HEAVEN AND EARTH, A MYSTERY.*

That strain I heard was of a higher mood. It is impossible to suppose two by his own soul. The angels of the poems more nearly diametrically oppo- “Mystery” deign not to use many site to each other in object and ex- words, even to their beautiful paraecution than the “ Loves of the An- mours, and they scorn Noah and his gels,” by Mr Moore, and “ Heaven sententious sons. But Moore's angels and Earth, a Mystery,” by Lord By- talk like Opium-Eaters, (without the ron. The first is all glitter and point, genius of the English Opium-Eater,) like a piece of Derbyshire spar--and interminably, and most wearisomely, to the other is dark and massy, like a each other and to the daughters of men; block of marble. In the one, angels ha- and when they give over, and hold their rangue each other, like authors wish- tongues, the reader's satisfaction is not ing to make a great public impres- to be computed. They are indeed slow sion; in the other, they appear silent to begin, and never ending, like Mr and majestic, even when their souls Wordsworth's stock-dove; but we have been visited with human pas- cannot say of them as that great Laker sions. In the one, the women whom does of his cushat, “ that is the song, the angels love, although beautiful the song for me!” and amiable, are blue-stockingish and The first scene is a woody and pedantic, and their sins proceed from mountainous district, near Mount curiosity and the love of knowledge. Ararat ; and the time midnight. More In the other, they are the gentle, or tal creatures, conscious of their own the daring daughters of Aesh and blood, wickedness, have heard awful prediedissolving in tenderness, or burning tions sounding in their souls of the with passion for the Sons of the Morn- threatened flood, and all their lives are ing. In the one, we have sighs, tears, darkened with terror. But the sons of kisses, shiverings, thrillings, perfumes, God have been dwellers on earth, and feathered angels on beds of down, and women's hearts have been stirred by all the transports of the honey-moon; the beauty of these celestial visitants. in the other, silent looks of joy or des- Anah and Aholibamah, two of these pair, passion seen blending in vain angel-stricken maidens, come wanderunion between the spirits of mortal and ing along while others sleep, to pour immortal, love shrieking on the wild forth their invocations to their demonshore of death, and all the thoughts lovers. They are of very different chathat ever agitated human hearts dash- ractersAnah soft, gentle, and subed and distracted beneath the black- missive-Aholibamah proud, impetuness and amidst the howling of com- ous, and aspiring the one loving in mingled earth and heaven. The one fear, and the other in ambition. Anah is extremely pretty, and the other is says, something terrible. Moore writes with “Our father sleeps : it is the hour when a crow-quill, on hot-press wire-wove they card-paper, adorned with Cupids sport- Who love us are accustomed to descend ing round Venus on a couch. Byron Through the deep clouds o'er rocky Arawrites with an eagle's plume, as if upon a broad leaf taken from some great tree She expresses fears of her impiety, in

How

my heart beats !" that afterwards perished in the flood.

The great power of this “Mystery" loving a celestial nature, fears with is in its fearless and daring simplicity. which the daring Aholibamah cannot Byron faces at once all the

grandeur of

sympathize.

“ Anah. his sublime subject. He seeks for no

But, Aholibamah, thing, but it rises before him in its This cannot be of good ; and though I know

I love our God less since his angel loved me: death-doomed magnificence. Man, or angel, or demon, the being whomourns, That I do wrong, I feel a thousand fears or laments, or exults, is driven to speak Which are not ominous of right.

rati

not

a

* From the Liberal, No. II. This is a paltry periodical. No. II. is like a lion with a fine shagged king-like head, a lean body, hungered hips, and a tawdry tail - ByronHazlitt-Ilunt. We shew now the lion's head. Carcase, hips, and tail by and bye.

ter

me.

Heo Aho.

wed thee A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming Unto some con of clay, and toil and spin!

doom There's Japhet loves thee well, hath loved To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah! thee long;

When the dread hour denounced shall open Marry, and bring forth dust!

wide Anah.

I should have loved The fountains of the deep, how mightest Azaziel not less were he mortal; yet

thou
I am glad he is not. I can not outlive him. Have lain within this bosom, folded from
And when I think that his immortal wings The elements; this bosom which in vain
Will one day hover o'er the sepulchre Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more
Of the poor child of clay which so adored vainly,
him,

While thine -Oh, God! at least remit
As he adores the Highest, death becomes to her
Less terrible ; but yet I pity him; Thy wrath ! for she is pure amidst the
His grief will be of ages, or at least

failing,
Mine would be such for him, were I the As a star in the clouds, which cannot
Seraph,

quench, And he the perishable.

Although they obscure it for an hour. My Aho.

Rather say,

Anah !
That he will single forth some other daugh- How would I have adored thee, but thou

wouldst not;
Of earth, and love her as he once loved And still would I redeem thee-see thee
Anah.

live Anah. And if it should be so, and she so When Ocean is Earth's grave, and, unoploved him,

posed
Better thus than that he should weep for By rock or shallow, the leviathan,

Lord of the shoreless sea and watery world,
Aho. If I thought thus of Samiasa's love, Shall wonder at his boundlessness of re-
All Seraph as he is, I'd spurn him from me. alm.”
But to our invocation ! 'Tis the hour.”

Old Noah and Shem now enter, The invocation is extremely beauti- looking for Japhet, who thus “ loves ful, but it will not admit of any ex

the daughter of a fated race," and with tracts, for its chief beauty lies in the continuous and meandering flow of its

a soliloquy between them the scene

closes. impassioned versification. At its close

Scene third is laid among the moun. -and it might well win down to earth erring angels from heaven,--the maid- tains, the caverns, and the rocks of ens disappear in the midnight dark. Caucasus, and the solitary and mourn

ful Japhet thus sublimely addresses ness, hoping the presence of their celestial lovers, Azaziel and Samiasa. In the second scene, Japhet, Noah's

" Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou

cave, son, and Irad appear—the earthly and

Which seem'stunfathomable; and yemoundespised lovers of these two maidens.

tains, Their talk is somewhat dull, which So varied and so terrible in beauty ; we presume is natural in such cir- Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks cumstances. Irad disappears, and then And toppling trees that twine their roots Japhet, who knows the approaching with stone doom of the earth, thus laments.- In perpendicular places, where the foot “ Japh. (solus.) Peace! I have sought it Of man would tremble, could he reach

where it should be found, In love with love too, which perhaps de. Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days, served it;

Perlaps even hours, ye will be changed, And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart

rent, hurled A weakness of the spirit-listless days, Before the mass of waters; and yon cave, And nights inexorable

to sweet sleep- Which seems to lead into a lower world, Have come upon me. Peace ! what peace? Shall have its depths search'd by the sweepthe calm

ing wave, Of desolation, and the stillness of And dolphins gambol in the lion's den ! The untrodden forest, only broken by

And man

LOh, men ! my fellow-beings!
The sweeping tempest through its groan- Who
ing boughs ;

Shall weep above your universal grave,
Such is the sullen or the fitful state, Save I ? Who shall be left to weep? My
Of my mind overworn. The earth's grown kinsmen,
wicked,

Alas! what am I better than ye are,
And many signs and portents have pro. That I must live beyond ye ? 'Where shal
claim'a

be

them :

them-yes,

a

The pleasant places where I thought of We, we shall view the deep's salt sources Anah

pour'd While I had hope ? or the more savage Until one element shall do the work haunts,

Of all in chaos; until they, Scarce less beloved, where I despair'd for The creatures proud of their poor clay, her ?

Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall And can it be !_Shall yon exulting peak, lurk Whose glittering top is like a distant star, In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep ? where No more to have the morning sun break The Deep shall follow to their latest lair; forth,

Where even the brutes, in their des. And scatter back the mists in floating folds pair, From its tremendous brow? no more to have Shall cease to prey on man, and on each other, Day's broad orb drop behind its head at And the striped tiger shall lie down to even,

die Leaving it with a crown of many hues ? Beside the lamb, as though he were his No more to be the beacon of the world, brother; For angels to alight on, as the spot

Till all things shall be as they were, Nearest the stars ?”

Silent and uncreated, save the sky; Just as he concludes his soliloquy,

While a brief truce which, like all soliloquies we ever ut- Is made with death, who shall forbear tered, or heard uttered, gets heavy af- The little remnant of the past creation, ter the first fifty lines-a rushing sound To generate new nations for his use; from the cavern is heard, and shouts This remnant, floating o'er the undula

tion of laughter. Afterwards a Spirit passes, which, to the various impassioned ad

Of the subsiding deluge, from its slime,

When the hot sun hath baked the reeking dresses and interrogations of Japhet,

soil merely answers, Ha! Ha! Ha! As

Into a world, shall give again to Time this scoffing demon disappears, Japhet New beings_years_diseases —sorrowexclaims

crime“ How the fiend mocks the tortures of With all companionship of hate and toil, a world,

Until The coming desolation of an orb,

Japh. (interrupting them.) The eternal On which the sun shall rise and warm no will life!

Shall deign to expound this dream How the earth sleeps ! and all that in it is Of good and evil; and redeem Sleep too upon the very eve of death!

Unto himself all times, all things; Why should they wake to meet it ? What And, gather'd under his almighty wings, is here,

A bolish hell ! Which look like death in life, and speak And to the expiated Earth like things

Restore the beauty of her birth, Born ere this dying world ? They come like Her Eden in an endless paradise, clouds !”

Where man no more can fall as once he Crowds of spirits now pass from the fell, cavern, and one of them chaunts to And even the very demons shall do well! Japhet a terrible prophetic lament, and Spirits. And when shall take effect this exultation over the drowned world. wondrous spell ? He and Japhet bandy words, and the Japh. When the Redeemer cometh; first

in pain, spirit taunts him and Noah with sel

And then in glory. fishness and poltroonery, in wishing Spirit. Meantime still struggle in the morto survive the destruction of the rest

tal chain, of the race of man. Then there is a Till earth wax hoary; chorus of spirits issuing from the ca- War with yourselves, and hell, and heaven,

in vain, “ Chorus of Spirits issuing from the cavern.

Until the clouds look gory
Rejoice!

With the blood reeking from each battle No more the human voice

plain ; Shall vex our joys in middle air New times, new climes, new arts, new men; With prayer ;

but still No more

The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest Shall they adore ;

ill, And we, who ne'er for ages have adored Shall be amongst your race in different The prayer-exacting Lord,

forms To whom the omission of a sacrifice

But the same moral storms
Is vice;

Shall orersweep the future, as the waves

vern.

the stars,

grave?

In a few hours the glorious Giant's are extremely laconic; they look like graves."

Quakers yet unmoved by the spiritJaphet is silenced, and the chorus dull dogs. But Japhet takes them to of spirits again yell forth this rejoicing task very severely, and then turns denunciation of death and destruction: round upon Anah and Aholibamah

" Howl! howl! oh Earth! the former of whom gets alarmed, and Thy death is nearer than thy recent birth :

says, Tremble, ye mountains, soon to shrink

“ My sister! Oh, my sister ! below

What were the world, or other worlds, or The ocean's overflow!

all The wave shall break upon your cliffs ; and The brightest future without the sweet shells,

pastThe little shells, of ocean's least things be Thy love—my father's—all the life, and all Deposed where now the eagle's offspring The things which sprung up with me, like

dwellsHow shall he shriek o'er the remorseless Making my dim existence radiant with sea !

Soft lights which were not mine? Aholi. And call his nestlings up with fruitless yell,

bamah! Unanswered, save by the encroaching Oh! if there should be mercy--seek it, swell;-

find it : Wbile man shall long in vain for his broad I abhor death, because that thou must die. wings,

Aho. What! hath this dreamer, with his The wings which could not save:

father's ark, Where could he rest them, while the whole The bugbear he hath built to scare the space brings

world, Nought to his eye beyond the deep, his Shaken my sister ? Are we not the loved

Of seraphs ? and if we were not, must we Brethren, rejoice!

Cling to a son of Noah for our lives ? And loudly lift each superhuman voice

Rather than thus-But the enthusiast All die,

dreams Save the slight remnant of Seth's seed

The worst of dreams, the phantasies enThe seed of Seth,

gender'd Exempt for future Sorrow's sake from By hopeless love and heated vigils. Who death.

Shall shake these solid mountains, this firm But of the sons of Cain

earth, None shall remain ;

And bid those clouds and waters take a And all his goodly daughters

shape Must lie beneath the desolating waters; Distinct from that which we and all our sires Or, floating upward, with their long hair Have seen them wear on their eternal way? laid

Who shall do this? Along the wave, the cruel heaven up

Japh. He, whose one word produced braid,

them.
Which would not spare

Aho. Who heard that word ?
Beings even in death so fair.

Japh. The Universe, which leap'd
It is decreed,

To lite before it.—Ah! smilest thou still in All die !

scorn ? And to the universal human cry Turn to thy seraphs ! if they attest it not, The universal silence shall succeed !

They are none.
Fly, brethren, fly!

Sam. Aholibamah, own thy God !
But still rejoice!

Aho. I have ever hail'd Our Maker, Sa. We fell !

miasa, They fall!

As thine, and mine: a God of love, not So perish all These petty foes of Heaven who shrink

Japh. Alas! what else is Love but Sor. from Hell !”

row? Even The Spirits then disappear soaring He who made earth in love, had soon to upwarås, and Japhet has again recourse grieve to a very fine soliloquy.

Above its first and best inhabitants.” Japhet is now joined by Anah and Noah and Shem now join the party, Aholibamah, who are accompanied by and a conversation ensues between the two angels, Samiasa and Azaziel. them all, neither very spirited nor very The angels seem somewhat sulky, and edifying—when enters Raphael the

sorrow.

“ And there were Giants in those days, and after ; mighty men, which were of old men of renown."--Genesis. VOL. XIII.

K

Arch-angel, who holds a very poetical Yet let ine not retain thes-fily! dialogue with Samiasa. At its close, My pangs can be but brief ; but thine the spirited Aholibamah thus breaks would be forth, and is then replied to by the Eternal, if repulsed from heaven for me. gentle Anah:

Too much already hast thou deign'd

To one of Adam's race ! " Aho. Let them fly!

Our doom is sorrow : not to us alone, I hear the voice which says that all must

But to the spirits who have not disdain'd die,

To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace. Sooner than our white-bearded Patriarchs died;

The first who taught us knowledge hath

been hurl'd
And that on high
An ocean is prepared,

From his once archangelic throne

Into some unknown world :
While from below

And thou, Azaziel ! No-
The deep shall rise to meet heaven's over.

Thou shalt not suffer woe
flow.

For me. Away! nor weep!
Few shall be spared,

Thou canst not weep; but yet
It seems ; and, of that few, the race of

Mayst suffer more, not weeping : thens Cain

forget Must lift their eyes to Adam's God in vain. Sister ! since it is so,

Her, whom the surges of the all-strangling

Deep
And the eternal Lord
In vain would be implored

Can bring no pang like this. Fly! Fly!

Being gone, 't will be less difficult to die." For the remission of one hour of wee, Let us resign even what we have adored,

The two fallen angels declare to RaAnd meet the wave, as we would meet the

phael that they will share the doom of sword,

their beloved mortals, and Raphael reIf not unmoved, yet undismay'd, plies— And wailing less for us than those who Raph. Again! shall

Then from this hour, Survive in morta! or immortal thrall,

Shorn as ye are of all celestial power, And, when the fatal waters are allay'd,

And aliens from your God, Weep for the myriads who can weep no

Farewell !” more.

Japhet now hears the approach of Fly, Seraphs ! to your own eternal shore, the floodWhere winds nor howl nor waters roar. “ Japh. Alas! where shall they dwell ? Our portion is to die,

Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper And yours to live for ever :

still,
But which is best, a dead eternity, Are howling from the mountain's bo-
Or living, is but known to the great
Giver :

There's not a breath of wind upon the hill,
Obey him, as we shall obey ; Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each
I would not keep this life of mine in blossom :
clay

Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.
An hour beyond his will ;

Noah. Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry! Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace, In clouds they overspread the lurid sky, For all the mercy which Seth's race And hover round the mountain, where beFind still.

fore Fly!

Never a white wing, wetted by the wave, And as your pinions bear ye back to Yet dared to soar, heaven,

Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to Think that my love still mounts with thee brave. on high,

Soon it shall be their only shore,
Samiasa !

And then, no more!
And if I look up with a tearless eye,

Japh. The sun! the sun ! 'Tis that an angel's bride disdains to He riseth, but his better light is gone; weep

And a black circle, bound Farewell! Now rise, inexorable Deep !

His glaring disk around, Ana.

And must we die ? Proclaims earth's last of summer days hath And must I lose thee too,

shone! Azaziel ?

The clouds return into the hues of Oh, my heart ! my heart !

night, Thy prophecies were true,

Save where their brazen-colour'd edges And yet thou wert so happy too!

streak The blow, though not unlook'd for, falls as The verge where brighter morns were new ;

wont to break. But yet depart !

Noah. And lo! yon flash of light, Ah, why?

'The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!

som:

a