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

‘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.