The Patriarchs and their Families carried away Captive by a Detachment from the Army of the Invaders.-The Tomb of Abel.His Murder by Cain described.-The Origin of the Giants.-The Infancy and early Adventures of their King.-The Leader of their Host encamped in Eden.
THE flocks and herds throughout the glen reposed;
No human eyelid there in slumber closed;
None, save the infant's on the mother's breast ;—
With arms of love caressing and carest,
She, while her elder offspring round her clung
Each eye intent on hers, and mute each tongu,
The voice of death in every murmur beard,
And felt his touch in every limb that stirred.
At midnight, down the forest hills, a train
Of eager warriors, from the host of Cain,
Burst on the stillness of the scene:-they spread
In bands, to clutch the victims ere they fled;
Of flight unmindful, at their summons, rose
Those victims, meekly yielded to their foes;
Though woman wept to leave her home behind,
The weak were comforted, the strong resigned,
And ere the moon, descending o'er the vale,
Grew, at the bright approach of morning, pale,
Collected thus, the patriarchal clan,
With strengthened confidence, their march began,
Since not in ashes were their dwellings laid,
And death, though threatened still, was still delayed.
Struck with their fearless innocence, they saw
Their fierce assailants checked with sacred awe;
The foe became a phalanx of defence,
And brought them, like a guard of angels, thence.
A vista-path, that through the forest led,
(By Javan shunned when from the camp he fled,)
The pilgrims tracked, till on the mountain's height;
They met the sun, new risen in glorious light;
Empurpled mists along the landscape rolled,
And all the orient flamed with clouds of gold.
Here, while they halted, on their knees they raise
To God the sacrifice of prayer and praise;
"Glory to thec, for every blessing shed,
In days of peace, on our protected head;
Glory to thee, for fortitude to bear
The wrath of man, rejoicing o'er despair;
Glory to thee, whatever ill befal,
For faith on thy victorious name to call;
Thine own eternal purposes fulfil;
We come, O God! to suffer all thy will."
Refreshed and rested, on their course they went
Ere the clouds melted from the firmament;
Odors abroad the winds of morning breathe,
And fresh with dew the herbage sprang beneath :
Down from the hills, that gently sloped away
To the broad river shining into day,
They passed; along the brink the path they kept,
Where high aloof o'eraching willows wept,
Whose silvery foliage glistened in the beam,
And floating shadows fringed the chequered stream.
Adjacent rose a myrtle-planted mound,
Whose spiry top, a granite fragment crowned;
Tinctured with many colored moss, the stone,
Rich as a cloud of summer evening, shone
Amidst encircling verdure, that arrayed
The beauteous hillock with a cope of shade.
"Javan!" said Enoch, "on this spot began
The fat curse ;--man perished here by man;
The earest death a son of Adam died
Was murder, and that murder fratricide!
Here Abel fell, a corse along this shore;
Here Cain's recoiling footsteps reeked with gore:
Horror upraised his locks, unloosed his knees;
He heard a voice; he hid among the trees;
-Where is thy brother'-From the whirlwind came
The voice of God, amidst enfolding flame :
Am I my brother's keeper!-hoarse and low, Cain muttered from the copse.-that I should know?' What hast thou done?-For vengeance to the skies, Lo! from the dust the blood of Abel cries:
Curst from the earth that drank his blood, with toil
Thine hand shall plough in vain her barren soil.
An exile and a wanderer thou shalt be;
A brother's eye shall never look on thee.”—
"The shuddering culprit answered in despair, - Greater the punishment than flesh can bear." Yet shalt thou bear it; on thy brow revealed, Thus be thy sentence and thy safeguard sealed." Silently, swiftly as the lightning's blast, A hand of fire athwart his temples passed: He ran, as in the terror of a dream,
To quench his burning anguish in the stream;
But bending o'er the brink, the swelling wave
Back to the eye his branded visage gave;
As soon on murdered Abel durst he look;
Yet power to fly his palsied limbs forsook;
There turned to stone for his presumptuous crime,
A monument of wrath to latest time,
Might Cain have stood; but mercy raised his head
In prayer for help,—his strength returned, he fled
That mound of myrtles, o'er their favorite child,
Eve planted, and the hand of Adam piled;
Yon mossy stone, above his ashes raised,
His altar once, with Abel's offering blazed,
When God well pleased beheld the flames arise,
And smiled acceptance on the sacrifice ”
Enoch to Javan, walking at his side,
Thus held discourse apart: the youth replied;
"Relieved from toil, though Cain is gone to rest,
And the turf flowers on his disburthened breast,
Among his race the murdering spirit reigns,
But riots fiercest in the giants' veins.
-Sprung from false leagues, when monstrous love com bined
The sons of God and daughters of mankind,
Selfstyled the progeny of heaven and earth,
Eden first gave the world's oppressors birth;
Thence far away, beneath the rising moon,
Or where the shadow vanishes at noon,
The adulterous mothers from the sires withdrew :
-Nurst in luxuriant climes their offspring grew:
Till, as in stature o'er mankind they towered,
And giant strength all mortal strength o'erpowered,
To heaven the proud blasphemers raised their eyes,
And scorned the tardy vengeance of the skies;
On earth invincible, they sternly broke
Love's willing bonds, and nature's kindred yoke,
Mad for dominion with remorseless sway,
Compelled their reptile brethren to obey,
And doomed their human herds, with thankless ton,
Like brutes, to grow and perish on the soil.
Their sole inheritance, through lingering years,
The bread of misery and the cup of tears,
The tasks of oxen, with the hire of slaves,
Dishonored lives, and desecrated graves.
"When war, that self inflicted scourge of man,
His boldest crime and bitterest curse,-began;
As lions fierce, as forest cedars tall,
And terrible as torrents in their fall,
Headlong from rocks, through vales and vineyards lurted
These men of prey laid waste the eastern world.
They taught their tributary hordes to wield
The sword, red-flaming, through the death-strown fickl,
With strenuous arm the uprooted rock to throw,
Glance the light arrow from the bounding bow,
Whirl the broad shield to meet the darted stroke,
And stand to combat like the unyielding oak.
Then eye from eye with fell suspicion turned
In kindred breasts unnatural hatred burned.
Brother met brother in the lists of strife,
The son lay lurking for the father's life;
With rapid instinct, men who never knew
Each other's face before, each other siew;
All tribes, all nations learned the fatal art,
And every hand was armed to pierce a heart.
Nor man afone the giants' might subdued;
-The Camel, weaned from quiet solitude,
Grazed round their camps, or slow along the road,
Midst marching iens, bore the servile load.
With flying forelock and dishevelled mane,
They caught the wild steed prancing o'er the plain,
For war or pastime reigned his fiery force;
Fleet as the wind he stretched along the course.
Or loudly neighing at the trumpet's sound,
With hoofs of thunder smote the indented ground.
The enormous elephant obeyed their will,
And, tamed to cruelty with direst skill,
Roared for the battle, when he felt the goad,
And his proud lord his sinewy neck bestrode,
Through crashing ranks resistless havoc bore,
And writhed his trunk, and bathed his tusks in gore.
Thus while the giants trampled friends and foes,
Among their tribe a mighty chieftain rose;
His birth mysterious, but traditions tell
What strange events his infancy befell.
"A goatherd fed his flock on many a steep,
Where Eden's rivers swell the southern deep;
A melancholy man, who dwelt alone,
Yet far abroad his evil fame was known,
The first of woman born, that might presume
To wake the dead bones mouldering in the tomb,
And, from the gulf of uncreated night,
Cali phantoms of futurity to light.
'Twas said his voice could stay the falling flood,
Eclipse the sun, and turn the moon to blood,
Roll back the planets on their golden cars,
And from the firmament unfixed the stars.
Spirits of fire and air, of sea and land,
Came at his call, and flew at his command;
His spells so potent, that his changing breath
Opened or shut the gates of life and death,
O'er nature's powers he claimed supreme control,
And held communion with all nature's soul:
The name and place of every herb he knew,
Its healing balsam, or pernicious dew:
The meanest reptile, and the noblest birth
Of ocean's caverns, or the living earth,
Obeyed his mandate:-Lord of all the rest,
Man more than all his hidden art confessed,
Cringed to his face, consulted, and revered
His oracles, detested him and feared.
"Once by the river, in a waking dream,
He stood to watch the ever-running stream,
In which, reflected upward to his eyes,
He giddily looked down upon the skies,
For thus he feigned in his ecstatic mood,
To summon divination from the flood.
His steady view, a floating object crossed;
His eye pursued it till the sight was lost.—
An outcast infant in a fragile bark!
The river whirled the willow-woven ark
Down toward the deep; the tide returning bore
The little voyager unharmed to shore;
Him in his cradle-ship securely bound
With swathing skins at eve the goatherd found.
Nurst by that foster-sire, austere and rude,
Midst rocks and glens, in savage solitude,
Among the kids, the rescued foundling grew,
Nutrition from whose shaggy dams he drew,
Till baby-curls his broader temples crowned,
And torrid suns his flexile limbs embrowned:
Then as he sprang from green to florid age,
And rose to giant stature, stage by stage,
He roamed the valleys with his browsing flock,
And leapt in joy of youth from rock to rock,
Climbed the sharp precipice's steepest breast,
To seize the eagle brooding on her nest,
And rent his way through matted woods, to tear
The skulking panther from his hidden lair.
A trodden serpent, horrible and vast,
Sprang on the heedless rover as he passed;
Limb locked o'er limb, with many a straitening fold
Of orbs inextricably involved, he rolled
On earth in vengeance, broke the twisted toils,
Strangled the hissing fiend, and wore the spoils.
With hardy exercise, and cruel art,
To nerve the frame, and petrify the heart,
The wizard trained his pupil, from a span,
To thrice the bulk and majesty of man.
His limbs were sinewy strength; commanding grace,
And dauntless spirit sparkled in his face;
His arm could pluck the lion from his prey,
And hold the horned rhinoceros at bay,
His feet o'er highest hills pursue the hind,
Or tire the ostrich buoyant on the wind.
"Yet 'twas the stripling's chief delight to brave The river's wrath, and wrestle with the wave; When torrent rains had swoln the furious tide, Light on the foamy surge he loved to ride; When calm and clear the stream was wont to flow, Fearless he dived to search the caves below. His childhood's story, often told, had wrought Sublimest hopes in his aspiring thought.
-Once on a cedar, from its mountain throne Plucked by the tempest, forth he sailed alone, And reached the gulf; with eye of eager fire, And flushing cheek, he watched the shores retire, Till sky and water wide around were spread; -Straight to the sun he thought his voyage led, With shouts of transport hailed its setting light, And followed all the long and lonely night: But ere the morning-star expired, he found His stranded bark once more on earthly ground. Tears, wrung from secret shame, suffused his eyes, When in the east he saw the sun arise:
Pride quickly checked them; young ambition burned For bolder enterprise, as he returned.
"Through snares and deaths pursuing fame and power He scorned his flock from that adventurous hour, And, leagued with monsters of congenial birth, Began to scourge and subjugate the earth. Meanwhile the sons of Cain, who tilled the soil, By noble arts had learned to lighten toil; Wisely their scattered knowledge he combined; Yet had a hundred years matured his mind, Ere with the strength that laid the forest low, And skill that made the iron furnace glow, His genius launched the keel, and swayed the helm (His throne and sceptre on the watery realm), While from the tent of his expanded sail, He eyed the heavens and flew before the gale, The first of men, whose courage knew to guide The bounding vessel through the refluent tide. Then swore the giant in his pride of soul, To range the universe from pole to pole, Rule the remotest nations with his nod, To live a hero, and to die a god.
"This is the king that wars in Eden: now, Fulfilled at length he deems his early vow; His foot hath overrun the world-his hand Smitten to dust the pride of every land: The patriarch's last, beneath the impious rod, He dooms to perish or abjure their God. -O God of truth! rebuke the tyrant's rage, Aud save the remnant of thine heritage."
When Javan ceased, they stood upon the height, Where first he rested on his lonely flight, Whence to the sacred mountain far away, The land of Eden in perspective lav.
'Twas noon; they tarried there, till milder hours Woke with light airs the breath of evening flowers.
The scene changes to a mountain, on the summit of which, neath the shade of ancient trees, the giants are assembled round their king-A minstrel sings the monarch's praises, and describes the destruction of the remnant of the force of his enemies, in an assault, by land and water, on their encampment, between the forest on the eastern plain of Eden and the river to the west.-The captive patriarchs are presented before the king and his chieftains.
THERE is a living spirit in the ¡yre,
A breath of music, and a soul of fire;
It speaks a language to the world unknown;
It speaks that language to the bard alone;
While warbled symphonies entrance his ears
That spirit's voice in every tone he hears;
"Tis his the mystic meaning to rehearse,
To utter oracles in glowing verse,
Heroic themes from age to age prolong,
And make the dead in nature live in song.
Through graven rocks the warrior's deeds proclaim,
And mountains, hewn to statues, wear his name;
Though shrined in adamant, his relics lie
Beneath a pyramid, that scales the sky;
All that the hand hath fashioned shall decay;
All that the eye admires shall pass away;
The mouldering rocks, the hero's hope shall fail,
Earthquakes shall heave the mountains to the vale,
The shrine of adamant betray its trust,
And the proud pyramid resolve to dust;
The lyre alone immortal fame secures,
For song alene through nature's change end"res;
Transfused like hie, from breast to brust it glows,
From sire to son by sure succession flows,
Spreads its unceasing flight from clime to clime,
Outstripping death upon the wings of time.
> Soul of ne lyre! whose magic power can raise Inspiring visions of departed days;
Or, with the glimpses of mysterious rhyme,
Dawn on the dreams of unawakened time;
Soul of the lyre! instruct thy bard to sing
The latest triumph of the giant-king,
Who sees this day his orb of glory filled:
-In what creative numbers shall I build,
With what exalted strains of music crown,
His everlasting pillar of renown?
Though, like the rainbow, by a wondrous birth,
He sprang to light, the joy of heaven and earth;
Though, like the rainbow-for he can not die-
His form shall pass unseen into the sky;
Say, shall the hero share the coward's lot,
Vanish from earth, ingloriously forgot?
No! the divinity that rules the lyre,
And clothes these lips with eloquence of fire,
Commands the song to rise in quenchless flame,
And light the world for ever with his fame."
Thus on a mountain's venerable head,
Where trees, coeval with creation, spread
Their massy-twisted branches, green and gray,
Mature below, their tops in dry decay,
A bard of Jubal's lineage proudly sung,
Then stayed awhile the raptures of his tongue:
A shout of horrible applause that rent
The echoing hills, and answering firmament,
Burst from the giants-where, in barbarous state,
Flushed with new wine, around their king they sate:
A chieftain each who, on his brazen car,
Had led a host of meaner men to war;
And now from recent fight on Eden's plain,
Where fell their foe n helpless conflict slain,
Victoriously returned, beneath the trees
They rest from toil, carousing at their ease.
Adjacent, where the mountain's spacious breast, Opened in airy grandeur to the west, Huge piles of fragrant cedars on the ground, As altars blazed, while victims bled around, To gods, whose worship vanished with the flood, -Divinities of brass, and stone, and wood, By man himself in his own image made; The fond creator to the creature prayed; And he, who from the forest or the rock Hewed the rough mass, adored the shapen block; Then seemed his flocks ignoble in his eyes, His choicest herds too mean for sacrifice, He poured his brethren's blood upon the pyre, And passed his sons to demons through the fire.
Exalted o'er the vassal chiefs, behold Their sovereign, cast in nature's mightiest mould; Beneath an oak, whose woven boughs displayed A verdant canopy of light and shade, Throned on a rock the giant-king appears, In the full manhood of five hundred years;
His robe, the spoils of lions, by his might
Dragged from their den, or slain in chase or fight;
His raven locks unblanched by withering time,
Amply dishevelled o'er his brow sublime;
His dark eyes, flushed with restless radiance, gleam
Like broken moonlight rippling on the stream,
Grandeur of soul, which nothing might appal,
And nothing satisfy if less than ail,
Had stamped upon his air, his form, his face,
The character of calm and awful grace;
But direst cruelty, by guile represt,
Lurked in the dark volcano of his breast,
In silence brooding, like the secret power,
That springs the earthquake at the midnight hour.
From Eden's summit, with obdurate pride, Red from afar the battle-scene he eyed,
Where late he crushed, with one remorseless blow, The emrat 1 his 1st and poliest De;
At nand ne viewed the trophies of his toils,
Herds, flocks, and steeds, the world's collected spoilt
Below, his legions marched in war array,
Unstained with blood in that unequal fray:
-A hundred tribes, whose sons their arms had born,
Without contention, from the field at morn,
Their bands dividing, when the fight was won,
Darkened the region toward the slanting un,
Like clouds, whose shadows o'er the landscape sail,
--While to their camp, that filled the northe, vale,
A waving sea of tents immensely spread,
The trumpet summoned, and the banners led.
With these a train of captives, sad and slow,
Moved to a death of shame, or life of wo,
A death on altars hateful to the skies,
Or life in chains, a slower sacrifice.
Fair smiled the face of nature; all serene
And lovely Evening tranquillized the scene;
The furies of the fight were gone to rest,
The cloudless sun grew broader down the west,
The hills beneath him melted from the sight,
Receding through the heaven of purple light;
Along the plain the maze of rivers rolled,
And verdant shadows gleamed in waves of gold.
Thus while the tyrant cast his haughty eye
O'er the broad landscape and incumbent sky,
His heart exulting whispered-" All is mine,"
And heard a voice from all things answer "Thine.'
Such was the matchless chief, whose name of yore
Filled the wide world; his name is known no more:
O that for ever from the rolls of fame,
Like his, had perished every conqueror's name!
Then had mankind been spared, in after times,
Their greatest sufferings and their greatest crimes.
The hero scourges not his age alone,
His curse to late posterity is known:
He slays his thousands with his living breath,
His tens of thousands by his fame in death.
Achilles quenched not all his wrath on Greece,
Through Homer's song its miseries never cease;
Like Phoebus' she's the bright contagion brings
Plagues on the people for the feuds of kings.
'Twas not in vain the son of Philip sighed
For worlds to conquer-o'er the western tide,
His spirit, in the Spaniard's form, o'erthrew
Realms, that the Macedonian never knew.
The steel of Brutus struck not Cæsar dead;
Cæsar in other lands hath reared his head,
And fought, of friends and foes, on many a plain,
His millions, captured, fugitive, and slain;
Yet seldom suffered, where his country died,
A Roman vengeance for his parricide.
The sun was sunk; the sacrificial pyres
From smouldering ashes breathed their last blue fires
The smiling star that lights the world to rest,
Walked in the rosy gardens of the west,
Like Eve erewhile, through Eden's blooming bowers,
A lovelier star amid a heaven of flowers.
Now in the freshness to the falling shade,
Again the minstrel to the monarch played.
"Where is the youth renowned ? the youth whose veios Was wont to make the listening camp rejoice, When to his harp in many a peerless strain,
He sang the wonders of the giant's reign;
O where is Javan?" Thus the bard renewed
His lay, and with a rival's transport viewed
The cloud of sudden anger, that o'ercame
The tyrant's countenance, at Javan's name;
Javan, whose song was once his soul's delight,
Now doomed a traitor recreant by his flight.
The envious minstrel smiled; then boldly ran
His prelude o'er the chords, and thus began.
""Twas on the morn that faithless Javan fled,
To yonder plain the king of nations led
His countless hosts, and stretched their wide array
Along the woods, within whose shelter lay
The sons of Eden :* these, with secret pride,
In ambush thus the invincible defied:
-Girt with the forest, wherefore should we fear?
The giant's sword shall never reach is here:
Behind, the river rolis its deep defence;
The giant's hand shall never pluck us hence.'
Vain boast of fools; who to that hand prepare
For their own lives the inevitable snare:
His legions smote the standards of the wood,
And with their prostrate strength controlled the flood;
Lopt off their boughs, and jointed beam to beam,
The pines and oaks were launched upon the stream,
A hundred rafts. Yet still within a zone
Of tangled coppices-a waste, o'ergrown
With briers and thorns-the dauntless victims lie,
Scorn to surrender, and prepare to die.
The second sun went down; the monarch's plan
Was perfected; the dire assault began.
"Marshalled by twilight, his obedient bands
Engirt the wood, with torches in their hands;
The signal given, they shoot them through the air;
The blazing brands in rapid volleys glare,
Descending through the gloom with spangled light,
As if the stars were falling through the night.
Along the withered grass the wild-fire flew,
Higher and hotter with obstruction grew:
The green wood hissed; from crackling thickets broke
Light glancing flame, and heavy rolling smoke;
Till all the breadth of forest seemed to rise
In raging conflagration to the skies.
Fresh o'er our heads the winds propitious blow,
But roll the fierce combustion on the foe.
Awhile they paused of every hope bereit,
Choice of destruction all their refuge left;
If from the flames they fled, behind them lay,
The river roaring to receive his prey;
If through the stream they sought the farther strand,
Our crafts were moored to meet them ere they land;
With triple death environed thus they stood,
Till nearer peril drove them to the flood.
Safe on a hill, where sweetest moonlight slept,
As o'er the changing scene my watch I kept,
I heard their shrieks of agony; I hear
Those shrieks still ring in my tormented ear;
I saw them leap the gulf with headlong fright;
O that mine eyes could now forget that sight!
They sank in multitude; but prompt to save,
Our warriors snatched the stragglers from the wave,
And on their rafts a noble harvest bore
Of rescued heroes, captive, to the shore
"One little troop their lessening ground maintained,
Till space to perish in alone remained;
Then with a shout that rent the echoing air,
More like the shout of victory than despair,
Wedged in a solid phalanx, man by man,
Right through the scorching wilderness they ran,
Where half-extinct the smouldering fuel glowed,
And levelled copses strewed the open road.
Unharmed as spirits while they seemed to pass,
Their lighted features flared like molten brass;
Around the flames in writhing volumes spread,
Thwarted their path, or mingled o'er their head;
Beneath their feet the fires to ashes turned,
But in their wake with mounting fury burned.
Our host recoiled from that amazing sight;
Scarcely the king himself restrained their flight;
*Vida Canto I., p. 2, and Car.to III, p. 7.
He, with his chiefs, in brazen armor, stood
Unmoved, to meet the maniacs from the wood.
Dark as a thunder-cloud their phalanx came,
But spilled like lightning, into forms of flame;
Soon as in purer air their heads they raised
To taste the breath of heaven, their garments blazed;
Then blind, distracted, weaponless, yet flushed
With dreadful valor, on their foes they rushed;
The giants met them midway on the plain;
"Twas but the struggle of a moment;-slain,
They fell; their relics to the flames returned,
As offerings to the immortal gods were burned;
And never did the light of morning rise
Upon the clouds of such a sacrifice."
Abruptly here the minstrel ceased to sing,
And every face was turi ed on the king;
He, while the stoutest hearts recoiled with fear,
And giants trembled their own deeds to hear,
Unmoved and unrelenting, in his mind,
Deeds of more impious enterprise designed:
A dire conception labored in his breast;
His eye was sternly pointed to the west,
Where stood the Mount of Paradise sublime,
Whose guarded top, since man's presumptuous crime,
By noon, a dusky cloud appeared to rise,
But blazed a beacon through nocturnal skies.
As Etna, viewed from ocean far away,
Slumbers in blue revolving smoke by day,
Till darkness, with terrific splendor, shows
The eternal fires that crest the cternal snows;*
So where the cherubim in vision turned
Their flaming swords, the summit lowered or burned.
And now conspicuous through the twilight gloom,
The glancing beams the distant hills illume,
And, as the shadows deepen o'er the ground,
Scatter a red and wavering lustre round.
Awhile the monarch, fearlessly amazed. With jealous anger on the glory gazed; Already had his arm in battle hurled His thunders round the subjugated world; Lord of the nether universe, his pride Was reined, while Paradise his power defied. An upland isle, by meeting streams embraced, It towered to heaven amid a sandy waste; Below, impenetrable woods displayed Depths of mysterious solitude and shade; Above, with adamantine bulwarks crowned, Primeval rocks in hoary masses frowned; O'er all were seen the cherubim of light, Like pillared flames amid the falling night; So high it rose, so bright the mountain shone, It seemed the footstool of Jehovah's throne.
The giant panted with intense desire
To scale those heights, and storm the walls of fire,
His ardent soul in ecstacy of thought,
Even now with Michael and his angels fought,
And saw the seraphim like meteors driven
Before his banners through the gates of heaven,
While he secure the glorious garden trod,
And swayed his sceptre from the Mount of God.
When suddenly the bard had ceased to sing, While all the chieftains gazed upon their king, Whose changing looks a rising storm bespoke, Ere from his lips the dread explosion broke, The trumpets sounded, and before his face Were led the captives of the patriarch's race, -A lovely and a venerable band
Of young and old, amid their foes they stand; Unawed they see the fiery trial near;
The feared their God and knew no other fear.t
* Sorge nel sen de la Sicilia aprica
Monte superbo al cielo,
Che d'atro incendio incoronato ha il crine
Sparso il tergo e di neve, e fatta amica
Lambe la fiamma il gielo.
E tra discreti ardor duran le brine.-I. TESTI
↑ Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et n'ai point d'autre crainte. -Racing
To light the dusky scene, resplendent fires,
Of pine and cedar, blazed in lofty pyres;
While from the east the moon with doubtful gleams
Now tipped the hills, now glanced athwart the streams;
Till, darting through the clouds her beauteous eye,
She opened all the temple of the sky.
The giants, closing in a narrower ring,
By turns surveyed the prisoners and the king.
Javan stood forth; to all the youth was known,
And every eye was fixed on him alone.
The king's determination to sacrifice the patriarchs and their families to his demon-gods. His sentence on Javan. Zillah's distress. The sorcerer pretends to declare the secret of the birth of the king, and proposes his deification. Enoch appears.
A GLEAM of joy, at that expected sight,
Shot o'er the monarch's brow with baleful light:
"Behold," thought he, "the great decisive hour;
Ere morn, these sons of God shall prove my power:
Offered by me, their blood shall be the price
Of demon-aid to conquer Paradise."
Thus while he threatened, Javan caught his view,
And instantly his visage changed its hue;
Inflamed with rage past utterance, he frowned,
He gnashed his teeth, and wildly glared around,
As one who saw a spectre in the air,
And durst not look upon it, nor forbear;
Still on the youth, his eye wherever cast,
Abhorrently returned and fixed at last:
"Slaves smite the traitor; be his limbs consigned
To flames, his ashes scattered to the wind!"
He cried in a tone so vehement, so loud,
Instinctively recoiled the shuddering crowd;
And ere the guards to seize their victim rushed,
The youth was pleading,-every breath was hushed;
Pale, but undauntedly, he faced his foes;
Warm as he spoke his kindling spirit rose;
Well pleased, on him the patriarch-fathers smiled,
And every mother loved him as her child.
"Monarch! to thee no traitor, here I stand;
These are my brethren, this my native land;
My native land, by sword and fire consumed,
My brethren, captive, and to death foredoomed;
To these indeed a Rebel in my youth,
A fugitive apostate from the truth,
Too late repentant, I confess my crime,
And mourn o'er lost irrevocable time.
-When from thy camp by conscience urged to flee,
I planned no wrong, I laid no snare for thee:
Did I provoke these sons of innocence,
Against thine arms, to rise in vain defence?
No; I conjured them, ere this threatened hour.
In sheltering forests to escape thy power;
Firm in their rectitude, they scorned to fly;
Thy foes they were not,-they resolved to die.
Yet think not thou, amidst thy warlike bands,
They lie beyond redemption in thine hands:
The God in whom they trust may help them still,
They know he can deliver, and HE WILL:
Whether by life, or death, afflict them not,
On his decree, not thine, they rest their lot.
For me, unworthy with the just to share
Death or deliverance, this is Javan's prayer;
Mercy, O God! to these in life be shown,
I die rejoicing, if I die alone."
"Thou shalt not die alone;" a voice replied,
A well-known voice-'twas Zillah at his side;
She, while he spake, with eagerness to hear,
Step after step, unconsciously drew near;
Her bosom with severe compunction wrung,
Pleased or alarmed, on every word she hung.
He turned his face;-with agonizing air,
In all the desolation of despair,
She stood; her hands to heaven uplift and claspe
Then suddenly unloosed, his arm she grasped,
And thus, in wild apostrophes of wo,
Yented her grief while tears refused to flow.
"OI have wronged thee, Javan!-Let us be
Espoused in death :-No, I will die for thee.
-Tyrant! behold thy victim; on my head
Be all the bitterness of vengeance shed,
But spare the innocent; let Javan live
Whose crime was love:-Can Javan too forgive
Love's slightest, fondest weakness, maiden-shame,
-It was not pride,—that hid my bosom-flame ?
And wilt thou mourn the poor transgressor's death,
Who says, 'I love thee,' with her latest breath?
And when thou thinkst of days and years gone by,
Will thoughts of Zillah sometimes swell thine eye ?
If ever ou hast cherished in thine heart
Visions of hope, in which I bore a part;
If ever thou hast longed with me to share
One home-born joy, one home-endearing care;
If thou didst ever love me ;-speak the word,
Which late with feigned indifferency I heard;
Tell me, thou lovest ine still;-haste, Javan, mark,
How high those ruffians pile the fagots,-hark,
How the flames crackle,-see, how fierce they glare,
Like fiery serpents hissing through the air;
Farewell; I fear them not-Now seize me, bind
These willing limbs,-ye can not touch the mind;
Unawed, I stand on nature's failing brink:
-Nay look not on me, Javan, lest I shrink;
Give me thy prayers, but turn away thine eye,
That I may lift my soul to heaven, and die.”
Thus Zillah raved in passionate distress,
Till phrensy softened into tenderness;
Sorrow and love, with intermingling grace,
Terror and beauty, lightened o'er her face;
Her voice, her eye, in every soul was felt,
And giant-hearts were moved, unwont to melɩ.
Javan, in wonder, pity, and delight,
Almost forgot his being, at the sight;
That bending form, those suppliant accents, seem,
The strange illusion of a lover's dream;
And while she clung upon his arm, he found
His limbs, his lips, as by enchantment, bound;
He dare not touch her, lest the charm should break,
He dare not move, lest heimself should wake.
But when she ceased to speak and he to hear,
The silence startled him;-cold, shivering fear
Crept o'er his nerves;-in thought he cast his eye
Back on the world, and heaved a bitter sigh,
Thus from life's sweetest pleasures to be torn,
Just when he seemed to new existence born,
And cease to feel, when feeling ceased to be
A fever of protracted misery,
And cease to love, when love no more was pain;
'Twas but a pang of transient weakness:-"Vain
Are all thy sorrows," falteringly he said;
"Already I am numbered with the dead;
But long and blissfully may Zillah live!
-And canst thou Javan's cruel scorn forgive?
And wilt thou mourn the poor transgressor's death,
Who says I love thee,' with his latest breath?
And when thou thinkest of days and years gone by,
Will thoughts of Javan sometimes swell thine eye?
Ah! while I withered in thy chilling frown,
'Twas easy then to lay life's burden down;
When singly sentenced to these flames, my mind
Gloried in leaving all I loved behind;
How hast thou triumphed o'er me in this hour!
One look has crushed my soul's collected power
Thy scorn I might endure, thy pride defy,
But O thy kindness makes it hard to die!"
"Then we will die together."—" Zillah ! no,
Thou shalt not perish; let me, let me go;
Behold thy parents; calm thy father's fears:
Thy mot her weeps; canst thou resist her tears ❤❤
"Away with folly!" in tremendous tone, Exclaimed a voice, more horrid than the groan Of famished tiger leaping on his prey; -Crouched at the monarch's feet the speaker lay; But starting up, in his ferocious mien
That monarch's ancient foster-sire was scen,
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