Heaven And Earth Monologue
| Heaven And Earth Monologue by Lord Byron | |
| Character: | Japhet |
| Gender: | Male |
| Age (range): | ? |
| Style: | Classical |
| Length: | < 3 minutes |
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- JAPHET: Ye wilds, that look eternal; and thou cave,
- Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
- So varied and so terrible in beauty;
- Here, in your rugged majesty of rocks
- And toppling trees that twine their roots with stone
- In perpendicular places, where the foot
- Of man would tremble, could he reach them—yes,
- Ye look eternal! Yet, in a few days,
- Perhaps even hours, ye will be changed, rent, hurl'd
- Before the mass of waters; and yon cave,
- Which seems to lead into a lower world,
- Shall have its depths search'd by the sweeping wave,
- And dolphins gambol in the lion's den!
- And man—Oh, men! my fellow-beings! Who
- Shall weep above your universal grave,
- Save I? Who shall be left to weep? My kinsmen,
- Alas! what am I better than ye are,
- That I must live beyond ye? Where shall be
- The pleasant places where I thought of Anah
- While I had hope? or the more savage haunts,
- Scarce less beloved, where I despair'd for her?
- And can it be!—Shall yon exulting peak,
- Whose glittering top is like a distant star,
- Lie low beneath the boiling of the deep?
- No more to have the morning sun break forth,
- And scatter back the mists in floating folds
- From its tremendous brow? no more to have
- Day's broad orb drop behind its head at even,
- Leaving it with a crown of many hues?
- No more to be the beacon of the world,
- For angels to alight on, as the spot
- Nearest the stars? And can those words "no more"
- Be meant for thee, for all 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 prolong'd,
- To hiss and sting through some emerging world,
- 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 undistinguish'd sepulchre,
- Of yet quick myriads of all life? How much
- Breath will be still'd at once! All beauteous world!
- So young, so mark'd out for destruction, I
- With a cleft heart look on thee day by day,
- And night by night, thy number'd days and nights.
- 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!
- Which seem'st unfathomable; and ye mountains,
Credits: Reprinted from Lord Byron: Six Plays. Lord Byron. Los Angeles: Black Box Press, 2007.
