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The Judgement of the Flood

by John A. Heraud. A New Edition. Revised and Re-Arranged

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Conversing thus, and charmed with such discourse,
Time passed them swiftly; and, on moonlight seas,
With Hori, Noah sailed afar away;
Forgot the vale of Armon, native vale.
O God was careful of his prophet, then;
Withdrawn from peril, destined soon to fall
Upon that spot, though consecrated long.
But not as yet had it descended there,
Albeit the prince of Enos so declared—
For not of execution but design,
Soon to be put in act, the Tetrarch spake,
Anticipating what he loved to think.
O impious: but the evil was delayed

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By higher hand. For his voluptuous Sire,
Of the Death-Angel summoned, was perforce
To Hades borne; though there no pleasures be,
And Adah there, and Zillah, had in vain,
(Were they not old, and beautiful as once,)
Sought to delight the king in youth renewed.
There are the days cut off, the years deprived,
The residue of years. No more beheld
The dwellers of the world; departed, thence,
Is age, and as a shepherd's tent removed:
No praise hath it, no laud for God, or man.
No celebration utters silent Death:
No hope awaits, who to the pit descend.
Alas, and soon must all that shadowy bourn
Seek, nor return. For Time himself will soon
Take the unstable ocean for a throne;
And, riding in his fulgent chariot forth,
Rein his white steeds, or lash them into foam,
Till the waves seethe; and, then, at him will Death
Grin ghastily—at him—a desperate smile—
Death—as that ravenous banquet were his last,
Unless he gorge his famine on himself,
Like the hyæna, eating his own bones.