The Judgement of the Flood :: :: University of Virginia Library

But Symbol mere of Wisdom, partial sign;
And Woman but of Beauty the mere type,
Who should have been of Wisdom Image fair.
Yet Hope survives, though Innocence depart,
And Faith, and Love shall triumph over Death.
The Soul consumes the Sin wherein it burns,
With glory crowning, and transfiguring
The house of Death into Life's elements,
Making it radiant ere invisible,
Hallowed, and hallowing. Transgression thus
Preludes Salvation, which of twain makes one,
In dissolution but renewal finds.

Befits, in truth, such mysteries be veiled—
For Shame would Nature's nakedness defend,
And Grace in pity clothes the shrinking soul.
Better than words the hallowed symbols suit,
Which our revered progenitor himself
Bade to be pictured on his altar-tomb.
Lo, the Elohim breathe into the man,
Created of the dust, the breath of lives,
Whence he of clay becomes a living soul.

I, Wisdom, give instruction unto Men,
For I am Understanding, and with me
Is Prudence, Wealth, and Power from everlasting;
The Word of God the Genitor of all,
Through Him in the Beginning filiate;
Father of Spirits, Love Ineffable,
The Saviour, the Redeemer, evermore.
—With the First-Born, the Man his Mother hailed
As Him the Hope of Ages yet to come,
I communed from his birth; but Labour made
My lessons hard, whereby would Cain deserve
What else I proffered freely. Wroth he grew,
Full of the rage to know, and wish to merit;
Yea, and in all that he would still deserve,
And still would know, the Fury recognised,

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That appetite of thirst, and hunger keen
Kept in his soul alive. Thus outwardly
Possessed, as still within; companions fierce,
Shapes of strange anger, Terrours without name,
Him from me wooed, and carried thorough realms
Of Death, and Hades; in whose murmurs wild
He learned the lore of War, and 'gan rejoice
In battle for the love of victory—
Debating, first, in words what, in the end,
Yields but to the arbitrament of blows,
Charged with the death of either combatant.
So Cain his brother slew, disputing first
The creed that both had heard from infancy;
Hence, 'twixt their rival altars, Abel fell.’