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

And now, the Angel who had Noah borne,
The Angel of Repentance, Phanuel,
A mandate, in reply to his request,
Received from Archangelic Michael,
Regent of Manhood, and of Virtue Prince,
Guardian of Nations, and the Guide of Kings;
Once Samiasa's, ere, in selfish pride,
He had unto himself a god become;
Thence to his evil genius was resigned.
—For gentle Phanuel, pitying his estate,

From the Most High, with earnest prayer, desired
Permission, on each seventh recurring day,
To minister to his despair, and pour
The balm of healing through his smitten soul.
For this, with incense at the gate of heaven,
He stood, and at the altar ministered
His golden vial's acceptable odour.—
There Michael came;

‘Me God hath charged,’ he said,
‘O Phanuel meek, with answer to thy prayer.
The terrible thunder of his Word hath sworn,
'Tis granted to thy importunity.
Far in the wilds, beyond Dudaël far,
The miserable Monarch, now not man,
Dwells with the savage of the Desart wild,
Himself a savage wilder; doom severe:
A beast, but uncompanioned, and unstalled;
Wet with the dews of heaven; desolate
Of human habits, as of human heart.
Far other spirit rules his spirit now,
Than once; Hherem, the Cursed of the Accursed,
Whom Hell's own gorge heaved forth, abominable.
—In lofty disbelief, and wilful pride,
When first the Primogenial Parents plucked
That fatal fruit from the Sciential Tree;
Then Hherem, with ignoble aim, possessed
The inferior creatures, a substantial form;
And quickened with his rage the bestial soul,
The creeping thing, and bird that wings the air:
Whence enmity between the kinds; . . the weak,
Prey to the stronger, in earth, air, and sea.
The nobler fellows of the Fiend aspired
At quarry nobler far, the souls of men;
And scorned his sensual taste irrational.
Yet of immortal men there are, content
To share their nature with the prostrate brute,

Earth's erect animals, and vainly proud,
As the gay Peacock of his gorgeous plumes.
Not such the Monarch's sin. 'Twas too intense
A consciousness of immortality,
Of spiritual vigour; rebel pride
Of reason, of the human will divine,
That sought presumptuously to rival God.
The sin of Adam, sin of Lucifer:
For which the Sons of Adam undergo
Probation; whence the Devils are condemned
Without reprieve, and destitute of hope,
Incapable of change, repenting not.
Emptied of his humanity the King,
And even deprived its shape, and form extern;
That he might feel, of grace divine, and free,
He was a human creature; and might know,
The attributes, whereof he waxed too proud,
Were the good gifts of Him who made him great,
And glorious in intelligence, and power,
And ruleth o'er the realties of earth.
—Now, Phanuel, to thy prayer this boon is given;
That the blest Sabbath, day of hallowed rest,
Duly administer, to his estate,
From direst punishment repose, and brief
Immunity from demon prevalence.’

When this he heard, glad Phanuel's praises rose,
In angel-hymns, to Mercy's sapphire throne.
Away he sped into the wilderness,
Upon his joyful errand; and now came
Into the extreme Dudaël, where it bounds
Upon the land of Naid; and there discerned
The fallen King, commanded by the Fiend:
The human drooped to brutish, the sublime
Spirit to shape ignoble; quadruped,
And prostrate; every attribute of soul
Convert to abject quality; each sense,

To bestial uses, piteously subdued.
—Soon he the Demon's charms dismissed, and o'er
The seeming brute proclaimed—

‘In part fulfilled
The Season of Repentance.’

From the sands,
Upon his feet upstarted Samiasa;
Naked as Adam, in his innocence.
Still wild of feature, but his heart was calm:
Well Phanuel knew, he was no Savage there,
And hailed the Monarch to a Man restored;
Then, with angelic care, as well befits
A covering Cherub, cast o'er his bare limbs,
Majestic in their order, and design,
A fleecy mantle; skin of a slain Lamb,
Which, on an Altar in the Wilderness,
An unhewn rock, they had, in sacrifice,
To the Eternal offered, thus atoned.