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

Of Autumn only; and but late the fields
Were white for harvest: but no harvest now
Hath Hope to glad withal her prophet eye.
A blight, and mildew, and a blasting wind,
Passed o'er the plains; and withered every ear.
One morn, the Huntsman rose; the biting air,
Charged full with fog, and mist, rebuked his sport,
And made him glad to shut his casement close,
And cower anigh his hearth. Then stood aghast
The Statist, and authority decreed
The Sower to go forth. The plough, and wain,
With clods of iron, and a soil of brass,
Prevailed not; and full soon the labouring Ox
Was to his stall returned. But not to feed:
For his provision now is needed more
By man; and he himself must die for food,
If the superiour animal be still
To live, and lord it o'er the barren earth.
The lowing Kine awaits the flowery mead;
But cold hath parched the pasture—and the grass,
The everlasting verdure of the earth,
Hath perished.

What may then long time survive?
For it is written, that no higher can
Without the lower be; albeit the least
Seek to the greatest, by that perfect law
Which urges to perfection all that is.
Hence appetite, in man, and brute, desires
The inferiour aliments which earth provides,
Inanimate, or animal; as those
Without which all would cease. The vegetable
The inorganic nourishes, and thus
Aspires to better; so the herbage soars
To a superiour life in beast, and man:
Material transmigration, melting one
Into the other; from mere mineral

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To human, and divine. But, now, the links
Are broken of that mutual harmony;
Interdependence wise.

Work, self-despised,
Is scorned; nor labours in his hut the Hind,
While dreams the Hound upon the household hearth.
But he hath slain his faithful Dog for meat;
And from the axe, and spade the Robin dashed,
That there for refuge perched, a famished bird.
Then Pestilence came on, a meagre fiend;
And wretches blessed the Winter, whose sharp cold
Was a defence against infection's breath—
In vain. For now the heavens all glowed, as they
With fervent heat would melt: the sun was wroth,
And glared with anger. Then the chains dissolved
Wherein the soil had suffered. But the race
Of men, plague-smitten, at their useless toil,
Died; and the unseasonable solar heat
Pierced the cracked ground, and obvious laid the seed
To bird, and beast, or smote it in its bed,
For lack of moisture, with a treacherous ray—
Life from the germ extracting. Tree, and shrub
Died with excessive heat.

Men cried to God,
He would withdraw the sun from midst of heaven.
And soon their prayer was heard. The months arrived
That Summer had been wont to visit earth;
When lo, the cold returned. With evening airs,
Came on the incipient chill; and men were fain
To shelter in their homes. Hour after hour,
They slept, and waked; and slept, and waked again;
But still no dawn. They looked out, and behold,
The round red moon, of unaccustomed size,
Made pale the planets' ineffectual beams;
And rose, and set in blood, and rose again.
But the sun rose not. Night had Day usurped,

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And Winter, Summer; as before it had
Autumn displaced: and blank uncertainty
Made strange vicissitude more hideous still.
At length the sun appeared; O blessed orb—
And warmth came with him: but sad earth was bare
Of vegetation. Morn, and noon have been;
And evening looks to see the Sun decline:
Still reigns the fiery king, and Day prolongs
From week to week, until the wearied eye
Loathes the unchanging light: and the worn heart
Sickens with uniformity, and longs
To sleep in darkness unashamed; . . nor less
Ashamed in day so long to waste the hours
In idleness, or only half employed.
'Twas Autumn; but no harvest was there, now,
To gather in the barns; nor grass to mow,
Nor fruit to pluck. But all was to begin
Anew: earth lay before them as a map
Uncoloured, and unnamed; and of their toil
No certain issue. Winter came at length;
Spring, Summer; and the soul of man rejoiced
To look upon the produce of the fields,
Grass, corn, and fruits; and flower, and herb, and tree.

Not only in the great metropolis
Of Enos;—but in Naid; its towns, and fields;
And in the Capitol that Irad built,
Won from the wild; and in the Cities, too,
Of Mehujaël, and Methusaël;
And the luxurious town of palaces,
For Lamech's pleasure edified; prevailed
These Wonders; that their dwellers might repent.