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

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.’