SCENE VIII.
I SRAPHIL , A ZOARA , O RAZIEL , A STARTE , I RAD
ISRAPHIL .
Oraziel!
The portent is revealed.
AZOARA .
Unfold it.
ISRAPHIL .
I
Gazed from the heights of Hermon; on the verge
Of angels' ken, I saw the fiery plague,
The star of wrath recoiling its fierce way
To wreak its vials here.
ASTARTE .
God! may this be?
It is our conscious fear; earth is corrupt,
But was not Paradise foregone? and, left
To human frailties with nor light nor guide,
Is it a marvel if men walk astray?
Can He who made earth in his love, destroy?
AZOARA .
Sister! thou dost debase thyself by fears
Shall we shrink when they dare the loss of heaven?
Why, fear itself conceives not that this earth,
Its mountains, rocks, streams, hills and vales, and woods,
Like mists, shall melt away. If God made life,
He made it image of his own perfection,
And his enduring strength; shall He, like man,
Build but to overthrow?
ORAZIEL .
My Azoara!
Deem not this world eternal; nought remains
Unchanging, save the One. Angels as worlds
His emanations are; in them He types
His image, they, reflections but of Him
The days of man are numbered as the stars,
Whose circle is eternity. This earth
Is the substantial form of life renewed,
Shot cloud-like from yon sun, till merged again
From whence its blazing being first was hurled.
AZOARA .
Then welcome death whatever form it take!
I mourn it not, so it be borne alone,
I cling to it for thy loved sake.
I raise the song of joy to think I bear
The destiny thou canst not share;
For oh, I know thy love,
Great Angel! and I feel my own;
I know the soul in me is from above,
And though inferior to thine,
Is in its nature like thine own divine
But thou immortally before His shrine
Wilt live; I must have died at last,
And now I shall not feel decay,
Changing and withering, but pass away
Like a brief sun-beam overcast.
Thou wilt remember me when I am past;
And if I turn on thee a tearless eye,
'Tis that I ask in thy embrace to die.
ASTARTE .
My Azoara, dear!
Not thus our life and hope forsake;
For thy despair doth make
The worst, in shadow veiled, to us appear.
I dare not think such death was made for us,
That hearts are rent asunder thus.
God portions to His angels happiness;
Wherefore to us awarded less?
Yea, what we cling to shall be ever ours,
The earth, and sky, and joyous flowers;
The love that made them pleads for us on high.
NOAH .
Irad! where art thou?
IRAD .
'Tis my father's cry;
I hear in it the voice of prophecy.
Enter N OAH , H AMMON .
NOAH .
How? — Angels with the daughters of the earth!
The glories on each brow,
Though dimmed, your state avow;
Have ye foregone your heavenly birth?
I deemed communion with our race forbidden.
ORAZIEL .
Patriarch! our abode is heaven;
We our mandate disobeyed;
Nor be our erring hidden;
Each loved a daughter of the earth, and stayed,
And felt the sin would be forgiven.
NOAH .
Angels! it is not I, a man of sin,
Who rise to judge, far less condemn;
Ye know the motive your deep hearts within;
But how shall ye save them?
ISRAPHIL .
What danger lowers?
NOAH .
Fallen are ye by this deed!
Where are your eyes of faith that cannot read
Portents the blind with inner light behold?
Truths that the deaf have heard in thunders told?
Saw ye not signs above? the face perturbed
Of Nature? storms that pour their strength uncurbed,
Reinless as man's wild passion uncontrolled?
I heard the people's voices, on the wind,
Rise like the roar of waters unconfined;
They feel the inevitable hour;
The wrath that o'er our heads doth lower.
ISRAPHIL .
And if this be,
This all-inexorable doom
Of an o'er-ruling destiny;
This crushing life in one engulphing tomb;
This mingling of good and ill
In one destruction, what shall it fulfil?
What may avail the merciless decree?
Shall not man be the unresisting slave
To impulses o'ermastering the will,
Succumbing to temptation still,
Released but in the grave?
Still the same passions ever shall assail;
The same unvaried tale
Of guilt, and shame, and impotence prevail;
Disease, time, death shall still efface
Each memory of joy until the race
Again 'mid whelming waters shall expire,
Or in annihilating fire!
NOAH .
Never! The promised pledge to us is given,
Unheard by aliens from heaven.
God walks no more with man alone,
But as the Father watches o'er his own.
And one from Him shall emanate
Who shall teach men their spirits' loftier state,
His words their guide and oracle
Until the end of time;
Raising them in his faith sublime
O'er death and shadowy hell.
Approach me, Angels! I, even I,
Have parted from the living God,
Unseen by ye, who near Him trod;
Hear ye His words — " Hence, if ye would be safe!
Even now within their caves the waters chafe;
Their chains are rent, and they shall forth and sweep
O'er mountain-heights till earth become the deep."
Spirits, away! your home is in the sky;
Ye yet yourselves may save;
But earth must perish in her watery grave,
And these shall suffer —
ISRAPHIL .
Nothing; we will soar
With them to an enduring star,
A realm of peace and love afar,
To dwell with us for evermore.
NOAH .
Your punishment shall be to prove
Your power 'gainst strength ye dare oppose;
Defying Him from whom it grows.
AZOARA .
By your great hopes of heaven, and by our love,
Essay it not, we are content to die;
Stay with us yet awhile to see
How we shall meet our loathsome destiny,
Then flee to an untroubled spot,
Enough for us we shall not be forgot.
ASTARTE .
Oh, leave us here! we bow submiss;
The bitterness of death is this!
Hasten to heaven's half-opened gate,
Ere closed for ever, and too late;
We yield, for what may we oppose? —
AZOARA .
The mind, itself an equal to all woes;
That to the last asserts the steadfast will.
NOAH .
Behold, when erring passion leads astray,
Angels are weak as women! Son, fulfil
Thy sire's command; ascend with me and pray.
IRAD .
Patriarch! I hear thee, lo how I obey;
Here do I kneel! —
NOAH .
Weak child of passion, rise!
Kneel'st thou to her who turns from thee her eyes?
Doth she a hope to thee, insensate, give,
While bowed to dust thou prayest her to live?
IRAD .
Forgive a weakness, sire, to thee unknown;
Thou knowest I have loved her, she has flown
From me as parts the bird from its light spray,
When to some brighter thing it flits away;
I turn not to her sister, for she is
Of haughtier nature.
NOAH .
What seek'st thou in this?
IRAD .
My father! I avow
My love; I pray Astarte to return
To her first chosen; or if still she yearn
Toward yon mightier being, bid him save
Her life from the abyss, death's opening grave
That yawns beneath her; she may meet above
Her angel-lord, I read on his pale brow
The power is gone to save her now.
NOAH .
Doth she upon the brink of death show love?
Or look on thee as if her heart were moved
By thy wild prayer? And if she ever loved,
Now were it manifest when hope and life
Hang on each accent. Mark how vain thy strife!
Hast thou forgot thy nature? can love bow
Man thus to earth, to grovel in the sod
To woman, he whose knee was made for God?
I call upon thee to forsake
These death-doomed, or their fate partake
Irad! dost hear me? — art thou changed to stone?
As motionless and lifeless thou art grown
I charge thee by the living God
To follow me, or share the rod
Of vengeance; if thou dost delay,
I cleave thee like a withered spray
From thy ancestral trunk away;
Thy memory from my heart I sever,
And God's curse light on thee for ever!
IRAD .
Oh, that the passion swelling in this heart
Could be embodied in one burning word
Felt as I feel it now! By the despair
Crushing me to the earth whereon I kneel! —
By my love's hope, once the foretaste of heaven!
By our young days together! by thy beauty,
By the idolatry of this aching heart!
By that averted face, those loving eyes
Once all my own! by thy own life, yea more,
By thy soul's dearer immortality,
Astarte! wilt thou — wilt thou yet be mine?
Lo, how in dust I bow the idol-knee,
See how my soul is prostrated to thee!
ISRAPHIL .
All love is suffering, suffered thus in vain.
What tortures could be dealt on him like those
He deals upon himself, the agony,
The passionate despair? I pity him,
Feeling mortality I could not share.
See how his changeful visage shows the strife
Warring within him; fear, hope, jealousy,
Love ruling o'er the chaos! What a curse,
Even in mortal bosoms is the hell
Of unrequited passion!
ORAZIEL .
Answer, love,
Whose is thy heart?
ASTARTE .
For ever, ever thine!
AZOARA .
Now are we one. In life, in death, we join.
I SRAPHIL , A ZOARA , O RAZIEL , A STARTE , I RAD
ISRAPHIL .
Oraziel!
The portent is revealed.
AZOARA .
Unfold it.
ISRAPHIL .
I
Gazed from the heights of Hermon; on the verge
Of angels' ken, I saw the fiery plague,
The star of wrath recoiling its fierce way
To wreak its vials here.
ASTARTE .
God! may this be?
It is our conscious fear; earth is corrupt,
But was not Paradise foregone? and, left
To human frailties with nor light nor guide,
Is it a marvel if men walk astray?
Can He who made earth in his love, destroy?
AZOARA .
Sister! thou dost debase thyself by fears
Shall we shrink when they dare the loss of heaven?
Why, fear itself conceives not that this earth,
Its mountains, rocks, streams, hills and vales, and woods,
Like mists, shall melt away. If God made life,
He made it image of his own perfection,
And his enduring strength; shall He, like man,
Build but to overthrow?
ORAZIEL .
My Azoara!
Deem not this world eternal; nought remains
Unchanging, save the One. Angels as worlds
His emanations are; in them He types
His image, they, reflections but of Him
The days of man are numbered as the stars,
Whose circle is eternity. This earth
Is the substantial form of life renewed,
Shot cloud-like from yon sun, till merged again
From whence its blazing being first was hurled.
AZOARA .
Then welcome death whatever form it take!
I mourn it not, so it be borne alone,
I cling to it for thy loved sake.
I raise the song of joy to think I bear
The destiny thou canst not share;
For oh, I know thy love,
Great Angel! and I feel my own;
I know the soul in me is from above,
And though inferior to thine,
Is in its nature like thine own divine
But thou immortally before His shrine
Wilt live; I must have died at last,
And now I shall not feel decay,
Changing and withering, but pass away
Like a brief sun-beam overcast.
Thou wilt remember me when I am past;
And if I turn on thee a tearless eye,
'Tis that I ask in thy embrace to die.
ASTARTE .
My Azoara, dear!
Not thus our life and hope forsake;
For thy despair doth make
The worst, in shadow veiled, to us appear.
I dare not think such death was made for us,
That hearts are rent asunder thus.
God portions to His angels happiness;
Wherefore to us awarded less?
Yea, what we cling to shall be ever ours,
The earth, and sky, and joyous flowers;
The love that made them pleads for us on high.
NOAH .
Irad! where art thou?
IRAD .
'Tis my father's cry;
I hear in it the voice of prophecy.
Enter N OAH , H AMMON .
NOAH .
How? — Angels with the daughters of the earth!
The glories on each brow,
Though dimmed, your state avow;
Have ye foregone your heavenly birth?
I deemed communion with our race forbidden.
ORAZIEL .
Patriarch! our abode is heaven;
We our mandate disobeyed;
Nor be our erring hidden;
Each loved a daughter of the earth, and stayed,
And felt the sin would be forgiven.
NOAH .
Angels! it is not I, a man of sin,
Who rise to judge, far less condemn;
Ye know the motive your deep hearts within;
But how shall ye save them?
ISRAPHIL .
What danger lowers?
NOAH .
Fallen are ye by this deed!
Where are your eyes of faith that cannot read
Portents the blind with inner light behold?
Truths that the deaf have heard in thunders told?
Saw ye not signs above? the face perturbed
Of Nature? storms that pour their strength uncurbed,
Reinless as man's wild passion uncontrolled?
I heard the people's voices, on the wind,
Rise like the roar of waters unconfined;
They feel the inevitable hour;
The wrath that o'er our heads doth lower.
ISRAPHIL .
And if this be,
This all-inexorable doom
Of an o'er-ruling destiny;
This crushing life in one engulphing tomb;
This mingling of good and ill
In one destruction, what shall it fulfil?
What may avail the merciless decree?
Shall not man be the unresisting slave
To impulses o'ermastering the will,
Succumbing to temptation still,
Released but in the grave?
Still the same passions ever shall assail;
The same unvaried tale
Of guilt, and shame, and impotence prevail;
Disease, time, death shall still efface
Each memory of joy until the race
Again 'mid whelming waters shall expire,
Or in annihilating fire!
NOAH .
Never! The promised pledge to us is given,
Unheard by aliens from heaven.
God walks no more with man alone,
But as the Father watches o'er his own.
And one from Him shall emanate
Who shall teach men their spirits' loftier state,
His words their guide and oracle
Until the end of time;
Raising them in his faith sublime
O'er death and shadowy hell.
Approach me, Angels! I, even I,
Have parted from the living God,
Unseen by ye, who near Him trod;
Hear ye His words — " Hence, if ye would be safe!
Even now within their caves the waters chafe;
Their chains are rent, and they shall forth and sweep
O'er mountain-heights till earth become the deep."
Spirits, away! your home is in the sky;
Ye yet yourselves may save;
But earth must perish in her watery grave,
And these shall suffer —
ISRAPHIL .
Nothing; we will soar
With them to an enduring star,
A realm of peace and love afar,
To dwell with us for evermore.
NOAH .
Your punishment shall be to prove
Your power 'gainst strength ye dare oppose;
Defying Him from whom it grows.
AZOARA .
By your great hopes of heaven, and by our love,
Essay it not, we are content to die;
Stay with us yet awhile to see
How we shall meet our loathsome destiny,
Then flee to an untroubled spot,
Enough for us we shall not be forgot.
ASTARTE .
Oh, leave us here! we bow submiss;
The bitterness of death is this!
Hasten to heaven's half-opened gate,
Ere closed for ever, and too late;
We yield, for what may we oppose? —
AZOARA .
The mind, itself an equal to all woes;
That to the last asserts the steadfast will.
NOAH .
Behold, when erring passion leads astray,
Angels are weak as women! Son, fulfil
Thy sire's command; ascend with me and pray.
IRAD .
Patriarch! I hear thee, lo how I obey;
Here do I kneel! —
NOAH .
Weak child of passion, rise!
Kneel'st thou to her who turns from thee her eyes?
Doth she a hope to thee, insensate, give,
While bowed to dust thou prayest her to live?
IRAD .
Forgive a weakness, sire, to thee unknown;
Thou knowest I have loved her, she has flown
From me as parts the bird from its light spray,
When to some brighter thing it flits away;
I turn not to her sister, for she is
Of haughtier nature.
NOAH .
What seek'st thou in this?
IRAD .
My father! I avow
My love; I pray Astarte to return
To her first chosen; or if still she yearn
Toward yon mightier being, bid him save
Her life from the abyss, death's opening grave
That yawns beneath her; she may meet above
Her angel-lord, I read on his pale brow
The power is gone to save her now.
NOAH .
Doth she upon the brink of death show love?
Or look on thee as if her heart were moved
By thy wild prayer? And if she ever loved,
Now were it manifest when hope and life
Hang on each accent. Mark how vain thy strife!
Hast thou forgot thy nature? can love bow
Man thus to earth, to grovel in the sod
To woman, he whose knee was made for God?
I call upon thee to forsake
These death-doomed, or their fate partake
Irad! dost hear me? — art thou changed to stone?
As motionless and lifeless thou art grown
I charge thee by the living God
To follow me, or share the rod
Of vengeance; if thou dost delay,
I cleave thee like a withered spray
From thy ancestral trunk away;
Thy memory from my heart I sever,
And God's curse light on thee for ever!
IRAD .
Oh, that the passion swelling in this heart
Could be embodied in one burning word
Felt as I feel it now! By the despair
Crushing me to the earth whereon I kneel! —
By my love's hope, once the foretaste of heaven!
By our young days together! by thy beauty,
By the idolatry of this aching heart!
By that averted face, those loving eyes
Once all my own! by thy own life, yea more,
By thy soul's dearer immortality,
Astarte! wilt thou — wilt thou yet be mine?
Lo, how in dust I bow the idol-knee,
See how my soul is prostrated to thee!
ISRAPHIL .
All love is suffering, suffered thus in vain.
What tortures could be dealt on him like those
He deals upon himself, the agony,
The passionate despair? I pity him,
Feeling mortality I could not share.
See how his changeful visage shows the strife
Warring within him; fear, hope, jealousy,
Love ruling o'er the chaos! What a curse,
Even in mortal bosoms is the hell
Of unrequited passion!
ORAZIEL .
Answer, love,
Whose is thy heart?
ASTARTE .
For ever, ever thine!
AZOARA .
Now are we one. In life, in death, we join.
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