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, hurled 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, men! 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 despaired for her?
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 hiss 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.)

By the approaching deluge! by the earth
Which will be strangled by the ocean! by
The deep which will lay open all her fountains!

The Heaven which will convert her clouds to seas,
And the Omnipotent who makes and crushes!
Thou unknown, terrible, and indistinct,
Yet awful Thing of Shadows, speak to me!
Why dost thou laugh that horrid laugh?

SPIRIT.

Why weep'st thou ?

JAPHET.

For earth and all her children.

SPIRIT.

Ha! Ha! Ha!

(Spirit vanishes.)

JAPHET.

How the fiend mocks the tortures of a world,

The coming desolation of an orb,

On which the sun shall rise and warm no life!
How the earth sleeps! and all that in it is
Sleep too upon the very eve of death!

Why should they wake to meet it? What is here,
Which look like death in life, and speak like things
Born ere this dying world? They come like clouds!
(Various Spirits pass from the cavern.)

Rejoice!

The abhorred race

SPIRIT.

Which could not keep in Eden their high place,

But listen'd to the voice

Of knowledge without power,

Are nigh the hour

Of death!

Not slow, not single, not by sword, nor sorrow,

Nor years,

motion,

nor heart-break, nor Time's sapping

Shall they drop off. Behold their last to-morrow!

Earth shall be ocean!

And no breath,

Save of the winds, be on the unbounded wave!
Angels shall tire their wings, but find no spot:
Not even a rock from out the liquid grave
Shall lift its point to save,

Or show the place where strong Despair hath died,
After long looking o'er the ocean wide
For the expected ebb which cometh not:
All shall be void,

Destroy'd!

Another element shall be the lord

Of life, and the abhorr'd

Children of dust be quench'd; and of each hue
Of earth nought left but the unbroken blue;
And of the variegated mountain

Shall nought remain

Unchanged, or of the level plain;

Cedar and pine shall lift their tops in vain : All merged within the universal fountain, Man, earth, and fire, shall die, And sea and sky

Look vast and lifeless in the eternal eye.

Upon the foam

Who shall erect a home?

JAPHET (coming forward).

My sire!

Earth's seed shall not expire;

Only the evil shall be put away

From day,

Avaunt! ye exulting demons of the waste!

Who howl your hideous joy

When God destroys whom you dare not destroy;

Hence! haste!

Back to your inner caves!

Until the waves

Shall search

you in your secret place,

And drive your sullen race

Forth, to be roll'd upon the tossing winds
In restless wretchedness along all space!

SPIRIT.

Son of the saved!

When thou and thine have braved

The wide and warring element;

When the great barrier of the deep is rent,
Shall thou and thine be good or happy?—No!
Thy new world and new race shall be of woe-
Less goodly in their aspect, in their years
Less than the glorious giants, who
Yet walk the world in pride,

The Sons of Heaven by many a mortal bride.
Thine shall be nothing of the past, save tears.
And art thou not ashamed

Thus to survive,

And eat, and drink, and wive?

With a base heart so far subdued and tamed,
As even to hear this wide destruction named;
Without such grief and courage, as should rather
Bid thee await the world-dissolving wave,

Than seek a shelter with thy favour'd father,
And build thy city o'er the drown'd Earth's grave?
Who would outlive their kind,

Except the base and blind?

Mine

Hateth thine

As of a different order in the sphere,