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

Here Lamech paused; and Shem to him replied:
‘Art thou as Adam, first-created man,
Or wast thou made before the hills, and hast
The Almighty's secret heard? Or hast thou quaffed,
Like Enoch, wisdom from the fount of God,
With whom the spirit of instruction dwells,
And power, and the souls of those who sleep
In righteousness? Sayest thou, that he destroys
The perfect, that of thee may none infer
Aught other from the doom on thee divulged?
But gave not Enoch to Methuselah
The word of wisdom? Blessèd—blessèd all
The righteous; blessèd they, for unto them
Shall mercy come, and utter might accrue,
And sinners be delivered. Would my eyes
Were clouds of water, and my tears might flow,
Like to the rain that Noah hath foretold
The world shall overwhelm; then, might I weep
What woes shall seize the wicked. To the wise
The earth was given; neither need they fear
The sinner's strength. Breaks in the oppressor's ears
A dreadful sound; late by the Cainite heard,
When he his hand stretched out against his God.

Woe, woe, to him who builds his house with crime;
And lays of fraud foundation; and acquires
Silver, and gold. His riches shall depart;
His chambers be subverted. Woe to him,
Who to his neighbour renders recompense
Of evil.—Woe unto the proud of power,
Who feedeth on the glory of the corn,
And drinketh at the sources of the spring;
To him shall be denied Life's Fountain pure,
Nor of the Tree of Life shall he partake.
Woe to the crafty; to the simple, woe—
Contemplatists of earth, effeminate,
And clad like women, gorgeously, and vain:
Like water, shall their falsehood flow away,
And folly. Woe to him, the obdured in heart—
The stained with blood, the witnesser of lies,
To him who worships idols, or who makes.
But wait in hope, ye righteous; in the day
Of suffering, your posterity shall soar
Like eagles, and your nests be built on high,
Safe in the rocks; and, in the rocky clefts,
From sight ungodly be securely hid.
—Therefore, prepare thy heart; and stretch thy hands
Toward thy God, O Lamech:—put away
Whate'er offence be thine; so unto thee
Shall restoration come; thy griefs forgot;
Or but remembered as the waters are,
When passed away. Then, clearer than the noon
Shall be thine age, more glowing than the morn.’

These sublime passages are all adaptations from the Ethiopian Book of Enoch.