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

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

265

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,

266

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,

267

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

268

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.’