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

To re-create the Past, and to create
Being, and Passion for its occupance,
Are mine. What poet but might quail beneath
The solemn task? What excellence of thought,
What strength of soul, it needs to wrestle well
With the Antient of such far-off days obscure.
Though wounded in the conflict . . though my brain
Be with the effort in the end collapsed,
Dilated, till enfeebled, then o'erthrown . .
Yet I will on, until it be complete.
What should I fear to lose for my theme's sake?
Yea, the great globe is valueless, and void.
My country or the world may guerdon me—
So let, or let them not; . . and to themselves
Be deathless shame, or honour on us both:
For Time discovers Truth; and, where 'tis due,
The eternal meed of Fame, though late, confers.

What hindereth, too, that in the world, beyond
The shadowy boundaries of maternal earth,
Our memories may survive, and residence

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Perpetual win; forewarning new-create
Intelligence, experienced guides, and guards
From evil snare to godlike virtue high,
Aiding the soul by gradual, sure ascent,
To the Supreme? Haply, the mighty noise,
Wherewith the visible heavens shall pass away,
May fail to silence Milton's trumpet-song:
Nor shall the wreck of elements dissolve
Even his of Rome; though, to the lyre attuned,
His strain be gentler, and the harmony
Of texture delicate, and like the light
Of the pale moon, a reflex from the orb
Of bolder genius, Melisegenes.
And, though the sun be shattered from his sphere,
Turned to a chaos dark, and void; that orb
Of most heroic glory shall remain,
Kindling new Maroes in the world to come,
Surpassing even himself in the degree
That spirit body excels. The expanded sky,
Wherein the angels have been wont to write
Their starry poesy for man to read,
Shall be upfolded like a shrivelled scroll;
Yet may the poesy of man endure,
And hallow the frail leaves of human wit.
—The firmament shall melt with fervent heat,
And the foundations of the earth dissolve
Into a molten sea, and all depart
Into the liquid flame: heaven, and the stars,
With sun, and moon, and all material things,
Tower, temple, palace, pyramid, and grove;
How gorgeous in their unessential shew
Soever they appear, like shadows, they
Depart. But the Eternal Book, wherein
Poets, historians, patriarchs, registered
The Word of the Omnipotent, shall dwell
In its own consecrated destiny

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Secure. His Word shall never pass away:
But as the Prophecy of Enoch came,
Thorough the Flood, transmitted to late time,
In this diurnal, mutable sojourn,
And in the text of Jude existent still;
So that the doom, and trial fiery
Shall bide, and come out thence, by proof divine,
The indubitable Word of the Most High.
—Some say, archangel Michael shall descend,
And, 'mid the fierce combustion, pluck it thence,
By hard assay approved, and glorified,
Victor sublime. In that eternal land
Of spirits undying, in the energy
Of being, shall all things exist entire;
Nor there in partial memory survive,
Or but in name, like Enoch's prophecy,
(In this uncertain transitory state,
Dim valley of the shadow of gaunt Death,
Sorrow, and wasting doubt,) till some bold hand
It rescue from the oblivious deep, and by
Pathetic commune with the living soul
Of the mysterious universe, revive
In his own spirit the revelation old.
Soul of fallen man, look forth; thine estridge thoughts
Have heavenward ta'en their flight, and built their nests,
Abiding nests on high. Thither reach mine,
And so absolve the adventurous task I dare,
Of young presumption, by success mature,
And give to hope the sanctity of faith.