Glory to Thee, whatever ill befall,
For faith on thy victorious name to call;
Thine own eternal purposes fulfil;
We come, O God! to suffer all thy will."

Refresh'd 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 pass'd, along the brink the path they kept, Where high aloof o'er-arching willows wept, Whose silvery foliage glisten'd in the beam, And floating shadows fringed the chequer'd stream.

Adjacent rose a myrtle-planted mound, Whose spiry top a granite fragment crown'd; Tinctured with many-color'd moss, the stone, Rich as a cloud of summer evening, shone Amidst encircling verdure, that array'd The beauteous hillock with a cope of shade.

"Javan!" said Enoch, "on this spot began The fatal curse ;-man perish'd here by man: The earliest 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 reek'd 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 mutter'd 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 plow 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 answer'd in despair, Greater the punishment than flesh can bear.' -Yet shalt thou bear it; on thy brow reveal'd, Thus be thy sentence and thy safeguard seal'd. Silently, swiftly as the lightning's blast, A hand of fire athwart his temples pass'd; 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 murder'd Abel durst he look; Yet power to fly his palsied limbs forsook; There, turn'd 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 return'd, he fled. That mount 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 disburthen'd breast,
Amongst his race the murdering spirit reigns,
But riots fiercest in the giants' veins.
-Sprung from false leagues, when monstrous love
combined

The sons of God and daughters of mankind,
Self-styled 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 tower'd,
And giant-strength all mortal strength o'erpower'd,
To Heaven the proud blasphemers raised their eyes,
And scorn'd 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,
Compell'd their reptile-brethren to obey,

And doom'd their human herds, with thankless toil,
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,
Dishonor'd 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 hurl'd,

These men of prey laid waste the eastern world.
They taught their tributary hordes to wield
The sword, red-flaming, through the death-strown
field,

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 turn'd,
In kindred breasts unnatural hatred burn'd!
Brother met brother in the lists of strife,
The son lay lurking for the father's life;
With rabid instinct, men who never knew
Each other's face before, each other slew;
All tribes, all nations learn'd the fatal art,
And every hand was arm'd to pierce a heart.
Nor man alone the giants' might subdued;
-The camel, wean'd from quiet solitude,
Grazed round their camps, or slow along the road,
'Midst marching legions, bore the servile loud.
With flying forelock and dishevell'd mane,
They caught the wild steed prancing o'er the plain,
For war or pastime rein'd his fiery force;
Fleet as the wind he stretch'd along the course,
Or loudly neighing at the trumpet's sound,
With hoofs of thunder smote the indented ground.
The enormous elephant obey'd their will,
And, tamed to cruelty with direst skill,
Roar'd 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.

"A goat-herd 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,
Call phantoms of futurity to light.

"T was 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 unfix 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
Open'd or shut the gates of life and death.
O'er Nature's powers he claim'd 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,
Obey'd his mandate:-lord of all the rest,
Man more than all his hidden art confess'd,
Cringed to his face, consulted, and revered
His oracles, detested him, and fear'd.

"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 look'd down upon the skies, For thus he feign'd, in his ecstatic mood, To summon divination from the flood. His steady view a floating object cross'd; His eye pursued it till the sight was lost.An outcast infant in a fragile bark! The river whirl'd the willow-woven ark Down tow'rds the deep; the tide returning bore The little voyager unharm'd to shore: Him in his cradle-ship securely bound With swathing skins, at eve the goat-herd 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 crown'd, And torrid suns his flexile limbs embrown'd: Then as he sprang from green to florid age, And rose to giant-stature, stage by stage, He roam'd the valleys with his browsing flock, And leapt in joy of youth from rock to rock; Climb'd 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 pass'd; Limb lock'd o'er limb, with many a straitening fold Of orbs inextricably involved, he roll'd On earth in vengeance, broke the twisted toils, Strangled the hissing fiend, and wore the spoils.

To nerve the frame, and petrify the heart,
The wizard train'd 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 horn'd rhinoceros at bay;
His feet o'er highest hills pursue the hind,
Or tire the ostrich buoyant on the wind.

"Yet 't was 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 Pluck'd by the tempest, forth he sail'd alone, And reach'd the gulf;-with eye of eager fire, And flushing cheek, he watch'd the shores retire, Till sky and water wide around were spread; -Straight to the sun he thought his voyage led, With shouts of transport hail'd its setting light, And follow'd 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 check'd them :-young ambition burn'd For bolder enterprise, as he return'd.

"Through snares and deaths pursuing fame and

power,

He scorn'd 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 till'd the soil,
By noble arts had learn'd to lighten toil;
Wisely their scatter'd knowledge he combined;
Yet had an hundred years matured his mind,
Ere with the strength that laid the forest low,
And skill that made the iron furnace glow,
His genius launch'd the keel, and sway'd the helm
(His throne and sceptre on the wat'ry 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, Fulfill'd at length he deems his early vow; His foot hath overrun the world, his hand Smitten to dust the pride of every land: The Patriarchs last, beneath his impious rod, He dooms to perish or abjure their God. -O God of truth! rebuke the tyrant's rage, And 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.

CANTO VIII.

The Scene changes to a Mountain, on the Summit of which, beneath 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 Lyre, 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. Though 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 fashion'd 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 alone through Nature's change endures; Transfused like life, from breast to breast it glows, From sire to son by sure succession flows, Speeds its unceasing flight from clime to clime, Outstripping Death upon the wings of Time.

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 grey, Mature below, their tops in dry decay, A bard of Jubal's lineage proudly sung, Then stay'd 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, Flush'd with new wine, around their king they sate: A chieftain each, who, on his brazen car, Had led an host of meaner men to war; And now from recent fight on Eden's plain, Where fell their foes, in helpless conflict slain, Victoriously return'd, beneath the trees They rest from toil, carousing at their ease.

Adjacent, where the mountain's spacious breast
Open'd 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 vanish'd with the Flood.
-Divinities of brass, and stone, and wood,
By man himself in his own image made;
The fond creator to the creature pray'd!
And he, who from the forest or the rock
Hew'd the rough mass, adored the shapen block!
Then seem'd his flocks ignoble in his eyes,
His choicest herds too mean for sacrifice,

He pour'd his brethren's blood upon the pyre,
And pass'd 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 display'd
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
Dragg'd from their dens, or slain in chase or fight;
His raven locks, unblanch'd by withering Time,
Amply dishevell'd o'er his brow sublime;
His dark eyes, flush'd with restless radiance, gleam
Like broken moonlight rippling on the stream.
Grandeur of soul, which nothing might appal,
And nothing satisfy if less than all,

Had stamp'd upon his air, his form, his face,

Inspiring visions of departed days,

Or, with the glimpses of mysterious rhyme,
Dawn on the dreams of unawaken'd 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 fill'd:
-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 cannot 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,

But direst cruelty, by guile represt,
Lurk'd 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 crush'd, with one remorseless blow,
The remnant of his last and noblest foe;

At hand he view'd the trophies of his toils,
Herds, flocks, and steeds, the world's collected spoils;
Below, his legions march'd in war array,
Unstain'd with blood in that unequal fray:
-An hundred tribes, whose sons their arms had borne,
Without contention, from the field at morn,
Their bands dividing, when the fight was won,
Darken'd the region towards the slanting sun,

225

Where half-extinct the smouldering fuel glow'd,
And levell'd copses strew'd the open road.
Unharm'd as spirits while they seem'd 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 turn'd,
But in their wake with mounting fury burn'd.
Our host recoil'd from that amazing sight;
Scarcely the king himself restrain'd their flight;
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 split 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 flush'd
With dreadful valor, on their foes they rush'd;
The Giants met them midway on the plain;
T was but a struggle of a moment;-slain,
They fell; their relics, to the flames return'd,
As offerings to the immortal gods were burn'd;
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 turn'd upon the king; He, while the stoutest hearts recoil'd with fear, And Giants trembled their own deeds to hear, Unmoved and unrelenting, in his mind Deeds of more impious enterprise design'd: A dire conception labor'd 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 appear'd to rise, But blazed a beacon through nocturnal skies. As Etna, view'd from ocean far away, Slumbers in blue revolving smoke by day, Till darkness, with terrific splendor, shows The eternal fires that crest the eternal snows;' So where the cherubim in vision turn'd Their flaming swords, the summit lower'd or burn'd. 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 hurl'd

His thunders round the subjugated world;
Lord of the nether universe, his pride
Was rein'd, while Paradise his power defied.
An upland isle, by meeting streams embraced,
It tower'd to heaven amidst a sandy waste;
Below, impenetrable woods display'd
Depths of mysterious solitude and shade;
Above, with adamantine bulwarks crown'd,
Primeval rocks in hoary masses frown'd;

1 Sorge nel sen de la Sicilia aprica
Monte superbo al cielo,

Che d'atro incendio incoronato ha il crine;
Sparso il tergo è di neve, e fatta amica
Lambe la fiamma il gielo,

E tra discreti ardor duran le brine.-F. Testi.

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 Patriarchs' race, -A lovely and a venerable band

Of young and old, amidst their foes they stand;
Unawed they see the fiery trial near;
They fear'd their God, and knew no other fear.'

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 tipt the hills, now glanced athwart the streams, Till, darting through the clouds her beauteous eye, She open'd all the temple of the sky; The Giants, closing in a narrower ring, By turns survey'd the prisoners and the king. Javan stood forth;-to all the youth was known, And every eye was fix'd on him alone.

CANTO IX.

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, the sons of God shall prove my power: Offer'd by me, their blood shall be the price Of demon-aid to conquer Paradise." Thus while he threaten'd, Javan caught his view, And instantly his visage changed its hue; Inflamed with rage past utterance, he frown'd, He gnash'd 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 return'd, and fix'd at last:

Slaves! smite the traitor; be his limbs consign'd

To flames, his ashes scatter'd to the wind!"

He cried in tone so vehement, so loud,
Instinctively recoil'd the shuddering crowd;