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 prolonged,
To hiss and sting through some emerging world, 40
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 undistinguished sepulchre,
Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
Breath will be stilled at once! All beauteous world!
So young, so marked out for destruction, I
With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
And night by night, thy numbered days and nights. 50
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_.

_Japh._ In the name
Of the Most High, what art thou?

_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha! ha![146]

_Japh._ By all that earth holds holiest, speak!

_Spirit_ (_laughs_). Ha! ha!

_Japh._ By the approaching deluge! by the earth
Which will be strangled by the ocean! by
The deep which will lay open all her fountains! 60
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?

_Japh._ For earth and all her children.

_Spirit_. Ha! ha! ha!
[_Spirit vanishes_.

_Japh._ 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 70
Sleep too upon the very