While from below The deep shall rise to meet heaven's overflow. It seems; and, of that few, the race of Cain In vain would be implored For the remission of one hour of woe, And wailing less for us than those who shall And, when the fatal waters are allay'd, And yours to live for ever: I would not keep this life of mine in clay Nor see ye lose a portion of his grace, Yet let me not retain thee-fly! My pangs can be but brief; but thine would be Too much already hast thou deign'd Our doom is sorrow: not to us alone, But to the spirits who have not disdain'd To love us, cometh anguish with disgrace. The first who taught us knowledge hath been hurl'd From his once archangelic throne Into some unknown world: And thou, Azaziel! No Thou shalt not suffer woe For me. Away! nor weep! Thou canst not weep; but yet Mayst suffer more, not weeping: then forget Her, whom the surges of the all-strargling deep Father! and thou, archangel, thou! Let them not meet this sea without a shore, Save in our ark, or let me be no more! Noah. Peace, child of passion, peace! If not within thy heart, yet with thy tongue Do God no wrong! Live as he wills it-die, when he ordains, To alter his intent For a mere mortal sorrow. Be a man! Floating upon the azure desert, and Who, who, our tears, our shrieks, shall then com- Yet while 'tis time! Renew not Adam's fall: Mankind were then but twain, But they are numerous now as are the waves Whose drops shall be less thick than would their graves, Angel! forgive this stripling's fond despair. Raph. Seraphs! these mortals speak in passion: Ye! Who are, or should be, passionless and pure, May now return with me. Japh. Farewell! Alas! where shall they dwell? Hark, hark! Deep sounds, and deeper still, Are howling from the mountain's bosom: There's not a breath of wind upon the hill, Yet quivers every leaf, and drops each blossom: Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load. Noah. Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry! In clouds they overspread the lurid sky, And hover round the mountain, where before Never a white wing, wetted by the wave, Yet dared to soar, Even when the waters wax'd too fierce to brave. Soon it shall be their only shore, How darest thou look on that prophetic sky, With just Jehovah's wrath! Japh. Can rage and justice join in the same path? Noah. Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now? Raph. Patriarch, be still a father! smooth thy brow: Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink: He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters; But be, when passion passeth, good as thou, Nor perish like heaven's children with man's daugh ters. Aho. The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite Between our strength and the Eternal Might! Where thou and Anah shalt partake our lot: ye far And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth, Our forfeit heaven shall also be forgot. Anah. Oh! my dear father's tents, my place of birth, And mountains, land, and woods! when ye are not, Who shall dry up my tears? Aza. Raph. Rebel! thy words are wicked, as thy deeds Aza. It cannot slay us: threaten dust with death, And talk of weapons unto that which bleeds. What are thy swords in our immortal eyes? Raph. The moment cometh to approve thy strength; And learn at length (1) "In his description of the deluge, which is a varied and recurring master-piece,-(we hear it foretold, and we see it come,)-Lord Byron appears to us to have had an eye to Poussin's celebrated picture, with the sky hanging like a weight of lead upon the waters, the sun quenched and lurid, the rocks and trees, with fugitives upon them gloomily watching their fate, and a few figures struggling vainly with the overwhelming waves." Jeffrey.-L. E. (2) "The elopement of spirits with children of dust is an incident that wants the sanction of reason, good-taste, popular opinion, history, or tradition. It is only counte nanced by the mythology which school-boys learn from their pantheons, and, when endowed with natural good sense, learn to despise before they cease to be boys; and by the romances, which the good sense of later ages has discarded from their literature, although the superior sense of this enlightened age seems willing to restore them to favour. Milton is so far from countenancing any thing so monstrous and inconceivable as sexual love between spiritual and material creatures, that his Adam speaks to Raphael of the passion to which he was too much enthralled by female charms, even where it was properly and naturally placed, as a weakness of which he seems to be half ashamed 'Here passion first! felt Commotion strange! In all enjoyments else, How vain to war with what thy God commands. Thy former force was in thy faith. Enter Mortals, flying for refuge. Chorus of Mortals. The heavens and earth are mingling--God! oh God! What have we done? Yet spare! Hark! even the forest beasts howl forth their prayer! The dragon crawls from out his den, To herd, in terror, innocent with men ; And the birds scream their agony through air. Yet, yet, Jehovah! yet withdraw thy rod Of wrath, and pity thine own world's despair! Hear not man only, but all nature plead! Raph. Farewell, thou earth! ye wretched sons of I cannot, must not, aid you. "Tis decreed! [Exit RAPHAEL. Japh. Some clouds sweep on as vultures for their prey, [clay! While others, fix'd as rocks, await the word Aza. Come, Anah! quit this chaos-founded prison, To which the elements again repair, To turn it into what it was: beneath A brighter world than this, where thou shalt breathe These darken'd clouds are not the only skies. [AZAZIEL and SAMIASA fly off, and disappear with ANAR and AHOLIBAMAH. (2) Japh. They are gone! They have disappear'd amidst the roar Of the forsaken world; and never more, Chorus of Mortals. Oh son of Noah! mercy on thy kind! Superior and unmoved. Here only, weak Against the charms of Beauty's powerful glance.' The angel rebukes him for yielding to a subjection unworthy the perfection of his nature, and warns him of the debasement and disgrace in which it might involve him. This produces a question from the man, whether sexual love made no part of the happiness of the blest abode? To whom the angel (with 'a smile that glowed celestial rosy red, love's proper hue',) answered Let it suffice thee, that thou know'st What Adam says, on another occasion, may be applied to these unnatural conjunctions: Among unequals, what society Can sort, what harmony, and true delight?" In Lord Byron's poem, they are censured by Noah, as improper and unlawful; but this does not lessen the absurdity of supposing them possible." Anon.-L. E. (3) "The despair of the mortal lovers for the loss of their mortal mistresses is well and pathetically expressed." Jeffrey.-L. E. While safe amidst the elemental strife, A Mother (offering her infant to JAPHET). Oh let this child embark! I brought him forth in woe, But thought it joy To see him to my bosom chuging so. What hath he done My unwean'd son To move Jehovah's wrath or scorn? What is there in this milk of mine, that death Should stir all heaven and earth up to destroy My boy, And roll the waters o'er his placid breath? Or cursed be with him who made Thee and thy race, for which we are betray'd! Chorus of Mortals. For prayer !!! And where Shall prayer ascend, When the swoln clouds unto the mountains bend And burst, And gushing oceans every barrier rend, Be he who made thee and thy sire! We deem our curses vain; we must expire; But as we know the worst, Why should our hymn be raised, our knees be bent Before the implacable Omnipotent, Since we must fall the same? If he hath made earth, let it be his shame, To make a world for torture.-Lo! they come, The loathsome waters, in their rage! And with their roar make wholesome nature dumb! Ere Eve gave Adam knowledge for her dower, Or Adam his first hymn of slavery sung), So massy, vast, yet green in their old age, Their summer blossoms by the surges lopp'd, Vainly we look up to the lowering skies They meet the seas, And shut out God from our beseeching eyes. Fly, son of Noah, fly! and take thine ease In thine allotted ocean-tent; And view, all floating o'er the element, The corpses of the world of thy young days: Thy song of praise! A Mortal. Blessed are the dead Who die in the Lord! (1) "This poem, or rather first part of a poem, for so it is stated to be, carries with it the peculiar impress of the writer's genius. It displays great vigour, and even a severity of style, throughout; which is another proof, if proof were needed, that elevation of writing is to be obtained only by a rigid regard to simplicity. It may be perused without shocking the feelings of the sensitive, or furnishing an object for the discriminating morality of any Lord Chancellor. Lord Byron has evidently endeavoured to sustain the interest of this poem, by depicting natural but deep-drawn thoughts, in all their freshness and intensity, with as little fictitious And though the waters be o'er earth outspread, Yet, as his word Be the decree adored? He gave me life-he taketu but And though these eyes should be for ever shut, Still blessed be the Lord, For what is past, For that which is: For all are his, From first to last Time-space-eternity-life-death The vast known and immeasurable unknown. He made, and can unmake; And shall I, for a little gasp of breath, Blaspheme and groan? No; let me die, as I have lived, in faith, Nor quiver, though the universe may quake! aid as possible. Nothing is circumlocutory: there is no going about and about to enter at length upon his object, but he impetuously rushes into it at once. All over the poem there is a gloom cast suitable to the subject: an ominous fearful hue, like that which Poussin has flung over his inimitable picture of the Deluge. We see much evil, but we dread more. All is out of earthly keeping, as the events of the time are out of the course of nature. Man's wickedness, the perturbed creation, fear-struck mortals, demons passing to and fro in the earth, an overshadowing solemnity, and unearthly loves, form together the materials. That it has faults is obvious: prosaic passages, and too much tedious soliloquising: but there is the vigour and force of Byron to fling into the scale against these there is much of the sublime in description, and the beautiful in poetry. Prejudice, or ignorance, or both, may condemn it; but while true poetical feeling exists amongst us, it will be pronounced not unworthy of its distinguished author."― Campbell. "It appears that this is but the first part of a poem; but it is likewise a poem, and a fine one too, within itself. We confess that we see little or nothing objectionable in it, either as to theological orthodoxy, or general human feeling. It is solemn, lofty, fearful, wild, tumultuous, and shadowed all over with the darkness of a dreadful disaster. Of the angels who love the daughters of men we see little, and know less and not too much of the love and passion of the fair lost mortals. The inconsolable despair preceding and accompanying an incomprehensible catastrophe, pervades the whole composition; and its expression is made sublime by the noble strain of poetry in which it is said or sung. Sometimes there is heaviness-dulness-as if it were pressed in on purpose; intended, perhaps, to denote the occasional stupefaction, drowsiness, and torpidity of soul produced by the impending destruction upon the latest of the antedilu vians. But, on the whole, it is not unworthy of Lord Byron." -Wilson. "Lord Byron's Mystery, with whatever crudeness and defects it is chargeable, certainly has more poetry and music in it than any of his dramatic writings since Manfred; and has also the peculiar merit of throwing us back, in a great degree, to the strange and preternatural time of which it professes to treat. It is truly, and in every sense of the word, a meeting of Heaven and Earth; angels are seen ascending and descending, and the windows of the sky are opened to deluge the face of nature. We have an impassioned picture of the strong and devoted attachment inspired into the daughters of men by angel forms, and have placed before us the emphatic picture of woman wailing for her demon lover.' There is a like conflict of the passions as of the elements-all wild, chaotic, uncontrollable, fatal; but there is a discordant harmony in all this-a keeping in the colouring and the time. In handling the unpolished page, we look upon the world before the Flood, and gaze upon a doubtful blank, with only a few straggling figures, part human and part divine; while, in the expression of the former, we read the fancies, ethereal and lawless, that lifted the eye of beauty to the skies, and in the latter, the human passions that drew angels down to earth.'”—Jeffrey. "According to that vague and mysterious conception of grandeur which religious or poetic minds associate with the antediluvian ages of the world, there were giants in those days: the face of nature, the animal and vegetable productions, the stature, the longevity, the passions of men, were of a vast and majestic growth, unknown in the later and more feeble days of our ordinary world. Hence, from a poet who throws himself back into those times, we make the unreasonable demand, that he should keep the scenes and persons whom he introduces to our notice sufficiently allied to our common sympathies to excite our interest; while, at the same time, they must appear as almost belonging to another earth, and a different race of beings. We imperiously require that degree of reality, without which no poetry can become lastingly popular: yet that reality must be far removed from all our ordinary notions; the region visited by angels must be formed of the same elements, yet possess a totally distinct character from that which we inhabit: the sons and daughters of men, who enjoyed familiar intercourse with a higher race of beings, while we are to feel for them as akin to ourselves, must partake in some degree of the unearthly nature of their celestial visitants. To this at once real and unreal world, among this human yet ut the same time almost preterhuman race, we must be transported by the imagination of the poet; and the slightest incongruity, the most insignificant vulgarism, or modernism, or even too great similarity to the ordinary features of nature, breaks the charm at once, and destroys the character of the picture, as a faithful representation of the pri meval earth, and the mighty race which nature bore while yet in her prime of youth. Among all the wonderful excellencies of Milton, nothing surpasses the pure and undisturbed idealism with which he has drawn our first parents, so completely human as to excite our most ardent sympa thies, yet so far distinct from the common race of men as manifestly to belong to a higher and uncorrupted state of being. In like manner, his Paradise is formed of the universal productions of nature-the flowers, the fruits, the trees, the waters, the cool breezes, the soft and sunny slopes, the majestic hills that skirt the scene; yet the whole is of an earlier, a more prolific, a more luxuriant vegetation: it fully comes up to our notion of what the earth might have been before it was cursed of its Creator.' This is the more remarkable, as Milton himself sometimes destroys, or at least mars, the general effect of his picture, by the introduction of incongruous thoughts or images. It has, not without justice, been said, that sometimes God the Father turns a school divine;' and it is impossible, now and then, not to regret the intrusion of the religious controversies of modern days. The poet's passions are, on occasions, too strong for his imagination, drag him down to earth, and, for the sake of some illtimed allusion to some of those circumstances which had taken possession of his mighty mind, he runs the hazard of breaking the solemn enchantment with which he has spellbound our captive senses. Perhaps, of later writers, Lord Byron alone has caught the true tone, in his short drama called Heaven and Earth. Here, notwithstanding that we cannot but admit the great and manifold delinquencies against correct taste, particularly some perfectly ludicrous metrical whimsies, yet all is in keeping-all is strange, poetic, oriental; the lyric abruptness, the prodigal accumulation of images in one part, and the rude simplicity in others -above all, the general tone of description as to natural objects, and of language and feeling in the scarcely mortal beings which come forth upon the scene, seem to throw us upward into the age of men before their lives were sbortened to the narrow span of three-score years and ten, and when all that walked the earth were not born of woman." -Milman. "From the Loves of the Angels, we turn to a 'strain of higher mood;' with feelings much like those which would arise on leaving the contemplation of a 'Holy Family' by Carlo Dolce, to behold the Last Judgment' of Michel Angelo. The Mystery of Heaven and Earth is conceived in the best style of the greatest masters of poetry and painting. It is not unworthy of Dante, and of the mighty artist to whom we have alluded. As a picture of the last deluge, it is incomparably grand and awful. The characters, too, are invested with great dignity and grace. Nothing can be more imposing and fascinating than the haughty, and imperious, and passionate beauty of the daughter of Cain; nor any thing more venerable than the mild but inflexible dignity of the patriarch Noah. We trust that no one will be found with feelings so obtuse, with taste so perverted, or with malignity so undisguised, as to mar the beauties of pictures like these, by imputing to their author the cool profession of those sentiments which he exhibits as extorted from perishing mortals, in their last instants of despair and death. Such a poem as this, if read aright, is calculated, by its lofty passion and sublime conceptions, to exalt the mind and to purify the heart beyond the power of many a sober homily. It will remain an imperishable monument of the transcendent talents of its author; whom it has raised, in our estimation, to a higher pitch of pre-eminence than he ever before attained." M. Mag.-L. E. Sardanapalus; AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY.(1) TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS GOETHE A STRANGER PRESUMES TO OFFER THE HOMAGE OF A LITERARY VASSAL TO HIS LIEGE LORD, Who has Created the Literature of his own Country, AND ILLUSTRATED THAT OF EUROPE. THE UNWORTHY PRODUCTION WHICH THE AUTHOR VENTURES TO INSCRIBE TO HIM IS ENTITLED PREFACE. "SARDANAPALUS." (2) IN publishing the following Tragedies (3) I have only to repeat, that they were not composed with the most remote view to the stage. On the attempt made by the Managers in a former instance, the public opinion has been already expressed. With regard to my own private feelings, as it seems that they are to stand for nothing, I shall say nothing. For the historical foundation of the following compositions, the reader is referred to the Notes. The Author has in one instance attempted to preserve, and in the other to approach, the "unities ;" conceiving that with any very distant departure from them, there may be poetry, but can be no drama. (1) On the original MS. Lord Byron has written :-"Mem. Ravenna, May 27, 1821.-I began this drama on the 13th of January, 1821; and continued the two first acts, very slowly and by intervals. The three last acts were written since the 13th of May, 1821 (this present month); that is to say, in a fortnight." The following are extracts from Lord B.'s diary and letters:- January 15, 1821. Sketched the outline and Dram. Pers. of an intended tragedy of Sardanapalus, which I have for some time meditated. Took the names from Diodorus Siculus (I know the history of Sardanapalus, and have known it since I was twelve years old), and read over a passage in the ninth volume of Mitford's Greece, where he rather vindicates the memory of this last of the Assyrians. Carried Teresa the Italian translation of Grillparzer's Sappho. She quarrelled with me, because I said that love was not the loftiest theme for a tragedy; and, having the advantage of her native language, and natural female eloquence, she overcame my fewer arguments. I believe she was right. I must put more love into Sardanapalus than I intended." "May 25. I have completed four acts. I have made Sardanapalus brave (though voluptuous, as history represents him), and also as amiable as my poor powers could render him. I have strictly preserved all the unities hitherto, and mean to continue them in the fifth, if possible; but NOT for the stage." "May 30. By this post I send you the tragedy. You will remark that the unities are all strictly preserved. The scene passes in the same hall always: the time, a summer's night, about nine hours or less; though it begins before sunset, and ends after sunrise. is not for the stage, any more than the other was intended for it; and I shall take better care this time that they don't get hold on't." It "July 14. I trust that Sardanapalus will not be mistaken for a political play; which was so far from my intention, that I thought of nothing but Asiatic history. My object has been to dramatise, like the Greeks (a modest phrase), striking passages of history and mythology. You will find all this very unlike Shakspeare; and so much the better in one sense, for I look upon him to be the worst of models, though the most extraordinary of writers. It has been my object to be as simple and severe as Alfieri, and I have broken d wn the poetry as nearly as I could to common language. The hardship is that, in these times, one can neither speak of kings nor queens without suspicion of politics or personalities. I intended neither." He is aware of the unpopularity of this notion in present English literature; but it is not a system of his own, being merely an opinion which, not very long ago, was the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it. But "nous avons changé tout cela," and are reaping the advantages of the change. The writer is far from conceiving that any thing he can adduce by personal precept or example can at all approach his regular, or even irregular, predecessors: he is merely giving a reason why he preferred the more regular formation of a structure, however feeble, to an entire abandonment of all rules whatsoever. Where he has failed, the failure is in the architect,-and not in the art.(4) "July 22. Print away, and publish. I think they must own that I have more styles than one. Sardanapalus is, however, almost a comic character: but, for that matter, so is Richard the Third. Mind the unities, which are my great object of research. I am glad Gifford likes it: as for the million, you see I have carefully consulted any thing but the taste of the day for extravagant 'coups-dethéâtre." Sardanapalus was published in December, 1821, and was received with very great approbation.'-L. E. (2) "Well knowing myself and my labours, in my old age, I could not but reflect with gratitude and diffidence on the expressions contained in this dedication, nor interpret them but as the generous tribute of a superior genius, no less original in the choice than inexhaustible in the materials of his subjects." Goethe.-L. E. (3) Sardanapalus originally appeared in the same volume with The Foscari and Cain.-L. E (4) "In this preface," (says Mr. Jeffrey) "Lord Byron renews his protest against looking upon any of his plays as having been composed with the most remote view to the stage; and, at the same time, testifies in behalf of the unities, as essential to the existence of the drama-according to what was, till lately, the law of literature throughout the world, and is still so in the more civilised parts of it.' We do not think these opinions very consistent; and we think that neither of them could possibly find favour with a person whose genius had a truly dramatic character. We should as soon expect an orator to compose a speech altogether unfit to be spoken. A drama is not merely a dia. logue, but an action; and necessarily supposes that something is to pass before the eyes of assembled spectators. Whatever is peculiar to its written part should derive its The following is an extract from The Life of Dr. Parr:-" In the course of the evening the Doctor cried out-Have you read Sardanapalus? Yes, Sir. Right; and you couldn't sleep a wink after it - No.'- Right, right-now don't say a word more about it to-night. The memory of that fine poem seemed to act like a spell of horrible fascination upon him." |