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

The Book of Enoch read, the Monarch's soul
Was solaced. ‘Let us hence,’ he cried: ‘I will
Once more look on the City which I built;
Yet not to pamper pride, but smite it down,
Heart-wounded with remorse. Thou shalt behold—
Thou shalt support me. I have not the strength
To go alone; the abiding fortitude,
To contemplate how vain was all my toil,
The labour of my hands, and of my soul.
Prophet of God: O thou shalt hear my voice;
My spirit shall repose on thine. Report
My words unto the people; they may be
Rich by my loss, and in my folly wise.’

‘Amen;’ said Noah: and they went along.

From Eden's Hill four Rivers are derived;
The consecrated Garden of the Lord
Their sacred Fountain boasts; each cedared aisle
It waters, myrtle porch, and verdant shrine,
In that primeval temple, holier far,
Richer, more beautiful than Solomon's.
Nor other temple did Jehovah own,
In these first ages of the world of man.

By the Fourth Stream, the vassal of his rule,
The Monarch shaped his melancholy course:
Whatever realm it wandered, homaged him;
How famous each, and all.—'Twas his renown
Which gave to them a soul, and bade them live;

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Who now scarce lives himself; whose nature is
Degraded to the perishable brute.
The King went on: they followed silently.
—Soon, at the city gates, they overtook
Zateel, and Tamiel entering; who, behind
The people, lingered in desire, and fear,
Wishing, yet dreading, to remain with them,
The Monarch, and the Favoured of the Lord.

The portalled arch magnific entered now,
Whose massy gates were made for giant throngs,
And on the enormous hinge were now thrown back;
Left by the panic-hurried multitude,
Unfolded, wide displayed; like a huge book,
A dead magician's volume vast of page:
—(With their companions, diversely disposed,
Shaming the brazen gates of Babylon
In their excess of number, and of size:)—
Behold, the pavement of the expanded street
They tread; a populous solitude, now thronged,
Now empty: for each man within his house
Harboured his fear, nor once reverted look,
Dreading again that Monarch's countenance,
And hearing his approaching step, in thought,
Following hard on each apprehensive heel.
Silence was conscious of his presence; yea,
She deepened as she felt it, and became
Thrice hushed—thrice lonely Solitude became.
Silence of Solitude seemed nurse; and stilled,
Even as a mother would a sleeping child,
Its recent slumber to profounder rest;
And, like a mother, on surrounding things,
Inanimate, or human, quietude,
As with a frown significant, imposed.
—On the broad pavement of the expanded way,
Were heard not their feet-echoes. Stealthily
They walked; and street, and square, and every high

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Locality of the metropolis,
Did visit, and each edifice sublime.
The traveller from Babylon, or Rome,
Had marvelled, in the palmiest days of each,
Had such a city for his survey been.
Arch, column, monument, and pontifice,
Palace, and garden, temple, and theatre,
Were there for him to question, and admire.

'Twas noon: and the hot sun shone on the stone;
And all the capitol, as molten glass,
Reflected its own glory on every hand.
Then to the Palace of his pride, but now
Of his humility, the Monarch led
The solemn way. Shrunk back on either side
The menials, thus surprised, with awe; and each
Interchanged with his fellow eager looks.
—The spiry staircase now ascended he;
Through lofty hall, by ample corridor,
And mile-long gallery, he went: then, roamed
The vacant presence chamber, rooms of state,
Titanic in dimension; as vied art
With nature, seeking to distend herself
To her god-made capacity; superb,
And sumptuous, and with ornament enriched,
With pillar, and with statue: swelling high,
In alabaster multiplicity,
To a wide ceiling, like a firmament,
Moving in constant revolution o'er,
Showering down perfumes, and sweet waters; as
By subtle magic. On a gorgeous couch
Reposed the Sorceress; in as gorgeous robes
She lay, magnificent in slumber. Still
She slept, with heat meridian sore oppressed,
And study of strange charm. Her indoor craft,
While all the people were gone forth the gates;
Regal in her seclusion, seldom seen,

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Wild invocations Amazarah spun,
The mother of the king. He saw her thus,
And blessed her, in the hope that God ere long
Would cause her to repent. He waked her not,
And so departed. On the Terrace he
Forth issued, and the pendant Gardens, built
Arch above arch, fair paradises: thence,
Dilated in wide circuit, saw, beneath,
The spacious City; saw with other eyes
Than once, and wept: then hastened from the view;
And, with precipitate return, regained
The threshold of the dome. Away—away,
Unto the Temple of the Pyramis.
Beyond the extreme of yon suspended Bridge,
Ascends the Pile stupendous. Now, the stream
Surmounted, they arrived at its broad base,
Where those earthquake-defying foundations delved
That bore the astounding fabric. Them about,
A Temple, like a wallèd square, inclosed
An ample area. At the foot, behold,
A Man of giant stature, and huge limb,
Recumbent, scaled with his ambitious eye
The punctual summit of the ascending spire,
Till it distinguished through the crystal tube,
With exquisite distinction, the nice point
That tapered into air, like air itself.
—Alas; his look was melancholy; bent
To earth, dejected; when returned from that
Sufficing, soul-dissatisfying theme.

He saw the Monarch now, and rose in haste,
But straight assumed his re-collected state,
And stood erect in proud equality,
Barkayal—the transcendent Architect.
Drawing his purple robe about his loins,
Displaying in his hand his gold-leaved book;
Instant he 'gan to sketch his vast conceits,

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Creations which alone his mind might dare.
He was the Founder of the Pyramis.

Art vaunteth ever. Enter ye within
The enormous porch of that stupendous fane,
Co-eterne temple of the pyramis,
That had beginning, but no end shall have:
Such was the builder's hope, whose large heart heaved
For more than diuturnity, to him,
And his creations. In those days, man's life
Had that extent, and term. Existence mere
Of corruptible body, then, surpassed
That of ethereallest spirit now;
If her hereafter be but in the fame
Of deeds, or words, or silence—wisely timed;
For 'tis occasion maketh nobler act
Of noble thought, though act extern be none;
(Witness the seven days' silence during which
Lamech affliction bore; then cursed his birth,
As if to prove how hard what he had borne,
And, by impatience, illustrate how vast
The patience he displayed when he was dumb.)
—Let me not wrong the bubble, though they bruit,
It breaketh evermore, and mortal end
The most undying reputation hath.
Do we not ken the blind old Man of Greece,
No shadow, through the unsubstantial mist
Of thrice a thousand years? Yea, liveth not
Solomon in his wisdom even yet,
Only his follies dead? or, more remote,
The Shepherd who, upon no oaten stop,
Declared, yet with simplicity divine,
The sempiternal Origin, and Source
Of this green earth, and yon cerulean sky;
Do we not know the meek man, and the brave,
Lawgiver, warriour, prophet, priest, and king?
Of the Progenitours of human race,

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We know the name, and where they dwelt, and how
Erect they stood in regal innocence,
Their free, and happy state, and fatal lapse.
Yea, Fame outdureth worlds. Waters may sweep
Over the countenance of the peopled globe;
And all that hath an heritage therein,
Choke Chaos up; yet she shall record have,
That of the hoar world shall the auburn teach,
Who were thereof the patriarchs, and the chief,
And their familiar history preserve:
This doth the theme of our momentous song
Attest. Nay; War shall be in Heaven, and Angels
Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky
In ruin, and combustion, down to hell;
And Fame shall find a favourable Spirit,
Content celestial bowers to quit awhile,
On mission to advise astonished Man
Of great Messiah's work, and victory.

II. Adon, and Amazarah

Entered within the porch of that great fane,
The Seven lingered not: whom to repeat
By name, for aid of memory, were these;
The Man of God, with Japhet, Shem, and Ham,
The Scribe, and young Zateel, and, finally,
Majestic Samiasa. He sublime,
His right hand perpendicularly raised,
Stood in commanding attitude, whose will
Was felt, not spoken; while they entered, one
By one, beneath the massy, and lofty arch
Of those huge gates idolatrous, designed
For giant worshippers to underpass
In their erect audacity. Anon,
Crouching, their pride proved false, degraded straight
Their bodies to the ground; their nature not

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More prostrate than before, which could not feel
In personal aim, and man's collective force,
The littleness of individual mind.
—Oh, paradox, ill understood; now learn,
How fatal if ill understood, ill known.
—What they adored, i' the centre of the porch,
On its vast pedestal, appeared to fill
The illimitable expanse of that broad dome,
With its immense proportions; and pervade,
As with a presence supernatural,
The circumambient space, with the wide curve
Of each elaborate lineament, and limb.
Tremendous Idol; miracle of art;
When, like the body, mind gigantic was;
And of its genius the creations such.

But they who enter now, degrade not thus
The temple of the soul. One only glance
(Of pity) on the monstrous image thrown,
They pass: but Samiasa hurries by,
With look averted; and, arrived within
The interiour of the temple—how he wept:
Yea, at the altar's foot he lay, and wept,
Even like a child; and wished the innocence
Might, with the weakness, of a child return.

‘Great Seth—sire of my sires—down on my soul
Thy spirit broods; descending like the dew
On Ardis, neighbour of the sky, whose brow
Is in thin air, as spirit pure, and where
None but pure spirits can live. Oh, I have heard
Adon, my father, speak of thee; and how
Erst he could breathe in the rare ether, with
The sons of God, thine offspring, himself one:
Then he would weep, and wish he might return.
Strange meat had made him gross, and flesh subdued.
Once, awed, and wearied with the upward way,

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He gained the summit; by the Brethren hailed;
But found the air of fluid too refined,
And would have slept. They told him it was death,
And hurried him, dissolved with sleep, and dread,
Midway down Armon. There awhile he sate,
And threw his locks aback, and laved his eyes,
As from a trance recovering. Then he fled,
Through fear he fled.

‘Remorse consumed his heart,
As in a crater smouldering till it burst,
And the hot lava overflowed his lips.
Then he would curse his being, and his birth;
But chiefly that sad hour, when his charmed eye,
As with the beauty of an adder's skin,
Dazed, and inchanted; by the radiant pride
Of Amazarah smitten, and transfixed;
Slumbered upon her form majestical,
As in a dream. The very atmosphere
Wherein she moved was visionary; seemed
To float around her, in the wavy folds
Of an ethereal mantle, made of less
Than gossamer, and wrought within a woof
Fairer than that whereof the delicate beams
Of the pale moon are woven on the spray;
And of all hues, each interposed with light,
And shade, harmoniously mutable,
Wherein, as in a prism, were full displayed,
Voluptuous form, and motion exquisite.
Her then the beauty of youth adorned: age since
Hath taken somewhat of her loveliness,
But left her might, her majesty untouched,
All puissant, and imperial. On her mien
My filial eye would gaze, as on some strange
Sublimity, aye-wonderful, and wild,
Use levelled not, nor knowledge did abate.
When, in the novelty of her approach,

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She blazed upon my father's spell-bound view,
O'ershadowing, how potential must have been
Her beauty, and her pride. Forgive him, God:
Thou whom the beauty of holiness delights;
Him pardon, that, with other beauty, he
Misused the faculties divine of love,
And admiration, whence the soul ascends,
From her terrestrial seat, to Heaven, and Thee.

‘The sun was on that day only less radiant
Than man's bright soul, when first breathed into Adam,
Pure emanation from great Deity.
They said, of his superiour glory then,
That much he owed to her, who boasted rule
O'er the curbed elements.

‘A festival
It was, and she the queen. The tuneful sons
Of Jubal, in full chorus, celebrate
How rose the primal city, proudly called
From the first son of the first fratricide,
City of Enos in the Land of Naid—
And built the wall of that partition up,
Which aliens brotherhood, and leaves to fear
No bond but self-defence, that consecrates
The deed of blood, baptizing it anew
Heroic War; instead of its own name,
Murther of brethren—parricide—and worse.
They wreathed a crown of laurels round her brows,
And danced about her till they madly reeled,
As with the fumes of wine. Then haughtily
She rose, and by her mystic skill she sware,
That him who dared her fearful beauty woo,
She would make monarch of a capitol
Than Enos nobler far, and to each soul
He should be as a god. Pride burned within
My father's heart, and to his lips it leapt.
O credulous—yet to resign the faith

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In the great God of Seth—the Only-True.

‘Fame had reached Ardis, eloquent of all
The beauty of Cain's daughters, and the arts,
And arms of that excelling progeny.
Now they their skiey communings forsook,
And fell to keen discourse on what they heard,
Comparing woman in the vale with her
Upon the mountain top.

‘Cain's daughter sang,
Was voluble, and graceful in the dance;
Men worshipped, and of her were giants born;
Air burned about her, and fierce passion raged
At her least eye-glance.

‘Like a thought devout,
Daughter of Ardis, wert thou in thy bower
Of delicacy shrined. Who listened there,
Had heard the Mother prattling to the Children
Tales of their Father, and low-breathèd numbers,
Like the sequestered stock-dove's brooding murmur,
Full of maternal tenderness—the burthen,
The gladness of that Sire's return at even,
When he should take the sweet Boy from her bosom,
Or on his Daughter's head let fall the tear,
The purest that can fall from human eye;
While, quiet in her bliss, she should await
The sweet embrace; and after, on his breast
Reclined, from his meek lips receive account
What knowledge, wisdom, truth, the Sons of God
Had won from large discourse on loftiest themes,
Or by the elders of the Brethren taught,
Or from Angelic ministry derived.
—Anon, the sun went down; their hearts first bowed
In worship pure, then folded each to each,
In calm repose; . . the stars watched over them.’

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III. Founding of the City

Here Samiasa paused—but all were still.
Soon his emotion flowed in speech again.

‘Bright was the bridal—gorgeous the array—
Pride stretched her stature to the firmament—
Tears fell from heaven, and the sun mourned in gloom.
But she, who erewhile vaunted power to bid
The Angel of the Sun attire himself
With radiance new, feigned now he veiled his beams,
That the surpassing glory of her pomp
Might be itself, alone:—while some pronounced
That his diminished head he hid in shame,
And the heavens wept to see themselves outdone.

‘And the Queen's word went forth. ‘Build ye the city;
Lay the foundations deep, and wide.’ What hosts
Obeyed the magical command. 'Twere long
To tell what tracts they passed, what hardships bore;
Sustained by faith in her unearthly claims,
The thousands journeyed forth, and, on the way,
Increased.

‘Dudael:—from his orient gate,
Went forth the sun, and did his task in heaven.
Seasons returned; and morn, and eve; and, on
The dusky forehead of the night, appeared
A single star, her only coronet:
Ere long the flowers of heaven all budded out,
Making of it a paradise indeed,
For the meek Moon to walk abroad in—meek,
And mighty in her vow of chastity,
By virtue of which she sways the myriad floods.
But thou unto the mighty, or the meek,
Madest answer none; nor moved by gentleness,
Nor wakened save by Nature's wrath. The stars
Have holiest service to perform; and day
Doth utter knowledge unto day, and night

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To night. The language of all worlds is their's;
Their voice throughout the universe is heard.
To thee they spake in vain: for thou wert deaf,
And a deep sleep had sealed thy vision up,
And silence brooded o'er thee—Antre vast,
And idle; unless, waking once an age,
Nature, outwearied with protracted rest,
Did start from dreamy slumber, and pronounce,
With the loud clarion of the full-voiced wind,
A marvel, and tremendous mystery,
An omen, and an oracle to man,
Fraught with most urgent meaning, and profound
As her own indefatigable soul,
Working in secret every where, and aye.

‘Man's heart hath heard it now; and thou must hear.
Awake, Dudael, and rejoice; for thou
No more art solitary, waste, and void;
Mother of many children thou, who wert
So desolate, and barren. Hearst thou not
Echo of axe . . the voice of industry . .
The song . . the laugh . . the shout . . the gush of springs
From the new-opened quarry, where the rose
Flourisheth as in Eden?

‘Now—behold,
The City of the Desart, and the Wild.
Deep its broad base descends, and far in air
Uplifted climb the walls. Massy the gates,
And manifold the streets. Nor lacked there sound,
And sight; concert of numbers, and parade,
To celebrate the finished work. Nor since
Hath bardic praise been wanting; to report
How, to the harmony of harp, it rose,
Exhaled from earth by charm of magic verse,
Creature of music, and the child of spells.

‘And, verily, the social state of man
Hath music in its soul, and is compact

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Of harmony. Good government, and law
Are a most holy diapason: where
Right blends with might, and strength its octave hath
In weakness, and all discords are deft aids,
By contrast, to enhance the dulcet strain;
As peace is most delightful after war,
And the sun's brightest beams the storm creates.
—Yet, in the state of innocence, I wot,
Man to himself had been sole government,
And all the law, under the Most High God;
The bitter means in the prevenient end
Absorbed, and melody been self-evolved,
In independence of its opposite;
And union, and obedience needed not
A marble zone for bond of brotherhood,
Nor fear a place of refuge; . . but the sky,
The boundless, the illimitable, alone
The sphere of duty, and of love prescribed:
No roof but heaven—Man's home the universe.

‘From Armon, and from Ardis, multitudes
Arrived; curious, or fond of change; or won
By manifold example, or report;
Or wearied with ancestral piety,
Worst of the wicked, an apostate race.
Grief smote my father's soul; and e'er his eye
To Ardis was exalted. Thereon now
Abideth not the good, and pleasant thing,
Brethren in unity together dwelling.
The dew descendeth yet upon the hill,
And yet the blessing is commanded there,
Even life for evermore; but none receive
The gift; no human spirit is refreshed:
And he who would the ethereal life imbibe,
The flesh with abstinence must chasten long,
And live on thought, and quicken with much faith.
Farewell, thrice holy hill: farewell; farewell.

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Thy pure delights, for earth's, I have exchanged;
For fear from force, and fraud; for cold contempt;
The pride of Amazarah, and her scorn.

‘Remorse had been sufficient to destroy
A spirit so susceptible, and high,
Convinced of errour; deeper still her scorn
Did in his soul the torturing iron drive,
And, with intense corrosion, ate away
The life from out his heart. My father's words,
His memory, his lost inheritance,
Sate brooding ever on my pregnant soul;
That thence I know not what excelling schemes
Of restoration, and return conceived,
And man's transcendent operance to achieve
Original perfection. Pride enlarged
My heart—there proud imaginations made
Their procreant place, and thence compelled the world,
With wingèd words, the seraphs of the soul,
Plumed for far flight, and summed for wonderous speed.

‘The Queen, who kenned the phrenzy in mine eye,
Inflamed my filial zeal. She blent her own
Wild lawless daring with the excited hopes,
The audacious fancies of my sleepless soul;
False notions from report, or from the lives
Of mere apostates gathered. Hence, abused,
My faith was folly, watering the lands
Of speculation; whence but weeds might grow,
And at the root of things lay barrenness,
Wanting the mist divine, that from the ground
In Eden rose, and cherished herb, and flower.

‘The heart begets its like, and as the soil
The deed, or word it genders; and itself
Reflects the imaged mind, which, from without
And from within create, here substance finds,
Thence shadowy form abstracts; consistence so
Assuming, such as its discourse, combined

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After the manner of their interchange.
And like its food my mind became, my heart
Was desolate as that whereon it gazed.
This place how desolate—magnificent
In desolation. Filial sorrow thus
Congealed to stone—its tears were petrified.
Art, like a winter in the wilderness,
(Known to Dudael,) froze them as they fell;
And raised this lofty mound, for the loud north
To sport with: like gaunt Death, when, with his mace,
(As Cain beheld in Hades,) the thronged soil
He smote o'er shuddering Chaos, and wrought on
A mole immense, bridging the way from hell.
This dome of desart-ice Art piled to him;
His palace where he dwells in cold, and gloom,
The King of Terrours; or his temple gate,
The God of Terrours—present though unseen.
Imperial in his lone sarcophagus,
Behold my father's sepulchre. And she,
Whose scorn had withered him in early age,
Lauded my filial piety; and proud
Barkayal triumphed in his cunning work,
That of a man could make a deity:
None but a god might sleep in such a dome,
An attribute of gods if slumber be.

‘I speak in scorn of my imaginings,
Not of his memory. Searcher of hearts:
Before thee mine I bare. Yet not to wrong
The wonderous builder, and his work though vain,
It did express a mystery; how within
The womb of earth life's hid foundations lay,
With death, and silence, and on high aspired
Past human vision, piercing into heaven,
Guiding faith upward to the eternal home,
The immortal soul's abiding place with God.

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‘But my changed heart to Nature now would turn
For solace rather: and within the deep
Capacious bosom of maternal earth,
Repose the dust it loved; in confidence
That she thereto would act a parent's part,
So that it should not perish, but be found
With a more radiant robe to swathe the soul,
The incorruptible, when Death shall die.
Meantime, let the grass whistle a shrill dirge
During the visitation of the gale;
The cypress droop above it, and all flowers
Make odourous the bed of righteous men;
And night, and morn, the dew fall on the sod,
Making it sweeter, and more beautiful.
These things are to the soul as to the eye:
Life mightier than Death, and claiming right
Even in his very sanctuary to dwell;
As though he were an alien, and throughout
The universe could claim no spot his own;
Joy strong in grief; hope strongest in despair;
Grave-blossoms both. Our sorrows oft excel
All joy in joy, as man were made for bliss,
And Earth would be an Eden, maugre all,
And, in despite of death and grief, would give
Glimpses of Paradise returning yet,
And happiness ere long to be restored.

‘The work of pride advanced. Column, and stone,
Rose frequent; and the garden bloomed aloft,
Aëreal; and the rebel wave was curbed,
O'erarched. The city, called from me by love
Paternal, felt my genius; and I sought
To testify unto my father's shade
My gratitude, and make my name, and his,
Deserving a memorial so sublime.
Praise filled my mother's voice, and flattery

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Sweetened its pauses. Then my heart came home,
That had erewhile so spread itself abroad,
And self-love built a palace to the king,
As unto one who had well merited.
Men toiled for me, and their hearts sweated blood,
The second curse—man's own. How worse than God's;
Who in his judgements yet is merciful,
And but the brow condemned.

‘Ere long, myself
Of higher strain than mortal man I deemed;
And all the people answered, that ‘two gods
Were only—He in Heaven, the Most High,
And on earth Samiasa—equal both.’
Above the circle of the sky had He
His dwelling; and were rolled the massy clouds
His temple gates before. Earth's deity
Claimed worship also, and a votive dome:
And in the senseless idol presence dwelt,
Ubiquitous, divine. Then bled to me
The sacrifice; and incense—would to heaven,
Rolling its fragrance thither, meant for man;
And hymns were chaunted. Hark’—

Even as he spake,
The priests within the holiest place were heard.

IV. The Sanctuary

That blasphemy once heard with vain delight,
Now Samiasa bore not. The descent
To passage still more inward, instant, he
Crept, like a serpent, prostrate: then he clomb
The ascending plane, supported by his hands
'Gainst each low wall; so slight the indented notch
Meant to sustain the advancing foot, a stair
Of perilous construction, whose short step

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Escaped the adventurous tread. Before him went
His voice, so anxious he. The cavities,
With replication multitudinous
Resounded, and awaked what hallowed bird
There cradled safe in local sanctity.
Arrived above, his lofty form obeyed
The humble entrance. Now that spacious court,
Entire of granite, him received. From wall
To wall extended, three enormous stones
Compose the roof with hieroglyphics graced;
And, in the centre of that ample floor,
Yon huge sarcophagus, of marble hewn
Out of the solid rock, concealed the god,
Whose heart is shrined in that surmounting vase
Of alabaster. There the king beholds
His father's visible heart; yet not the less,
Having first dashed the intruding tear aside,
And stifled in his soul the filial groan,
Fulfils his aim. About the gorgeous tomb,
The priests perform the rite, and raise aloft
The vesper hymn, that to the crowd without
May seem of oracle the voice, that hails
The present god, within that sacred hall,
(Chamber of Beauty termed, and Mystery,)
Audient of worship, and to praise attent.

Back from his eye they shrunk astonished—back
From his bold voice, and attitude they fell.

‘Peace—peace—the god commands on whom ye call;
Behold how abject. Pray to Him who chastens.
Him worship . . Him adore . . and not the chastened—
The Almighty, the Supreme, hath chastened me.’

‘And who is He?’ demanded the High Priest—
‘We know no god, nor gods, but thou, on earth,
And Adon, god in heaven, thy sire divine,
Prime founder of the City named from thee.

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Thou vainly in completion hadst rejoiced;
Hence, jealousy conceiving, where he sits
Enthroned on Armon o'er the Land of Streams,
Guardian, and god, the genius of the soil;
In the rapt hour of thy presumption, when
Thou, and thy people had forgotten him,
He made his being felt in voice from heaven,
And his first claim asserted in the doom
That cast thee to the desart. Thine august
And mighty mother, for assurance, this
Learned in the visions of prophetic night,
Wherein thy father's spirit visits her.
Nay—more: when hither she of him enquired,
In this his Sanctuary, where he sleeps
In most divine repose, she heard his voice,
And on the table of his heart beheld,
In sanguine characters incribed, the truth.’

‘Of Truth ye make a harlot,’ said the king:
‘Adulteries ye do commit with her,
Abominations—oh, Religion, Truth:
Mad are ye made with flesh, and drunk with wine.
The Uncreated, and Invisible;
The God of gods, the universal He,
By whom the pillars of the firmament
Were founded on the floods, and the firm earth
Was stablished in the immensurable space,
Uttered his potent voice, whose fiat called
The sun to instant birth, the moon, the stars,
And all the host of heaven, creatures of earth,
And man the lord of all; and I became
Emptied of man—more wretched than the brute—
A brute with reason cursed, and wisely mad.
—He, on his throne above the heaven of heavens,
From his religious state, looked down, and saw
His arrogant creature, and denuded him

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Of all that made him proud, and smote his soul
With worse abasement than his body bore.
—Forth to the people whom ye have bewitched
With sorceries, and disenchant their souls.
Forth—by the madness, and the misery, now
That rush back on my brain—my heart. (A while
Stay, my good angel: yet a little while
Ward off the desart-demon from my soul.)
By Earth, and Heaven, and Hell; I charge you:—Earth
Whose barren breast I graze upon, from whose
Felicities I am an alien; Heaven,
Beneath whose terrible doom I suffer; Hell,
That doth within me, like a cauldron, seethe,
And bubbles o'er my lips in this white foam—
Ha: the fierce phrenzy rushes on me. Make
From the volcanic overflow.—Forth—forth.
God he is God, and there is none beside.’

In terrour, and dismay, from him they fled,
Precipitate before him: awe, and fear
Urged them in safety down the perilous plane,
And madness guided—guarded him the while,
In his extreme pursuit. Returned within
The temple of the Idol, with a shout
That shook it to its base, he called aloud
To Noah:

—‘Man of the Most Holy God:
Oh Prophet of Jehovah: with the sword
Of his indignant Jealousy, destroy
The liars, the adulterers—even they
Who do abomination with man's soul.’

By power supernal smit, at the Idol's foot
They fell, and bit the ground in sympathy
With his affliction, as his doom had fallen
Also on them. O infinite despair—
He writhed his limbs in pain, and tossed his arms

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Above his head, and with his clenchèd hands
Smote his hot brow, and cried,

‘Almighty Lord:
Raise them again. I am the sinner—I—
The liar, the adulterer—lied the lie,
And did the deed, that thou abhorrèst most—
Behold even there the impious monument
Of wild, and weird rebellion—my bold pride,
And bad ambition. Satan: down to hell.’

So saying, on that monstrous idol he
Hung, in his maniac might; and tugged, and strained,
Till o'er its pedestal it shook, it fell,
With a tremendous crash, in hideous wreck:
The while, with yell, and shout, he trampled it,
And, with his pulverising foot, destroyed
Its fine proportions, its fair symmetry;
Pounding it limb by limb, and wrenching them
Apart with his strong hand—(such power he had
From heaven)—and thus exclaimed:

‘Down, Lucifer—
I who advanced do hurl thee from thy throne,
Consume thee in mine anger, immolate
Thee to the God of Jealousy, and Seth.’

The sun had set; the sabbath of his soul
Had gone; and stronger, and more strong, poured through
His heart, and brain, the influxes increased
Of fury, and savage impulse. Human pride,
Not by his fellow-man to be beheld
In his disgrace; the human front erect,
Sublimely looking toward the promised heaven,
Changed for the earth-bound aspect of the brute;
Stung him, as by the warriour's armèd heel
The battle steed. Out at the gates with haste
He rushed; and over the suspended bridge,
And through the silent city, . . as before

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A populous solitude, . . whose habitants
Fear, and the hour had prisoned in their homes;
For well they knew the time of his return,
Through their expanded streets, to the forlorn
Inhabitable desart, where he dwelt,
For his appointed season. And, as he
Passed in his lonely majesty along,
He lifted up his voice, and cried aloud,
‘God he is God, and there is none beside.’

END OF NINTH BOOK.