and happy state, and fatal lapse.
Yea, Fame outdureth worlds. Waters may sweep
Over the countenance of the peopled globe;
And all that hath an heritage therein,
Choke Chaos up; yet she shall record have,
That of the hoar world shall the auburn teach,
Who were thereof the patriarchs, and the chief,
And their familiar history preserve:
This doth the theme of our momentous song
Attest. Nay; War shall be in Heaven, and Angels
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky
In ruin, and combustion, down to hell;
And Fame shall find a favourable Spirit,
Content celestial bowers to quit awhile,
On mission to advise astonished Man
Of great Messiah's work, and victory.

II. Adon, and Amazarah

Entered within the porch of that great fane,
The Seven lingered not: whom to repeat
By name, for aid of memory, were these;
The Man of God, with Japhet, Shem, and Ham,
The Scribe, and young Zateel, and, finally,
Majestic Samiasa. He sublime,
His right hand perpendicularly raised,
Stood in commanding attitude, whose will
Was felt, not spoken; while they entered, one
By one, beneath the massy, and lofty arch
Of those huge gates idolatrous, designed
For giant worshippers to underpass
In their erect audacity. Anon,
Crouching, their pride proved false, degraded straight
Their bodies to the ground; their nature not

265

More prostrate than before, which could not feel
In personal aim, and man's collective force,
The littleness of individual mind.
—Oh, paradox, ill understood; now learn,
How fatal if ill understood, ill known.
—What they adored, i' the centre of the porch,
On its vast pedestal, appeared to fill
The illimitable expanse of that broad dome,
With its immense proportions; and pervade,
As with a presence supernatural,
The circumambient space, with the wide curve
Of each elaborate lineament, and limb.
Tremendous Idol; miracle of art;
When, like the body, mind gigantic was;
And of its genius the creations such.

But they who enter now, degrade not thus
The temple of the soul. One only glance
(Of pity) on the monstrous image thrown,
They pass: but Samiasa hurries by,
With look averted; and, arrived within
The interiour of the temple—how he wept:
Yea, at the altar's foot he lay, and wept,
Even like a child; and wished the innocence
Might, with the weakness, of a child return.

‘Great Seth—sire of my sires—down on my soul
Thy spirit broods; descending like the dew
On Ardis, neighbour of the sky, whose brow
Is in thin air, as spirit pure, and where
None but pure spirits can live. Oh, I have heard
Adon, my father, speak of thee; and how
Erst he could breathe in the rare ether, with
The sons of God, thine offspring, himself one:
Then he would weep, and wish he might return.
Strange meat had made him gross, and flesh subdued.
Once, awed, and wearied with the upward way,

266

He gained the summit; by the Brethren hailed;
But found the air of fluid too refined,
And would have slept. They told him it was death,
And hurried him, dissolved with sleep, and dread,
Midway down Armon. There awhile he sate,
And threw his locks aback, and laved his eyes,
As from a trance recovering. Then he fled,
Through fear he fled.

‘Remorse consumed his heart,
As in a crater smouldering till it burst,
And the hot lava overflowed his lips.
Then he would curse his being, and his birth;
But chiefly that sad hour, when his charmed eye,
As with the beauty of an adder's skin,
Dazed, and inchanted; by the radiant pride
Of Amazarah smitten, and transfixed;
Slumbered upon her form majestical,
As in a dream. The very atmosphere
Wherein she moved was visionary; seemed
To float around her, in the wavy folds
Of an ethereal mantle, made of less
Than gossamer, and wrought within a woof
Fairer than that whereof the delicate beams
Of the pale moon are woven on the spray;
And of all hues, each interposed with light,
And shade, harmoniously mutable,
Wherein, as in a prism, were full displayed,
Voluptuous form, and motion exquisite.
Her then the beauty of youth adorned: age since
Hath taken somewhat of her loveliness,
But left her might, her majesty untouched,
All puissant, and imperial. On her mien
My filial eye would gaze, as on some strange
Sublimity, aye-wonderful, and wild,
Use levelled not, nor knowledge did abate.
When, in the novelty of her approach,

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She blazed upon my father's spell-bound view,
O'ershadowing, how potential must have been
Her beauty, and her pride. Forgive him, God:
Thou whom the beauty of holiness delights;
Him pardon, that, with other beauty, he
Misused the faculties divine of love,
And admiration, whence the soul ascends,
From her terrestrial seat, to Heaven, and Thee.

‘The sun was on that day only less radiant
Than man's bright soul, when first breathed into Adam,
Pure emanation from great Deity.
They said, of his superiour glory then,
That much he owed to her, who boasted rule
O'er the curbed elements.

‘A festival
It was, and she the queen. The tuneful sons
Of Jubal, in full chorus, celebrate
How rose the primal city, proudly called
From the first son of the first fratricide,
City of Enos in the Land of Naid—
And built the wall of that partition up,
Which aliens brotherhood, and leaves to fear
No bond but self-defence, that consecrates
The deed of blood, baptizing it anew
Heroic War; instead of its own name,
Murther of brethren—parricide—and worse.
They wreathed a crown of laurels round her brows,
And danced about her till they madly reeled,
As with the fumes of wine. Then haughtily
She rose, and by her mystic skill she sware,
That him who dared her fearful beauty woo,
She would make monarch of a capitol
Than Enos nobler far, and to each soul
He should be as a god. Pride burned within
My father's heart, and to his lips it leapt.
O credulous—yet to resign the faith

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In the great God of Seth—the Only-True.

‘Fame had reached Ardis, eloquent of all
The beauty of Cain's daughters, and the arts,
And arms of that excelling progeny.
Now they their skiey communings forsook,
And fell to keen discourse on what they heard,
Comparing woman in the vale with her
Upon the mountain top.

‘Cain's daughter sang,
Was voluble, and graceful in the dance;
Men worshipped, and of her were giants born;
Air burned about her, and fierce passion raged
At her least eye-glance.

‘Like a thought devout,
Daughter of Ardis, wert thou in thy bower
Of delicacy shrined. Who listened there,
Had heard the Mother prattling to the Children
Tales of their Father, and low-breathèd numbers,
Like the sequestered stock-dove's brooding murmur,
Full of maternal tenderness—the burthen,
The gladness of that Sire's return at even,
When he should take the sweet Boy from her bosom,
Or on his Daughter's head let fall the tear,
The purest that can fall from human eye;
While, quiet in her bliss, she should await
The sweet embrace; and after, on his breast
Reclined, from his meek lips receive account
What knowledge, wisdom, truth, the Sons of God
Had won from large discourse on loftiest themes,
Or by the elders of the Brethren taught,
Or from Angelic ministry derived.
—Anon, the sun went down; their hearts first bowed
In worship pure, then folded each to each,
In calm repose; . . the stars watched over them.’

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III. Founding of the City

Here Samiasa paused—but all were still.
Soon his emotion flowed in speech again.

‘Bright was the bridal—gorgeous the array—
Pride stretched her stature to the firmament—
Tears fell from heaven, and the sun mourned in gloom.
But she, who erewhile vaunted power to bid
The Angel of the Sun attire himself
With radiance new, feigned now he veiled his beams,
That the surpassing glory of her pomp
Might be itself, alone:—while some pronounced
That his diminished head he hid in shame,
And the heavens wept to see themselves outdone.

‘And the Queen's word went forth. ‘Build ye the city;
Lay the foundations deep, and wide.’ What hosts
Obeyed the magical command. 'Twere long
To tell what tracts they passed, what hardships bore;
Sustained by faith in her unearthly claims,
The thousands journeyed forth, and, on the way,
Increased.

‘Dudael:—from his orient gate,
Went forth the sun, and did his task in heaven.
Seasons returned; and morn, and eve; and, on
The dusky forehead of the night, appeared
A single star, her only coronet:
Ere long the flowers of heaven all budded out,
Making of it a paradise indeed,
For the meek Moon to walk abroad in—meek,
And mighty in her vow of chastity,
By virtue of which she sways the myriad floods.
But thou unto the mighty, or the meek,
Madest answer none; nor moved by gentleness,
Nor wakened save by Nature's wrath. The stars
Have holiest service to perform; and day
Doth utter knowledge unto day, and night

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To night. The language of all worlds is their's;
Their voice throughout the universe is heard.
To thee they spake in vain: for thou wert deaf,
And a deep sleep had sealed thy vision up,
And silence brooded o'er thee—Antre vast,
And idle; unless, waking once an age,
Nature, outwearied with protracted rest,
Did start from dreamy slumber, and pronounce,
With the loud clarion of the full-voiced wind,
A marvel, and tremendous mystery,
An omen, and an oracle to man,
Fraught with most urgent meaning, and profound
As her own indefatigable soul,
Working in secret every where, and aye.

‘Man's heart hath heard it now; and thou must hear.
Awake, Dudael, and rejoice; for thou
No more art solitary, waste, and void;
Mother of many children thou, who wert
So desolate, and barren. Hearst thou not
Echo of axe . . the voice of industry . .
The song . . the laugh . . the shout . . the gush of springs
From the new-opened quarry, where the rose
Flourisheth as in Eden?

‘Now—behold,
The City of the Desart, and the Wild.
Deep its broad base descends, and far in air
Uplifted climb the walls. Massy the gates,
And manifold the streets. Nor lacked there sound,
And sight; concert of numbers, and parade,
To celebrate the finished work. Nor since
Hath bardic praise been wanting; to report
How, to the harmony of harp, it rose,
Exhaled from earth by charm of magic verse,
Creature of music, and the child of spells.

‘And, verily, the social state of man
Hath music in its soul, and is compact

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Of harmony. Good government, and law
Are a most holy diapason: where
Right blends with might, and strength its octave hath
In weakness, and all discords are deft aids,
By contrast, to enhance the dulcet strain;
As peace is most delightful after war,
And the sun's brightest beams the storm creates.
—Yet, in the state of innocence, I wot,
Man to himself had been sole government,
And all the law, under the Most High God;
The bitter means in the prevenient end
Absorbed, and melody been self-evolved,
In independence of its opposite;
And union, and obedience needed not
A marble zone for bond of brotherhood,
Nor fear a place of refuge; . . but the sky,
The boundless, the illimitable, alone
The sphere of duty, and of love prescribed:
No roof but heaven—Man's home the universe.

‘From Armon, and from Ardis, multitudes
Arrived; curious, or fond of change; or won
By manifold example, or report;
Or wearied with ancestral piety,
Worst of the wicked, an apostate race.
Grief smote my father's soul; and e'er his eye
To Ardis was exalted. Thereon now
Abideth not the good, and pleasant thing,
Brethren in unity together dwelling.
The dew descendeth yet upon the hill,
And yet the blessing is commanded there,
Even life for evermore; but none receive
The gift; no human spirit is refreshed:
And he who would the ethereal life imbibe,
The flesh with abstinence must chasten long,
And live on thought, and quicken with much faith.
Farewell, thrice holy hill: farewell; farewell.

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Thy pure delights, for earth's, I have exchanged;
For fear from force, and fraud; for cold contempt;
The pride of Amazarah, and her scorn.

‘Remorse had been sufficient to destroy
A spirit so susceptible, and high,
Convinced of errour; deeper still her scorn
Did in his soul the torturing iron drive,
And, with intense corrosion, ate away
The life from out his heart. My father's words,
His memory, his lost inheritance,
Sate brooding ever on my pregnant soul;
That thence I know not what excelling schemes
Of restoration, and return conceived,
And man's transcendent operance to achieve
Original perfection. Pride enlarged
My heart—there proud imaginations made
Their procreant place, and thence compelled the world,
With wingèd words, the seraphs of the soul,
Plumed for far flight, and summed for wonderous speed.

‘The Queen, who kenned the phrenzy in mine eye,
Inflamed my filial zeal. She blent her own
Wild lawless daring with the excited hopes,
The audacious fancies of my sleepless soul;
False notions from report, or from the lives
Of mere apostates gathered. Hence, abused,
My faith was folly, watering the lands
Of speculation; whence but weeds might grow,
And at the root of things lay barrenness,
Wanting the mist divine, that from the ground
In Eden rose, and cherished herb, and flower.

‘The heart begets its like, and as the soil
The deed, or word it genders; and itself
Reflects the imaged mind, which, from without
And from within create, here substance finds,
Thence shadowy form abstracts; consistence so
Assuming, such as its discourse, combined

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After the manner of their interchange.
And like its food my mind became, my heart
Was desolate as that whereon it gazed.
This place how desolate—magnificent
In desolation. Filial sorrow thus
Congealed to stone—its tears were petrified.
Art, like a winter in the wilderness,
(Known to Dudael,) froze them as they fell;
And raised this lofty mound, for the loud north
To sport with: like gaunt Death, when, with his mace,
(As Cain beheld in Hades,) the thronged soil
He smote o'er shuddering Chaos, and wrought on
A mole immense, bridging the way from hell.
This dome of desart-ice Art piled to him;
His palace where he dwells in cold, and gloom,
The King of Terrours; or his temple gate,
The God of Terrours—present though unseen.
Imperial in his lone sarcophagus,
Behold my father's sepulchre. And she,
Whose scorn had withered him in early age,
Lauded my filial piety; and proud
Barkayal triumphed in his cunning work,
That of a man could make a deity:
None but a god might sleep in such a dome,
An attribute of gods if slumber be.

‘I speak in scorn of my imaginings,
Not of his memory. Searcher of hearts:
Before thee mine I bare. Yet not to wrong
The wonderous builder, and his work though vain,
It did express a mystery; how within
The womb of earth life's hid foundations lay,
With death, and silence, and on high aspired
Past human vision, piercing into heaven,
Guiding faith upward to the eternal home,
The immortal soul's abiding place with God.

274

‘But my changed heart to Nature now would turn
For solace rather: and within the deep
Capacious bosom of maternal earth,
Repose the dust it loved; in confidence
That she thereto would act a parent's part,
So that it should not perish, but be found
With a more radiant robe to swathe the soul,
The incorruptible, when Death shall die.
Meantime, let the grass whistle a shrill dirge
During the visitation of the gale;
The cypress droop above it, and all flowers
Make odourous the bed of righteous men;
And night, and morn, the dew fall on the sod,
Making it sweeter, and more beautiful.
These things are to the soul as to the eye:
Life mightier than Death, and claiming right
Even in his very sanctuary to dwell;
As though he were an alien, and throughout
The universe could claim no spot his own;
Joy strong in grief; hope strongest in despair;
Grave-blossoms both. Our sorrows oft excel
All joy in joy, as man were made for bliss,
And Earth would be an Eden, maugre all,
And, in despite of death and grief, would give
Glimpses of Paradise returning yet,
And happiness ere long to be restored.

‘The work of pride advanced. Column, and stone,
Rose frequent; and the garden bloomed aloft,
Aëreal; and the rebel wave was curbed,
O'erarched. The city, called from me by love
Paternal, felt my genius; and I sought
To testify unto my father's shade
My gratitude, and make my name, and his,
Deserving a memorial so sublime.
Praise filled my mother's voice, and flattery

275

Sweetened its pauses. Then my heart came home,
That had erewhile so spread itself abroad,
And self-love built a palace to the king,
As unto one who had well merited.
Men toiled for me, and their hearts sweated blood,
The second curse—man's own. How worse than God's;
Who in his judgements yet is merciful,
And but the brow condemned.

‘Ere long, myself
Of higher strain than mortal man I deemed;
And all the people answered, that ‘two gods
Were only—He in Heaven, the Most High,
And on earth Samiasa—equal both.’
Above the circle of the sky had He
His dwelling; and were rolled the massy clouds
His temple gates before. Earth's deity
Claimed worship also, and a votive dome:
And in the senseless idol presence dwelt,
Ubiquitous, divine. Then bled to me
The sacrifice; and incense—would to heaven,
Rolling its fragrance thither, meant for man;
And hymns were chaunted. Hark’—

Even as he spake,
The priests within the holiest place were heard.

IV. The Sanctuary

That blasphemy once heard with vain delight,
Now Samiasa bore not. The descent
To passage still more inward, instant, he
Crept, like a serpent, prostrate: then he clomb
The ascending plane, supported by his hands
'Gainst each low wall; so slight the indented notch
Meant to sustain the advancing foot, a stair
Of perilous construction, whose short step

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Escaped the adventurous tread. Before him went
His voice, so anxious he. The cavities,
With replication multitudinous
Resounded, and awaked what hallowed bird
There cradled safe in local sanctity.
Arrived above, his lofty form obeyed
The humble entrance. Now that spacious court,
Entire of granite, him received. From wall
To wall extended, three enormous stones
Compose the roof with hieroglyphics graced;
And, in the centre of that ample floor,
Yon huge sarcophagus, of marble hewn
Out of the solid rock, concealed the god,
Whose heart is shrined in that surmounting vase
Of alabaster. There the king beholds
His father's visible heart; yet not the less,
Having first dashed the intruding tear aside,
And stifled in his soul the filial groan,
Fulfils his aim. About the gorgeous tomb,
The priests perform the rite, and raise aloft
The vesper hymn, that to the crowd without
May seem of oracle the voice, that hails
The present god, within that sacred hall,
(Chamber of Beauty termed, and Mystery,)
Audient of worship, and to praise attent.

Back from his eye they shrunk astonished—back
From his bold voice, and attitude they fell.

‘Peace—peace—the god commands on whom ye call;
Behold how abject. Pray to Him who chastens.
Him worship . . Him adore . . and not the chastened—
The Almighty, the Supreme, hath chastened me.’

‘And who is He?’ demanded the High Priest—
‘We know no god, nor gods, but thou, on earth,
And Adon, god in heaven, thy sire divine,
Prime founder of the City named from thee.

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Thou vainly in completion hadst rejoiced;
Hence, jealousy conceiving, where he sits
Enthroned on Armon o'er the Land of Streams,
Guardian, and god, the genius of the soil;
In the rapt hour of thy presumption, when
Thou, and thy people had forgotten him,
He made his being felt in voice from heaven,
And his first claim asserted in the doom
That cast thee to the desart. Thine august
And mighty mother, for assurance, this
Learned in the visions of prophetic night,
Wherein thy father's spirit visits her.
Nay—more: when hither she of him enquired,
In this his Sanctuary, where he sleeps
In most divine repose, she heard his voice,
And on the table of his heart beheld,
In sanguine characters incribed, the truth.’

‘Of Truth ye make a harlot,’ said the king:
‘Adulteries ye do commit with her,
Abominations—oh, Religion, Truth:
Mad are ye made with flesh, and drunk with wine.
The Uncreated, and Invisible;
The God of gods, the universal He,
By whom the pillars of the firmament
Were founded on the floods, and the firm earth
Was stablished in the immensurable space,
Uttered his potent voice, whose fiat called
The sun to instant birth, the moon, the stars,
And all the host of heaven, creatures of earth,
And man the lord of all; and I became
Emptied of man—more wretched than the brute—
A brute with reason cursed, and wisely mad.
—He, on his throne above the heaven of heavens,
From his religious state, looked down, and saw
His arrogant creature, and denuded him

278

Of all that made him proud, and smote his soul
With worse abasement than his body bore.
—Forth to the people whom ye have bewitched
With sorceries, and disenchant their souls.
Forth—by the madness, and the misery, now
That rush back on my brain—my heart. (A while
Stay, my good angel: yet a little while
Ward off the desart-demon from my soul.)
By Earth, and Heaven, and Hell; I charge you:—Earth
Whose barren breast I graze upon, from whose
Felicities I am an alien; Heaven,
Beneath whose terrible doom I suffer; Hell,
That doth within me, like a cauldron, seethe,
And bubbles o'er my lips in this white foam—
Ha: the fierce phrenzy rushes on me. Make
From the volcanic overflow.—Forth—forth.
God he is God, and there is none beside.’

In terrour, and dismay, from him they fled,
Precipitate before him: awe, and fear
Urged them in safety down the perilous plane,
And madness guided—guarded him the while,
In his extreme pursuit. Returned within
The temple of the Idol, with a shout
That shook it to its base, he called aloud
To Noah:

—‘Man of the Most Holy God:
Oh Prophet of Jehovah: with the sword
Of his indignant Jealousy, destroy
The liars, the adulterers—even they
Who do abomination with man's soul.’

By power supernal smit, at the Idol's foot
They fell, and bit the ground in sympathy
With his affliction, as his doom had fallen
Also on them. O infinite despair—
He writhed his limbs in pain, and tossed his arms

279

Above his head, and with his clenchèd hands
Smote his hot brow, and cried,

‘Almighty Lord:
Raise them again. I am the sinner—I—
The liar, the adulterer—lied the lie,
And did the deed, that thou abhorrèst most—
Behold even there the impious monument
Of wild, and weird rebellion—my bold pride,
And bad ambition. Satan: down to hell.’

So saying, on that monstrous idol he
Hung, in his maniac might; and tugged, and strained,
Till o'er its pedestal it shook, it fell,
With a tremendous crash, in hideous wreck:
The while, with yell, and shout, he trampled it,
And, with his pulverising foot, destroyed
Its fine proportions, its fair symmetry;
Pounding it limb by limb, and wrenching them
Apart with his strong hand—(such power he had
From heaven)—and thus exclaimed:

‘Down, Lucifer—
I who advanced do hurl thee from thy throne,
Consume thee in mine anger, immolate
Thee to the God of Jealousy, and Seth.’

The sun had set; the sabbath of his soul
Had gone; and stronger, and more strong, poured through
His heart, and brain, the influxes increased
Of fury, and savage impulse. Human pride,
Not by his fellow-man to be beheld
In his disgrace; the human front erect,
Sublimely looking toward the promised heaven,
Changed for the earth-bound aspect of the brute;
Stung him, as by the warriour's armèd heel
The battle steed. Out at the gates with haste
He rushed; and over the suspended bridge,
And through the silent city, . . as before

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A populous solitude, . . whose habitants
Fear, and the hour had prisoned in their homes;
For well they knew the time of his return,
Through their expanded streets, to the forlorn
Inhabitable desart, where he dwelt,
For his appointed season. And, as he
Passed in his lonely majesty along,
He lifted up his voice, and cried aloud,
‘God he is God, and there is none beside.’

END OF NINTH BOOK.