A DRAMA OF EXILE.
57
Half-sheathed in primal woods, and glittering
In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour
A lion couched,—part raised upon his paws,
With his calm, massive face turned full on thine,
And his mane listening. When the ended curse
Left silence in the world,—right suddenly
He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff,
As if the new reality of death
Were dashed against his eyes,—and roared so fierce,
(Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear)—
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills
Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales
To distant silence,—that the forest beasts,
One after one, did mutter a response
In savage and in sorrowful complaint
Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once,
He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height,
Hid by the dark-orbed pines.
Adam.It might have been.
I heard the curse alone.
Earth Spirits.I wail, I wail!
Lucifer. That lion is the type of what I am!
And as he fixed thee with his full-faced hate,
And roared, O Adam—comprehending doom;
So, gazing on the face of the Unseen,
I cry out here, between the Heavens and earth,
My conscience of this sin, this woe, this wrath,
Which damn me to this depth!
Earth Spirits.I wail, I wail!
Eve. I wail—O God!
Lucifer.I scorn you that ye wail,
Who use your petty griefs for pedestals
To stand on, beckoning pity from without,
And deal in pathos of antithesis
Of what ye were forsooth, and what ye are;—
I scorn you like an angel! Yet, one cry,
I, too, would drive up, like a column erect,
In spasms of awful sunshine, at that hour
A lion couched,—part raised upon his paws,
With his calm, massive face turned full on thine,
And his mane listening. When the ended curse
Left silence in the world,—right suddenly
He sprang up rampant, and stood straight and stiff,
As if the new reality of death
Were dashed against his eyes,—and roared so fierce,
(Such thick carnivorous passion in his throat
Tearing a passage through the wrath and fear)—
And roared so wild, and smote from all the hills
Such fast, keen echoes crumbling down the vales
To distant silence,—that the forest beasts,
One after one, did mutter a response
In savage and in sorrowful complaint
Which trailed along the gorges. Then, at once,
He fell back, and rolled crashing from the height,
Hid by the dark-orbed pines.
Adam.It might have been.
I heard the curse alone.
Earth Spirits.I wail, I wail!
Lucifer. That lion is the type of what I am!
And as he fixed thee with his full-faced hate,
And roared, O Adam—comprehending doom;
So, gazing on the face of the Unseen,
I cry out here, between the Heavens and earth,
My conscience of this sin, this woe, this wrath,
Which damn me to this depth!
Earth Spirits.I wail, I wail!
Eve. I wail—O God!
Lucifer.I scorn you that ye wail,
Who use your petty griefs for pedestals
To stand on, beckoning pity from without,
And deal in pathos of antithesis
Of what ye were forsooth, and what ye are;—
I scorn you like an angel! Yet, one cry,
I, too, would drive up, like a column erect,
