Baron George Gordon Byron Byron

“ Before the winds blew Europe o'er these climes.
True, they had vices—such are Nature's growth—
But only the barbarian's—we have both;
The sordor of civilisation, mixed
With all the savage which Man's fall hath fixed.70
Who hath not seen Dissimulation's reign,
The prayers of Abel linked to deeds of Cain?
Who such would see may from his lattice view
The Old World more degraded than the New,—
Now new no more, save where Columbia rears
Twin giants, born by Freedom to her spheres,
Where Chimborazo, over air,—earth,—wave,—
Glares with his Titan eye, and sees no slave. ”

“ Adah.‍And his lips, too,
How beautifully parted! No; you shall not
Kiss him, at least not now: he will awake soon—
His hour of mid-day rest is nearly over;
But it were pity to disturb him till
'Tis closed.
Cain.‍You have said well; I will contain
My heart till then. He smiles, and sleeps!—sleep on,
And smile, thou little, young inheritor
Of a world scarce less young: sleep on, and smile!20
Thine are the hours and days when both are cheering
And innocent! thou hast not plucked the fruit—
Thou know'st not thou art naked! ”

“ Like Adah's face: I turn from earth and heaven
To gaze on it.
Lucifer.‍'Tis fair as frail mortality,
In the first dawn and bloom of young creation,270
And earliest embraces of earth's parents,
Can make its offspring; still it is delusion.
Cain. You think so, being not her brother.
Lucifer.‍Mortal!
My brotherhood's with those who have no children.
Cain. Then thou canst have no fellowship with us.
Lucifer. It may be that thine own shall be for me.
But if thou dost possess a beautiful
Being beyond all beauty in thine eyes,
Why art thou wretched?
Cain.‍Why do I exist? ”

“ Adah. God! the Eternal parent of all things!
Who didst create these best and beauteous beings,
To be belovéd, more than all, save thee—
Let me love thee and them:—All Hail! All Hail!
Zillah. Oh, God! who loving, making, blessing all,
Yet didst permit the Serpent to creep in,
And drive my father forth from Paradise,330 [214]
Keep us from further evil:—Hail! All Hail!
Adam. Son Cain! my first-born—wherefore art thou silent?
Cain. Why should I speak?
Adam.‍To pray.
Cain.‍Have ye not prayed?
Adam. We have, most fervently.
Cain.‍And loudly: I
Have heard you.
Adam.‍So will God, I trust.
Abel.‍Amen! ”

“ Adah stoops down and kisses the body of Abel.
Adah. A dreary, and an early doom, my brother,
Has been thy lot! Of all who mourn for thee,
I alone must not weep. My office is
Henceforth to dry up tears, and not to shed them;
But yet of all who mourn, none mourn like me,
Not only for thyself, but him who slew thee.550
Now, Cain! I will divide thy burden with thee.
Cain. Eastward from Eden will we take our way;
'Tis the most desolate, and suits my steps.
Adah. Lead! thou shalt be my guide, and may our God
Be thine! Now let us carry forth our children. ”

“ Which are so beautiful: shall they, too, die?
Lucifer. Perhaps—but long outlive both thine and thee.
Cain. I'm glad of that: I would not have them die—
They are so lovely. What is Death? I fear,
I feel, it is a dreadful thing; but what,
I cannot compass: 'tis denounced against us, [223]
Both them who sinned and sinned not, as an ill—
What ill?
Lucifer. To be resolved into the earth.
Cain. But shall I know it?
Lucifer.‍As I know not death,
I cannot answer. [103]
Cain.‍Were I quiet earth,290
That were no evil: would I ne'er had been
Aught else but dust! ”

“ Cain! walk not with this Spirit.
Bear with what we have borne, and love me—I
Love thee.
Lucifer.‍More than thy mother, and thy sire?
Adah. I do. Is that a sin, too?
Lucifer.‍No, not yet;
It one day will be in your children.
Adah.‍What!
Must not my daughter love her brother Enoch?
Lucifer. Not as thou lovest Cain.
Adah.‍Oh, my God!
Shall they not love and bring forth things that love
Out of their love? have they not drawn their milk
Out of this bosom? ”

“ Lucifer.‍Thy Sire's maker—and the Earth's.
Cain.‍And Heaven's,
And all that in them is. So I have heard
His Seraphs sing; and so my father saith.
Lucifer. They say—what they must sing and say, on pain
Of being that which I am,—and thou art—
Of spirits and of men.
Cain.‍And what is that?
Lucifer. Souls who dare use their immortality—
Souls who dare look the Omnipotent tyrant in
His everlasting face, and tell him that
His evil is not good! ”

“ And yet these forgotten works of the imagination are full of hidden treasures! There is not one of Byron's "impressionist studies" of striking episodes of history or historical legend, flung, as it were, with a "Take it or leave it" in the face of friend or foe, which does not transform names and shadows into persons and substance, which does not contain lines and passages of unquestionable beauty and distinction.
But some would have it that Byron's plays, as a whole, are dull and uninspiring, monotonous harpings on worn-out themes, which every one has mastered or wishes to forget. ”

“ For thee, and after thee, and prayed to thee,
And sacrificed to thee, and read, and feared thee,
And asked of thee, and thou hast answered—but
Only to thus much: while I speak, he sinks—30
Is gone—and leaves his beauty, not his knowledge,
To the delighted West, which revels in
Its hues of dying glory. Yet what is
Death, so it be but glorious? 'Tis a sunset;
And mortals may be happy to resemble
The Gods but in decay.
Enter Arbaces by an inner door.
Arb.‍Beleses, why
So wrapt in thy devotions? Dost thou stand
Gazing to trace thy disappearing God
Into some realm of undiscovered day? ”

“ Yet while 'tis time!
Renew not Adam's fall:
Mankind were then but twain,
But they are numerous now as are the waves
And the tremendous rain,
Whose drops shall be less thick than would their graves,710
Were graves permitted to the seed of Cain.
Noah. Silence, vain boy! each word of thine's a crime.
Angel! forgive this stripling's fond despair.
Raph. Seraphs! these mortals speak in passion: Ye! ”

“ Not fair like Adah and the Seraphim—330
But very fair.
Lucifer.‍All that must pass away
In them and her.
Cain.‍I'm sorry for it; but
Cannot conceive my love for her the less:
And when her beauty disappears, methinks
He who creates all beauty will lose more
Than me in seeing perish such a work.
Lucifer. I pity thee who lovest what must perish.
Cain. And I thee who lov'st nothing.
Lucifer.‍And thy brother—
Sits he not near thy heart?
Cain.‍Why should he not?
Lucifer. Thy father loves him well—so does thy God.340
Cain. And so do I.
Lucifer.‍'Tis well and meekly done. ”

“ Weeps when he's named; and Abel lifts his eyes
To Heaven, and Zillah casts hers to the earth,
And sighs a prayer; and Adah looks on me,
And speaks not.
Lucifer.‍And thou?
Cain.‍Thoughts unspeakable
Crowd in my breast to burning, when I hear
Of this almighty Death, who is, it seems,
Inevitable. Could I wrestle with him?
I wrestled with the lion, when a boy,260
In play, till he ran roaring from my gripe.
Lucifer. It has no shape; but will absorb all things
That bear the form of earth-born being.
Cain.‍Ah!
I thought it was a being: who could do
Such evil things to beings save a being?
Lucifer. ”

“ Cain.‍The things I have not seen,
Nor ever shall—the mysteries of Death.140
Lucifer. What, if I show to thee things which have died,
As I have shown thee much which cannot die?
Cain. Do so.
Lucifer.‍Away, then! on our mighty wings!
Cain. Oh! how we cleave the blue! The stars fade from us!
The earth! where is my earth? Let me look on it,
For I was made of it.
Lucifer.‍'Tis now beyond thee,
Less, in the universe, than thou in it;
Yet deem not that thou canst escape it; thou
Shalt soon return to earth, and all its dust:
'Tis part of thy eternity, and mine.150
Cain. ”

“ Lucifer.‍Behold!
Cain.‍'Tis darkness!
Lucifer. And so it shall be ever—but we will
Unfold its gates!
Cain.‍Enormous vapours roll
Apart—what's this?
Lucifer.‍Enter!
Cain.‍Can I return?
Lucifer. Return! be sure: how else should Death be peopled?200
Its present realm is thin to what it will be,
Through thee and thine.
Cain.‍The clouds still open wide
And wider, and make widening circles round us!
Lucifer. Advance!
Cain.‍And thou!
Lucifer.‍Fear not—without me thou
Couldst not have gone beyond thy world. On! on! ”

“ With care, although 'tis past all farther harm—
But I will look to that myself.
Bar.‍He means
The body of his son.
Doge.‍And call Marina,
My daughter!
Enter Marina.
Doge.‍Get thee ready, we must mourn
Elsewhere.
Mar.‍And everywhere.
Doge.‍True; but in freedom,210
Without these jealous spies upon the great.
Signers, you may depart: what would you more? [190]
We are going; do you fear that we shall bear
The palace with us? Its old walls, ten times
As old as I am, and I'm very old,
Have served you, so have I, and I and they
Could tell a tale; but I invoke them not
To fall upon you! ”

“ Ask of your sire, the exile fresh from Eden;
Or of his first-born son: ask your own heart;
It is not tranquil.
Adah.‍Alas! no! and you—
Are you of Heaven?
Lucifer.‍If I am not, enquire
The cause of this all-spreading happiness
(Which you proclaim) of the all-great and good
Maker of life and living things; it is
His secret, and he keeps it. ”

“ But, Spirit! if
It be as thou hast said (and I within
Feel the prophetic torture of its truth) ,
Here let me die: for to give birth to those
Who can but suffer many years, and die—
Methinks is merely propagating Death,70
And multiplying murder.
Lucifer.‍Thou canst not
All die—there is what must survive.
Cain.‍The Other
Spake not of this unto my father, when
He shut him forth from Paradise, with death
Written upon his forehead. But at least
Let what is mortal of me perish, that
I may be in the rest as angels are.
Lucifer. I am angelic: wouldst thou be as I am? [236]
Cain. ”

“ Eve.‍He hath left thee no brother—
Zillah no husband—me no son! for thus
I curse him from my sight for evermore!
All bonds I break between us, as he broke410
That of his nature, in yon——Oh Death! Death!
Why didst thou not take me, who first incurred thee?
Why dost thou not so now?
Adam.‍Eve! let not this,
Thy natural grief, lead to impiety!
A heavy doom was long forespoken to us;
And now that it begins, let it be borne
In such sort as may show our God, that we
Are faithful servants to his holy will.
Eve. (pointing to Cain) . ”

“ Lucifer. Your Maker told ye, they were made for you,
As you for him.—You would not have their doom
Superior to your own? Had Adam not
Fallen, all had stood.
Cain.‍Alas! the hopeless wretches!
They too must share my sire's fate, like his sons;
Like them, too, without having shared the apple;
Like them, too, without the so dear-bought knowledge!160
It was a lying tree—for we know nothing.
At least it promised knowledge at the price [246]
Of death—but knowledge still: but what knows man?
Lucifer. It may be death leads to the highest knowledge ”

“ Cain. After the fall too soon was I begotten;
Ere yet my mother's mind subsided from
The Serpent, and my sire still mourned for Eden.
That which I am, I am; I did not seek
For life, nor did I make myself; but could I510
With my own death redeem him from the dust—
And why not so? let him return to day,
And I lie ghastly! so shall be restored
By God the life to him he loved; and taken
From me a being I ne'er loved to bear.
Angel. Who shall heal murder? what is done, is done ”

“ And the Jehovah and thyself have thine—
Ye do not dwell together?
Lucifer.‍No, we reign
Together; but our dwellings are asunder.
Cain. Would there were only one of ye! perchance
An unity of purpose might make union
In elements which seem now jarred in storms.
How came ye, being Spirits wise and infinite,380
To separate? Are ye not as brethren in
Your essence—and your nature, and your glory?
Lucifer. Art not thou Abel's brother?
Cain.‍We are brethren,
And so we shall remain; but were it not so,
Is spirit like to flesh? can it fall out—
Infinity with Immortality? ”

“ While all his race are slumbering?
Japh.‍Angel! what
Dost thou on earth when thou should'st be on high?
Aza. Know'st thou not, or forget'st thou, that a part
Of our great function is to guard thine earth?
Japh. But all good angels have forsaken earth,
Which is condemned; nay, even the evil fly
The approaching chaos. Anah! Anah! my
In vain, and long, and still to be, beloved!330
Why walk'st thou with this Spirit, in those hours
When no good Spirit longer lights below?
Anah. Japhet, I cannot answer thee; yet, yet
Forgive me——
Japh. ”

“ Aho. 'Tis said so.
Japh.‍It is even so.
Enter Noah and Shem.
Noah.‍Japhet! What
Dost thou here with these children of the wicked?
Dread'st thou not to partake their coming doom?
Japh. Father, it cannot be a sin to seek
To save an earth-born being; and behold,
These are not of the sinful, since they have
The fellowship of angels.
Noah.‍These are they, then,470
Who leave the throne of God, to take them wives
From out the race of Cain; the sons of Heaven,
Who seek Earth's daughters for their beauty? ”

“ For what he brings the nations, 'tis the furthest
Hour of Assyria's years. And yet how calm!
An earthquake should announce so great a fall—10
A summer's sun discloses it. Yon disk,
To the star-read Chaldean, bears upon
Its everlasting page the end of what
Seemed everlasting; but oh! thou true Sun!
The burning oracle of all that live,
As fountain of all life, and symbol of
Him who bestows it, wherefore dost thou limit
Thy lore unto calamity? Why not
Unfold the rise of days more worthy thine
All-glorious burst from ocean? ”