chapter vi

:2: “And it came to pass ... that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of all that they chose.” Byron offers as a further motif for his poem the following passage from Coleridge: “_And woman wailing for her Demon lover_.” Byron’s poem is concerned with two great events, one psychologic and one telluric; the passion which throws down all barriers; and all the terrors of the unchained powers of nature: a parallel which has already been introduced into our earlier discussion. The angels Samiasa and Azaziel burn with sinful love for the beautiful daughters of Cain, Anah and Aholibama, and force a way through the barrier which is placed between mortal and immortal. They revolt as Lucifer once did against God, and the archangel Raphael raises his voice warningly:

“But man hath listened to his voice And ye to woman’s—beautiful she is, The serpent’s voice less subtle than her kiss. The snake but vanquished dust; but she will draw A second host from heaven to break heaven’s law.”

The power of God is threatened by the seduction of passion; a second fall of angels menaces heaven. Let us translate this mythologic projection back into the psychologic, from whence it originated. Then it would read: the power of the good and reasonable ruling the world wisely is threatened by the chaotic primitive power of passion; therefore passion must be exterminated; that is to say, projected into mythology. The race of Cain and the whole sinful world must be destroyed from the roots by the deluge. It is the inevitable result of that sinful passion which has broken through all barriers. Its counterpart is the sea and the waters of the deep and the floods of rain,[191] the generating, fructifying and “maternal waters,” as the Indian mythology refers to them. Now they leave their natural bounds and surge over the mountain tops, engulfing all living things; for passion destroys itself. The libido is God and Devil. With the destruction of the sinfulness of the libido an essential portion of the libido would be destroyed. Through the loss of the Devil, God himself suffered a considerable loss, somewhat like an amputation upon the body of the Divinity. The mysterious hint in Raphael’s lament concerning the two rebels, Samiasa and Azaziel, suggests this.

“... Why, Cannot this earth be made, or be destroyed, Without involving ever some vast void In the immortal ranks?...”

Love raises man, not only above himself, but also above the bounds of his mortality and earthliness, up to divinity itself, and in the very act of raising him it destroys him. Mythologically, this self-presumption finds its striking expression in the building of the heaven-high tower of Babel, which brings confusion to mankind.[192] In Byron’s poem it is the sinful ambition of the race of Cain, for love of which it makes even the stars subservient and leads away the sons of God themselves. If, indeed, longing for the highest things—if I may speak so—is legitimate, then it lies in the circumstances that it leaves its human boundaries, that of sinfulness, and, therefore, destruction. The longing of the moth for the star is not absolutely pure and transparent, but glows in sultry mist, for man continues to be man. Through the excess of his longing he draws down the divine into the corruption of his passion;[193] therefore, he seems to raise himself to the Divine; but with that his humanity is destroyed. Thus the love of Anah and Aholibama for their angels becomes the ruin of gods and men. The invocation with which Cain’s daughters implore their angels is psychologically an exact parallel to Miss Miller’s poem.

_Anah_:[194]

Seraph! From thy sphere! Whatever star[195] contains thy glory.

In the eternal depths of heaven Albeit thou watchest with the ‘seven,’ Though through space infinite and hoary Before thy bright wings worlds will be driven,

Yet hear! Oh! think of her who holds thee dear!

And though she nothing is to thee, Yet think that thou art all to her.

· · · · ·

Eternity is in thy years, Unborn, undying beauty in thine eyes; With me thou canst not sympathize, Except in love, and there thou must Acknowledge that more loving dust Ne’er wept beneath the skies. Thou walkest thy many worlds,[196] thou seest The face of him who made thee great, As he hath made of me the least Of those cast out from Eden’s gate;

Yet, Seraph, dear! Oh hear! For thou hast loved me, and I would not die Until I know what I must die in knowing, That thou forgettest in thine eternity Her whose heart death could not keep from o’erflowing For thee, immortal essence as thou art,[197] Great is their love who love in sin and fear; And such, I feel, are waging in my heart A war unworthy: to an Adamite Forgive, my Seraph! that such thoughts appear. For sorrow is our element....

· · · · ·

The hour is near Which tells me we are not abandoned quite. Appear! Appear! Seraph! My own Azaziel! be but here, And leave the stars to their own light.

_Aholibama_:

I call thee, I await thee and I love thee.

· · · · ·

Though I be formed of clay, And thou of beams[198] More bright than those of day on Eden’s streams, Thine immortality cannot repay With love more warm than mine My love. There is a ray[199] In me, which though forbidden yet to shine, I feel was lighted at thy God’s and mine.[200] It may be hidden long: death and decay Our mother Eve bequeathed us—but my heart Defies it: though this life must pass away, Is that a cause for thee and me to part?

· · · · ·

I can share all things, even immortal sorrow; For thou hast ventured to share life with me, And shall I shrink from thine eternity? No, though the serpent’s sting[201] should pierce me through, And thou thyself wert like the serpent, coil Around me still.[202] And I will smile And curse thee not, but hold Thee in as warm a fold As—but descend and prove A mortal’s love For an immortal....

The apparition of both angels which follows the invocation is, as always, a shining vision of light.

_Aholibama_:

The clouds from off their pinions flinging As though they bore to-morrow’s light.

_Anah_:

But if our father see the sight!

_Aholibama_:

He would but deem it was the moon Rising unto some sorcerer’s tune An hour too soon.

· · · · ·

_Anah_:

Lo! They have kindled all the west, Like a returning sunset.... On Ararat’s late secret crest A wild and many colored bow, The remnant of their flashing path, Now shines!...

At the sight of this many-colored vision of light, where both women are entirely filled with desire and expectation, Anah makes use of a simile full of presentiment, which suddenly allows us to look down once more into the dismal dark depths, out of which for a moment the terrible animal nature of the mild god of light emerges.

“... and now, behold! it hath Returned to night, as rippling foam, Which the leviathan hath lashed From his unfathomable home, When sporting on the face of the calm deep, Subsides soon after he again hath dash’d Down, down to where the ocean’s fountains sleep.”

Thus like the leviathan! We recall this overpowering weight in the scale of God’s justice in regard to the man Job. There, where the deep sources of the ocean are, the leviathan lives; from there the all-destroying flood ascends, the all-engulfing flood of animal passion. That stifling, compressing feeling[203] of the onward-surging impulse is projected mythologically as a flood which, rising up and over all, destroys all that exists, in order to allow a new and better creation to come forth from this destruction.

_Japhet_:

The eternal will Shall deign to expound this dream Of good and evil; and redeem Unto himself all times, all things;

And, gather’d under his almighty wings, Abolish hell! And to the expiated Earth Restore the beauty of her birth.

_Spirits_:

And when shall take effect this wondrous spell?

_Japhet_:

When the Redeemer cometh; first in pain And then in glory.

_Spirits_:

New times, new climes, new arts, new men, but still The same old tears, old crimes, and oldest ill, Shall be amongst your race in different forms; But the same mortal storms Shall oversweep the future, as the waves In a few hours the glorious giants’ graves.

The prophetic visions of Japhet have almost prophetic meaning for our poetess; with the death of the moth in the light, evil is once more laid aside; the complex has once again, even if in a censored form, expressed itself. With that, however, the problem is not solved; all sorrow and every longing begins again from the beginning, but there is “Promise in the Air”—the premonition of the Redeemer, of the “Well-beloved,” of the Sun-hero, who again mounts to the height of the sun and again descends to the coldness of the winter, who is the light of hope from race to race, the image of the libido.

## PART II

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