With gloom as sad: it is a hopeless spot,

And I anı hopeless.

IRAD.

But 't is dangerous;

Strange sounds and sights have peopled it with terrors. I must go with thec.

JAPHET.

Irad, no; believe me

I feel no evil thought, and fear no evil.

IRAD.

But evil things will be thy foe the more
As not being of them: turn thy steps aside,
Or let mine be with thine.

No; neither, Irad:

JAPHET.

I must proceed alone.

IRAD.

Then peace be with thee!

JAPHET (solus).

[Exit IRAD.

Peace! I have sought it where it should be found,

In love with love too, which perhaps deserved it :
And, in its stead, a heaviness of heart-
A weakness of the spirit-listless days,
And nights inexorable to sweet sleep--

Have come upon me. Peace! what peace? the calm
Of desolation, and the stillness of
The untrodden forest, only broken by
The sweeping tempest through its groaning boughs;
Such is the sullen or the fitful state

Of

I my mind overworn. The earth's grown wicked, And many signs and portents have proclaim'd A change at hand, and an o'erwhelming doom To perishable beings. Oh, my Anah! When the dread hour denounced shal! open wide The fountains of the deep, how mightest thou Have lam within this bosom, folded from The elements; this bosom, which in vain Hath beat for thee, and then will beat more vain! While thinc-Oh, God! at least remit to her Thy wrath! for she is pure amidst the failing, As a star in the clouds, which cannot quench, Although they obscure it for an hour. My Anab How would I have adored thee, but thou wouldst nuk; And still would I redeem, thee-see thee live When ocean is carth's grave, and, unopposed By rock or shallow, the leviathan.

What doth he there? It is an evil spot
Upon an earth all evil; for things worse
Than even wicked men resort there: he
Still loves this daughter of a fated race,
Although he could not wed her if she loved him,
And that she doth not. Oh, the unhappy hearts
Of men! that one of my blood, knowing well
'The destiny and evil of these days,
And that the hour approacheth, should indulge
In such forbidden yearnings! Lead the way;
He must be sought for!

And can it be?-Shall yon exulting peak,
Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
No more to have the morning sun break forth,
And scatter back the mists in floating folds
From its tremendous brow? no more to have
Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
Leaving it with a crown of many hues?
No more to be the beacon of the world,
For angels to alight on, as the spot

Nearest the stars? and can those words "no more"

Be meant for thee, for all things, save for us,
And the predestined creeping things reserved
By my sire to Jehovah's bidding? May
He preserve them, and I not have the
power
To snatch the loveliest of earth's daughters from
A doom which even some serpent, with his mate,
Shall 'scape to save his kind to be prolong'd,
To kiss and sting through some emerging world,
Reeking and dank from out the slime, whose ooze
Shall slumber o'er the wreck of this, until
The salt morass subside into a sphere
Beneath the sun, and be the monument,
The sole and undistinguish'd sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be still'd at once! All-beauteous world!
So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy number'd days and nights.
I cannot save thee, cannot save even her
Whose love had made me love thee more; but as
A portion of thy dust, I cannot think

Upon thy coming doom, without a feeling
Such as-Oh God! and canst thou-

[He pauses.

[A rushing sound from the cavern is heard, and shouts of laughter-afterwards a Spirit passes.

[Exeunt NOAH and SHEM.

JAPHET.

In the name

Of the Most High, what art thou?

Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,
Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
So varied and so terrible in beauty;
Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks

And topling trees that twine their roots with stone
In perpendicular places, where the foot

Of man would tremble, could he reach them-yes,
Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,
Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurl'd
Before the mass of waters: and yon cave,
Which seems to lead into a lower world,
Shall have its depths search'd by the sweeping wave,
And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!

And man-Oh, then! my fellow-beings! Who
Shall weep above your universal grave,
Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
Alas! what am I better than ye are,
That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
While I had hope? or the more savage haunts,
Scarce less beloved, where I despair'd for her?

By all that earth holds holiest, speak!

Son of the saved!

When thou and tnine have braved

The wide and warring element; When the great barrier of the deep is rent, Shalt thou and thine be good or happy?—No! Thy new world and new race shall be of wo

We, we shall view the deep's salt sources pour'd Until one element shall do the work

Of all in chaos; until they,

The creatures proud of their poor clay, Shall perish, and their bleached bones shall lurk In caves, in dens, in clefts of mountains, where The deep shall follow to their latest lair;

Where even the brutes, in their despair, Shall cease to prey on man and on each other,

And the striped tiger shall lie down to die Beside the lamb, as though he were his brother. Till all things shall be as they were, Silent and uncreated, save the sky: While a brief truce

Is made with Death, who shall forbear The little remnant of the past creation, To generate new nations for his use; This remnant, floating o'er the undulation Of the subsiding deluge, from its slime, When the hot sun hath baked the reeking son Into a world, shall give again to time New beings-years-diseases-sorrow-critne. With all companionship of hate and toil, Until