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

So witnessed Samiasa. But not now
The desart-doom opprest him, to the wild
Though he returned. Within the solitude,
He sate him calmly down: for he had heard
The Word of God, from Enoch's scripture read,
And testimony to his Maker borne.
Seemed the doomed season was accomplished now,
And a man's heart to him again was given;
Still human consciousness with him remained.
A miracle it was—by miracle
His reason seemed preserved for wisest ends.
Fallen on his knees, he wept his gratitude
To Him in heaven—he wept his penitence;
All night he wept, and all the morrow-morn,
And so was found of Palal. Nor was cold
The Sophist heart, when he remarked the change,
That had brought home, as earnest of its stay,
The mind of Samiasa, and sustained.
Much they rejoiced together. Palal, then,
Admonished thus the King,

‘Since it is so;
Meet is it thou appear as man with man,
And doff these garments of the wilderness,
And go forth to the City.’

And so it was:
For soon the Sophist fit provision made
For his restored Companion; soon his locks
Of their exuberance were well excised,

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And his wild beard in civil measure flowed.
His limbs he bathed, and smoothed his shaggy brows,
And by ablution on his form so wrought,
That none might recognize him, though beheld
But yesterday. And thus his mood was pleased,
That would in secret walk, a stranger there,
Where once he King had been.

And now he stood
Beside the Temple of the Pyramis;
A ruin shunned by superstition, since
That memorable eve, when he o'erthrew,
With might insane, the Idol once adored;
Thence desecrated deemed, and, as accursed,
By all deserted. All? No: One there was,
Still faithful to that work of wonderous art;
Barkayal. At the temple's foot again,
There Samiasa found him, now as then.
Again he scaled, with his ambitious eye,
The punctual summit of the ascending spire,
Till it distinguished through the crystal tube,
With exquisite distinction, the nice point
That tapered into air, like air itself.
And still his look was melancholy, bent
To earth, dejected; when returned from that
Sufficing, soul-dissatisfying theme.
Awhile on the transcendent architect
Gazed Samiasa; then to Palal cried: