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

Antient of Days:—led by thy Spirit, I heard
A voice within the Sepulchre: . . the voice
Of ages in the vaulted vestibule
Of the far Past; in whose profound obscure
The night-bird uttereth her peculiar song,
Of joy or grief uncertain, and to both
Strangely attuned. Deep, sacred mysteries
Possessed those nameless old mythologists;
And, in harmonious poem, they concealed
Falsehood, or truth sublime; or turned to shape,
In gorgeous allegoric weed arrayed.
The sensual fancy . . to external form
Idolatrous . . yet, testifying so
Man's eleutherean essence, still expressed
A consciousness of Spirit, and a faith
In Being elevate. Her better forms
Were transcripts exquisite of human thought,
And hence the human Spirit hallowed them;
The links they were that joined high heaven with earth;
The greses by which man clomb upward still,

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In vision spoken into presence, made
In the hid image of the poet's thought.

Oh, what a fall was theirs; from what height fallen;
Who maddened upon idols, in despite
Of better knowledge; having heard the voice
Of God of old, his attributes beheld.
Thus Israel in his latter days fell down:
Worse than the heathen he, who but adored
Man's virtue shadowed in the symbol so;
But he the wood, and stone, and fed his soul
On ashes, and on carrion. Hence his thigh
The indignant prophet smote, and raised his hand,
And cried aloud, ‘O earth; earth; earth. The Lord
Is the true God—He is the Living God.
Thou at His wrath shalt tremble; and the gods,
That have not made the heavens, and the earth,
Shall perish from the earth, and from beneath
The heavens. He, by His power who made the world,
And by His wisdom stretched the curtain out
Of the cerulean firmament on high,
Hath been from everlasting, and shall be,’

Children of Ardis; so fell ye, and lower,
Because from such height fallen, than they who looked
But with the fleshly eye on imagings
Of unembodied Reason; . . far beneath,
Who shaped them in ecstatic vision forth,
Or worshipped only as emblems. But than all
Fell deeper ye, beneath the lowest deep,
Who vainly in your own creations hoped;
Drunk with your own sweet fancies, as with wine.

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BOOK THE TENTH. METHUSELAH

I. Samiasa, and Barkayal

So witnessed Samiasa. But not now
The desart-doom opprest him, to the wild
Though he returned. Within the solitude,
He sate him calmly down: for he had heard
The Word of God, from Enoch's scripture read,
And testimony to his Maker borne.
Seemed the doomed season was accomplished now,
And a man's heart to him again was given;
Still human consciousness with him remained.
A miracle it was—by miracle
His reason seemed preserved for wisest ends.
Fallen on his knees, he wept his gratitude
To Him in heaven—he wept his penitence;
All night he wept, and all the morrow-morn,
And so was found of Palal. Nor was cold
The Sophist heart, when he remarked the change,
That had brought home, as earnest of its stay,
The mind of Samiasa, and sustained.
Much they rejoiced together. Palal, then,
Admonished thus the King,

‘Since it is so;
Meet is it thou appear as man with man,
And doff these garments of the wilderness,
And go forth to the City.’

And so it was:
For soon the Sophist fit provision made
For his restored Companion; soon his locks
Of their exuberance were well excised,

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And his wild beard in civil measure flowed.
His limbs he bathed, and smoothed his shaggy brows,
And by ablution on his form so wrought,
That none might recognize him, though beheld
But yesterday. And thus his mood was pleased,
That would in secret walk, a stranger there,
Where once he King had been.

And now he stood
Beside the Temple of the Pyramis;
A ruin shunned by superstition, since
That memorable eve, when he o'erthrew,
With might insane, the Idol once adored;
Thence desecrated deemed, and, as accursed,
By all deserted. All? No: One there was,
Still faithful to that work of wonderous art;
Barkayal. At the temple's foot again,
There Samiasa found him, now as then.
Again he 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.
And still his look was melancholy, bent
To earth, dejected; when returned from that
Sufficing, soul-dissatisfying theme.
Awhile on the transcendent architect
Gazed Samiasa; then to Palal cried:

—‘Behold my gorgeous temple. Seest thou not
The builder of the comprehensive fane,
For veneration multitudinous
Decreed? Proud of his handy-work is he,
And feels therein exalted, eternized:
I, to whose pride contributed his art,
Humbled alone, see, in its loftiness,
What casts me into shade, shame, and contempt;

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And, in its durability and strength,
Odious comparison, which makes me seem
But as an insect most ephemeral,
That buzzes in the noon around some oak,
And dies ere sunset, living, in good sooth,
A sunny life, but brief; and, with much stir,
Attracting little notice, and less fame.
—How to the fading point his eyesight strains:
Think ye, that there whereto it aches, 'tis fixed?
No—through the distance-abrogating lens;
By which the delicate diffusive touch,
Of vision exquisite, to the remote,
And punctual is applied; within the deep
Of air expatiateth he, and finds
Space for free speculation: and, be sure,
That ever and anon his fancy rears
Some magic structure on the baseless wind;
And, in the combinations of the clouds,
Orders of architecture new conceives,
And hopes, ere long, to raise the like on earth.
Hence, in imagination's mere excess,
All he hath done as nothing worth he scorns,
Measured with what he yet hath power to do;
Or might have done, but for dull circumstance,
That thralled the outgoings of the plastic soul.
And, of a truth, within the Spirit of Man
Abides an instinct for the infinite.
Whatever from without the mind imbibes
Of substance, or of quality sublime,
Or beautiful, capricious accident,
Or attribute immutable; howe'er
By fancy realized to intellect,
Or by imagination's power august
Made portion of the intellect: within
The Essence of our Being, in the Soul,
There is a standard, that all things sublime

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Compares with a sublimer archetype,
Than human faculty is sentient of,
In nature's grandest works, or art of man—
Sea, sky, or mountain—city, or pyramid;
And all things beauteous, with more beautiful,
Things bright, with brighter. Nay, the Sun himself
Is dim before her; for the Soul of man
Is of Jehovah most expressive Star,
Best Image of his glory. With herself
All things compareth she; and lo, all things
Are dwarfed in her supernal magnitude.
The mightiest is subdued, the loveliest shamed;
And, in the flood of her effulgence, she
Doth merge the glorious, and magnificent.
What then hath Earth to sate her appetite,
Or aught that's visible, even heaven itself?
She sighs for miracles, yet yearneth still,
And is herself the one great miracle.
Therefore is Man not what he is, mere clay,
Because he feels he is so, and compares
Himself with something nobler in himself;
Whence such sublime ability to feel,
After this wonderous fashion; and to endure
Patient the indignation, that would else
Consume this frail, and earthly tenement
To a white wreck of ashes; or smite down
This cunning architecture—(call it such)—
To ruin hoar, the Deity within
Departed long from the neglected shrine.’
Thus argued Samiasa: but knew not
That then Barkayal, from that apex point,
Was looking into heavenly depths, beyond
Unarmèd vision, at a Stranger Star,
Which, from its most remote appearance, he
At first perceived; and now, with horrour filled,

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Upon the Cometary Omen gazed,
With vision so intense as, from its orb's
Most inner centre, he, as from its heart,
Would drag its secret mystery forth to day.
Thus argued Samiasa—and pursued
‘Herein consists man's dignity; hereot
His reason is compact; and he combines
Two worlds within, and in himself includes
The Universe. Empowered hereby is he,
To climb to each remote intelligence;
And send his daring mind on errand strange,
Into the Heaven of heavens, before the throne
Of the Most High, asserting there the right
Of his immortal spirit to converse,
Its heritage, as Son of God—as Man.
Yet overween ye not—nor let the pride
Of man rebel: For God is jealous—God—
(Speaking as man must speak, whose slavish words
Have constant reference to sublunar things,
Whereto degraded man degrades his thought,
Even when its ravished speculations rise
To holiest objects, such as angels love,)—
Is jealous of his Unity, and Name.
—Ay, God is very jealous: and we may,
By that which deifies us, be destroyed;
By our own spirits may we be destroyed,
And they imbruted, falling short, even thus,
In their probation of the Perfect One;
With self-esteem well satisfied, well pleased,
With their own proper excellence content,
No further emulous of good, or great:
Building thereon presumption flatulent,
Until the wind escape, and all be found
Mere emptiness; not from the Spirit of God
Renewed, who, in the beginning, filled the void,

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Gloomy, and waste, with light, and life, and form.
—This was the sin of Lucifer—of Man;
The mortal sin, parent of Death, and Woe—
Whence Doubt was born. The soul that left hersource,
And would be as a god unto herself,
Fell backward on the body for support,
(But found it none,) . . and asked of it to bear
Her upward in her far imaginings.
Alas! even as the spider doth within
King's palaces, should she have kept the hold
That she had taken with her hands on heaven:
But she hath let her purchase go; and, now,
The ethereal dome is not within her reach:
And He, who raised her there before, again
Will not, who only can. Unless there be
Hope in the words which doomed the infernal snake;
And wherein I should verily believe,
But for the extreme iniquity of man,
Whence fear seems only just, and dread of doom.
—These are no mysteries to the sons of Seth.
Paradisaical aspirings they
Are conscious of: the high-wrought ecstasies
Of Fancy, which had borne the soul aloft
In Eden; now, within this sensual sty,
Disturb her feathers only, fluttering
Pollution on her wings, till clogged therewith,
Broken, and trammelled to the soil. Alas—
How heavily her breathings come, and go:
Poor bird—struggling with death, till, overcome,
On her an intermittent slumber seize;
And so she dies—a second death:—Or, if
Feeling the will to soar, and having power,
Leaves her nest like the Swallow, but returns
Anon, circling some pool, already tired
With her short flight, and longing for the time
When, on its sedgy banks she shall decline,

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And ease her passage to the torpid depth
Upon the pliant reed; so winter's frost
Shall nip her not:—Or, greatly daring, scorns
Eternal barriers; and, within the clouds,
She hangs presumptuous eyrie, and doth
Abominations there; unto herself
Making a brothel universe, which she
Deems co-extensive with eternity,
And space, and time, and reigns imperial in.’

II. Hherem, and Barkayal

While thus he spake, in Samiasa's heart,
Waked pride misdeeming, exultation vain,
That needed yet the scourge, erelong to fall
And teach still bitterer truth; and scant he knew
How to the flesh had spirit been subdued—
And soon the Sophist, in that Capitol,
Found demonstration of his sensuous creed,
In men, and in their ways. For not, like him,
(As late we witnessed in the Wilderness,)
Foul Hherem had in penitence retired,
But held on Earth his triumph, and in Hell.
—Boast of his high exploit (for such his vaunt),
O'er such supreme intelligence as shone
In that great Monarch, wisest fiends seduced,
The like success to win, to stoop to brute;
That they might soar, by bad ambition stung,
To realty o'er spiritual eminence.
For erst had they, in their rebellious guile,
The sons of Adam moved to be as gods,
But now sought to embrute, and so subdue
To their dominion; ay, and ever since,
His postdiluvian children, with gross art,
Have sunk to Nature sensual, and yet sink;
Whence, not from knowledge, but from ignorance

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Redemption hath been needed, and yet is.
—So went they forth, these devils damned, to damn
The world in second doom: and, first, debased
To infidelity the minds of Men,
Turning the very intellect against
The truth of their own soul; and sowing there,
Within its living soil, first doubt, then death—
And gathered-in quick harvest, by the power
Of Amazarah, and Azaradel.

Well Amazarah knew the sordid Fiend,
And long had known, long joined in mutual pact;
The sordid Fiend, with whom in hour of scorn
She mated: fitting league for her who was
Herself half human only, pride-begot
By demon on a daughter beautiful
Of fratricidal Cain; whence gifted she,
As hath been sung, with charm and magic spell.
Wicked as wise, and bad as beautiful,
The mother she became of progeny
Who called her son Azaradel their sire:
An impish brood, and nurtured cruelly,
To cruel ends; taught, in their innocence,
To pluck the eyes of captives bound supine,
Out from the living socket: and with glee,
With infant glee, such office they performed:
And with the yet-warm orbs she would compose
A Globe of Sorcery, wherein she saw . .
A visual mirrour . . into other worlds,
By Hherem aided in her hideous art.

And now his skill she sought. Dire jealousy
Had fired her soul to madness; since the false
Azaradel, in search of younger charms,
Had wandered: and, to win affection back,
She means to make new covenant with Hell.

But vengeance was at hand she knew not of:

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Though Hherem knew, for, in that wizard globe,
All he foresaw; in silence, there he looked,
Even in her presence, faithless; and beheld
How that the threatened Flood, when it came down,
Found out the sinner in his pride of crime.
In Enos, that bad city, Hherem saw,
Huge Idol; wonderous work; compared with those
Of the degenerate genius of our world,
As the Behemoth, or Leviathan,
Creatures of God's most plastic energy,
With Whale, and Lion, even though mighty these:
(But what to those, and their imperial might,
More than the Stag, and Dolphin to themselves;
Themselves in whom He now is pleased to shew
His power, proportionate to human thought's
Capacity, conception, or surmise?)
—Statue divine. Hard by, in a temple's tower
Was Edna, for the bridal of their god,
Great Mammon, kept. In guise of deity,
—(So Hherem in that magic mirrour traced
Event to come, but yet how nigh at hand)—
Approached Azaradel, with dance, and song
Accompanied, along the public way:
Heaven's window opened, then, right o'er their heads,
A sea with lightning sent, and thunderbolt.
From her high lattice, Edna saw, with praise
Of heavenward eye, the impious rite annulled:
Deluge descending took them all away.
Ignorant of what was in the womb of Time,
And unbelieving of prophetic Truth;
Within the palace-chamber deep-retired,
Mystic commune with Hherem, summoned there,
The royal Amazarah now maintains:
How to descend to Hades; place of Fear,
Not Hope. Soon they into the State unseen,

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Pass in the power of spells. At once, the gates
Of the Abyss display the horrid gorge,
Profound, and undefined; like winter's rack,
Unfolding from the vent. Down—down, descend
The guilty pair; undaunted with the way,
But trembling with impatient sympathy.
Dark—dark that central path, which low, and lower,
Guides to the prison of the lowest gulf.
No light: till grows the accustomed eye to love
That palpable obscure, and from itself
The ray creates, which the dead mass of things
Apparent makes to its instinctive sense;
And, by that radiance strange, they now discern
The Temple of the Fiends—a gorgeous dome,
Gorgeous with horrour, mockery of the Mount
Of Vision in the Heaven. The veil is drawn,
Expectant of her visit; and, behold,
The Demon-Cherubim, whose meeting wings
O'ershadow there the Ark of Blasphemy,
Enthroning Satan on its seat of Wrath;
Whence curses roll in thunder—earthquakes—storms,
The Sanctuary of Hell; and at the shrine,
In festal terrours stands a priestly fiend,
Two seething censers pouring from his hand
Religious maledictions to the King
Of unrepealed perdition. Silence now
Awaiting the response; no longer roars
Or blast, or billow. Straight is seized the hand
Of Amazarah; and upon the Ark
Hherem, with sudden rapture, it hath placed.
‘Swear!’—And she swore, an oath ineffable.
Then rush the winds to battle, and fan wide
The Tablets of mysterious Destiny,
Set in the bosom of the priestly fiend,
Urim, and Thummim. With the sound aroused,
Uplooking, she hath read the covenant

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Whereto her soul is bound. O, bloody terms:
And from her kneeling posture up she starts,
With one strong wrench of agony matern:
—And lo, before her Samiasa stands.
She shrieks, and on the palace-floor she falls,
Even at his feet she falls, and there she lies;
There prostrate at his feet, even where she fell,
Not dead, but speechless, Amazarah lies;
At her Son's feet, fallen speechless, but not dead,
The Queen lies prostrate on that palace-floor.

III. Japhetls Vision

And now came on the End, by Vision shewn
To Japhet, as it was to Noah once.
—The Prophet-Sculptour, on his handy-work
Bestowing his last pains, beheld it stand,
Before him in its glory: such as he
Had in his heart conceived—a perfect form.

Bow ye, and adore. The God abides in stone,
Incarnate thus. Divinely halcyon,
His pregnant brow is bathed in deity.
His attitude, how eloquent: one hand
Thus mildly raised, the other held aloft
Pointing to heaven. From his disparted lips
There seemed to gush a rill of soothing speech,
Yet awful; for a God's sublimity
Girt gentleness celestial,—girt with power.
There was a sorrow in his gracious mien,
And in his sorrow a regality,
As he were uttering that doom fulfilled,
Of desolation to Jerusalem,
Whose children, but she would not, he had gathered
Under his wing omnipotent.

‘Behold:
The sun is quelled—the moon is quenched—the stars
Die in the darkled ether, and from out

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Their golden cressets drop—the sky doth quake,
And all its powers do quail. From midst the gloom,
Appeareth, like a supernatural dawn
The symbol of his coming. Mourn, O Earth.
Pavilioned in the clouds, the Son of Man
Comes;—and his Angels, with a trumpet-sound,
That the four winds, to the four ends of air,
Bear on their rushing pennons vehement,
Gather from every part the Elect of God,
And Heaven, and Earth before him pass away.’

So spake the Prophet-Sculptour, and adored . .
Words uttered since by him to whom he knelt,
And then inspired. A trance came over him.

The Vision was from Heaven: the thunder pealed:
A voice angelical cried, ‘Come, and see.’
Rose Japhet, and beheld the prophecy.
—Lo, a White Horse of purest hue . . the stream
That overflowed the star-paved court of heaven,
And blanched the purple lily, as fables tell,
Less white . . less pure. Moved by the will divine,
He bore, in steps of music, glory-crowned,
A peaceful Conquerour; clothed with life, and light,
And, by the vision of beatitude,
His aspect kindled in serenity.
Armed with a bow, his arrows quivered all;
His presence vanquished, and his coming won
Afar. Before him Paradise—behind
He left no desolation. But not thus
The rider of the Sanguine Steed—a sword
Was in the hero's hand, and he destroyed.
The black-maned charger, fierce for fields of blood,
Champing his bit until the hot foam seethed,
Raised clouds of war beneath his fiery hoofs—
The mighty there were hid. The warriour's gaze,
His sunk and savage gaze, from underneath
The forehead-burying helm, glared greedily

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On the surrounding wreck. He gnashed his teeth,
And his unslaked mouth gaped, athirst for gore.—
What Son of Night succeeds? That Sable Steed.
He comes involved in darkness palpable—
Fit witness of such scene. His Rider who?
Whence that dim speck in each suspicious eye,
Scanning the shaken balance in his hand,
Whose slant beam made him pause? Hoar sceptic, he.
Death followed him; mysterious Death: his pall
That robe funereal, darkening where it flew—
Well suited its dim skirts to that slant beam.
In fury on they came, that Sable Steed,
And the Pale Horse; Death's own; one centaur they,
Wrought of cold ice, parching the air with cold:
From their dire nostrils went consuming plague.
Hell rode on lurid clouds. Now, Death's right hand
Upraised the living serpent, that coiled up
His eager arm; and from both hands aloft
Were launched brands of blue lightning all abroad.
All leaden was his foot, and spectre neck,
And his unnatural head was strangely crowned.
And, like a whirlwind, came that icy steed,
In his unreinèd wrath; and his grey mane
Tossed in abrupt disorder, like dark waves
Sieging a steep rock in a night of storms.
And the dark features of that ghastly king
Gleamed with a hideous smile: his eyeballs rolled
Baleful in triumph, and his ominous mouth
Threatened extermination—and he looked
Into the distance—for destruction there,
While havoc revelled round. Over the wife,
His beautiful wife, the princely husband hangs,
Scarce pale with recent death, her offspring yet
In her embrace—that last kiss took one with her,
From her relaxèd grasp the sweet boy fell;
The daughter deems her mother in a swoon,

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And strives with filial care to stay her fall,
In vain. Gaunt Famine there, an old man, knelt,
Digging the uncharitable earth for roots,
With his lank fingers; and his daughter couched,
The livid Pestilence, on a mat beside,
Shivering. Still neighboured Death that Sable Steed,
And he who sate thereon, Errour's sharp judge,
Minute in estimate, in decision stern,
Weighing, in his unsteady balance, deeds
And men: one scale with woe surcharged, and one
With virtue insufficient: passionless:
Doubt hard by Death, with squint diagonal,
Gloating on misery, and afraid of joy,
So oft deluded, truth it even suspects.

Beast raged, and strove with man: and men were slain.
The horse, and rider to the lion yield;
And Strength's undaunted countenance was weak,
And Fortitude. Youth's lance was broke, and he
Tossed in the wind. The firmament was rent,
And the skies warred 'gainst man: the thunder smote
The lover; and in terrour woman fled,
With gaze reverted, as in love, or awe.
The eagle with the heron in the clouds
Held contest wild; and o'er her slaughtered mate
The galless dove, a widow, drooped in grief.

He looked again . . and lo, beneath the foot
Of him that gentle Conquerour, crushed, and slain,
The old Serpent lay, head-bruised: and far above
Soared saints, and martyrs to beatitude,
For whom he conquered. Thus the Vision closed.

The reader who is acquainted with West's picture of “Death on the Pale Horse” will perceive that the above description is derived from a study of the painting.

Whoso had seen the Prophet-Sculptour then,
In this his trancèd dream, had not perceived

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Aspect perturbed, or changed with strange event,
Albeit thus passing strange, and fraught with doom.
A whirlwind had outsnatched his spirit, and rapt
Above the Olympian hill: yet what he saw,
And heard into his marrow searched, like fire.
Like the still whispering wind at eventide,
To him prediction came not, as it comes
Oft to the dying saint, to soothe his soul,
And softly speak of heaven. The flood was up;
Tempest abroad. Anon, a gradual calm,
A gentle breeze, a quiet finishing;
And peace companioned his returning soul.

Now through each vein the electric fluid glowed,
And he awoke, inspired. Long time he mused:
‘A mighty thing hath been to me revealed—
How shall the stone express it?’ And his hand
Dashed o'er the marble with a spirit's power,
His artist-hand. The head of that Pale Horse
Snorts fire; each nostril to each eye constrained
In nigh-disrupting rage, dilated—tort.
A perfect labour, which, had it survived,
Genius would question like an oracle;
Yet, weak resemblance of its archetype,
The genius that created it despised.
—‘It is in vain,’ said Japhet; ‘human art
Strives not with skill celestial—Art, farewell.
The hand forgets its cunning. Human sight
May not behold it—but my spirit burns—
'Twas not revealed for silence—I will forth.
This weapon of ethereal tempering,
Which thus God's Spirit hath in mine inclosed,
As in a sheath, or plunged as in a bath,
To sharpen in my soul; my father, thou
Shalt pluck out thence, and prove its double edge.’

Forthwith he sought his sire; his brethren, too,
Moved by paternal mandate, also came.

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Then Japhet told his vision. As he spake
His frame dilated, and his port assumed
Strange grandeur, and impulsive energy
Of concentrated import and deep awe.
Noah his son embraced.

‘A Prophet thou;
And to thy Sire, and Brethren sent from God.’
—Shem worshipt: but tears fell from Ham's sad eyes,
He knew not why; he could not chuse but weep.

IV. Mount of Paradise

And Samiasa stood within the Vale
Of Abel; and, within a little space,
Zateel confronted him.

Then said the King:
‘Knowest thou me not?’

Hereat on him Zateel
Gazed earnestly:

‘Thy features, like a dream,
Tell of the past, but in delusive wise,
Recalling the irrecoverable.’

Again,
The King spake to him thus:—

‘Hear me, Zateel:
My heart, even as the desart where I dwelt,
Was once athirst. The fountain now unsealed,
Its waters overflow. Thy heart is not
Adust with age, nor passionless; but there
Full fancy flourishes, and lifts its head,
Even as my fortune once, a goodly tree,
Until God's Angel cut it down.’

Whereat,
Zateel, convinced, at once exclaimed,

‘My lord—
My king—my father—brother—lover—friend.’

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‘No raptures now, my son,’ said Samiasa;
‘Well may it be for thee, and curb thy mind
From the presumption, which high faculty
Builds up, until it madden, if I tell
A tale to thee: a tale, while these sad lips
Stamp truth on what thou hearest.’

Tears Zateel
Wept; but, the gush of feeling finding way,
He answered, ‘King—say on—’

‘'Tis of my Mother.
To whom was more of beauty, more of wisdom,
Given than to Amazarah—or to me?
Zateel; I sought her in the palace-chamber,
To tell her of God's dealings with her son,
And wean her from her wickedness. I found
The sleeping Sorceress as of old. I stood,
And gazed, entranced, upon the majesty
Of her repose. I will not tell thee—then—
What storm of thoughts made me to shudder soon;
But rather how, recovering from such mood,
I did essay to wake the guilty Queen;
And how in vain, with voice and hand, I strove
To rouse her from her somnolency deep.
A Power was on her I might not remove.
Her body was as dead, and well I kenned
Her spirit absent thence;—but 'twas not dead—
I looked on it for hours; till at the last
She spake, still sleeping. Ask me not the words,
What direful oath it was she ratified
With the Infernal powers. How lived I yet,
After I heard them; till, restored to sense,
She gazed upon, and knew me, and fell down?
I could no more, but from the chamber rushed,
Determined the dread purpose to forestall.’

‘What purpose?’
‘Ask me not, I say; nor speak

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Of what hath been disclosed. An awe is on me;
Be it on thee, and on thine utterance.’

Aright, and to the west of Armon, they
Stood; by the waters of Dunbadan there,
Which make right beautiful, and musical,
The Vale of Abel's Sacrifice, and Death:
Then on its banks they sate, and talked awhile;
Till Palal was approaching, by Zateel
Known, as by Samiasa, but till now
Shunned, for the doctrine which he spake abroad.
Now Palal joined the twain; and thus, in haste,
Bespake the King:

‘They come, with all their hosts,
Monarchs, and people; ardent, and grown bold,
To compass their design. Now, will they prove
The might of the Invisible.’

At this,
Rose Samiasa, and Zateel; and clomb
A lofty hill o'erlooking the far plain,
That like a continent spread out immense,
Bordering the Land of Streams. The invading hosts
They saw, in number like far-off seen trees,
Of forest, or of wild; whose lofty tops,
Beheld at distance, are so closely massed,
They seem a sea with waves, as in the wind
They bow before the heavens; communion they
Of saints, nor of the Spirit's fellowship
Unvisited; whose voice in gale, and breeze
Reverent they hear, and worship. But not such,
Nor piously engaged, those numbers, there,
That fill the champaign broad: armies of men
Rebellious, unadoring, and profane;
War-chariot, and War-Steed; and Elephant
To conflict trained, and bearing on his back
Turrets of warriours: animals besides,

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Which the restorèd world has not yet tamed
To human use, were in the throng. The huge,
And strong Rhinoceros, with solid horn
Outgrowing on the maxillary bone,
Proof-armed—by tiger dreaded, lest it rip
His bowels—bore its lord upon its back
Into the battle throng; though turning oft
War to confusion, hurling friend on foe;
Camel, and Dromedary, and wild Mule;
All these came on: bent to assail the Mount
Of Paradise, and Eden lost regain.
Fools, not to know, that of the soul herself
The real Eden is, and she may make
Such of the barest, rudest spot on earth,
If piety, or charity be there.
Urged by the fiends in human limbs arrayed,
By Hherem, Satan, and Azaziel, came
The mailèd crowds, in military pomp;
Proud of such pomp; vain show, though gorgeous; weak,
Though seeming strong in multitudes; thence weak,
And because weak in multitude arrayed.
—Aggressors, through the Vale of Armon they
Move in defile; and on the pleasant banks
Of its baptizing stream, right arrogant,
Their chivalry dispose, in order meet.
Whoso had seen them then, might deem fair troop
Of prowest men, and steeds so swift, and strong;
With other creatures, savage, fierce, and wild:
With ensigns, and with pioneers expert,
To push obstruction back of hill, or wood;
Or raise opposing mountain, where was vale;
Or bridge o'er lake, and chasm, and river broad;
Were potent greatest emprize to achieve.
Ignorant of fate, as yonder battle Steed,
Who eager snorts, and, with snake subtlety,
Winds his glad way through numbers, and performs,

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With supple spring obedient, what his lord,
Throned on his back, designs. O ignorant!—
While to the heaven thou vaultest, in soaring hope;
Or down the hill, with headlong energy,
Precipitatest like a rolling rock;
Then rising, dost as rapidly ascend,
Like a red meteor voyaging on high;
Or skimmest, with birdlike smoothness, level vale,
Tossing thy bright mane, like a torrent's foam,
Moving like air in air, but in thy course
Outstripping the swift whirlwind; or, with rein
Relaxed, glidest onward like a star, or checked,
Turnest like a comet; solid earth, meantime,
Shrinks from thy furious heel. O ignorant,
Brave Steed, art thou, thyself the while but decked,
A sacrifice; for Death's enormous strength
Ere long, with more than sinewy arm, to grasp.
Thee, when the giant seize, shall not avail
Might, or of bone, or limb, . . or effort fierce:
Fixed to the earth, within the monster's gripe,
That heavy head, so graceful now and light,
And that extended neck.

Ah, it is done—
On to that Mountain, Sodi, and his Steed,
Press confident; and to the Ark of God,
That Deluge Ship, arrive. Who there await
His formidable coming? Noah, Shem,
And Japhet, with most old Methuselah.
Patient they wait. Then on the holy thing
The glowing Knight puts his extended hand:
Fire flashes up; stones from a distance flung,
As from a sling, before the guarded hill,
Smote Steed, and Rider both. There lie they now,
O'erthrown; one dead, one dying. From within
Fire, as he writhes, at that Steed's nostrils smokes;
And the blood bubbles, both to ear, and eye,

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Through the swoln veins; till, with the agony
Upspringing, his mad hoof deep dints the sod,
With a quick spasm, as of a lightning's stroke,
And then he falls for ever. O soon quenched,
Or vanished, all that vigour fiery,
And terrible, which him so late inspired.

Not sooner yet than cooled the valourous heat,
And insolent, in those invading hosts.
For lo, the Cherubim, apparent all;
In glory blazing high, and wide, and far;
Stood like a pillar of fire; or like a hill,
Or forest burning; but with shapes, and faces
Outlooking from the flames, as from a furnace,
Unharmèd forms, human if not divine,
At least angelic, graced with numerous wings.
And still the flames advanced; still forward came;
Till, in a robe of light, they did invest
The sainted form of old Methuselah.
So venerably old, that age in him
Was verily sublime; and in the soul
That gazed upon his form, even to tears,
Kindled emotion elevate, profound.
—Yet could yon Knight, now fallen, endure his frown,
And rudely push him by, to smite that Ark,
Divinely ordered; Sodi, rebel youth,
Though valiant, yet apostate. Of the tribe
Of old Methuselah, a youngest son,
Of consecrated race, seduced wert thou
Into the ranks of the profane; and mixed
(But one of many) in their ways of life,
And in their modes of thought; and scorn conceived
Of patriarchal rule, and holy rede.
Chief laughedst thou at the awe in which were held
That self-same Ark, those very Cherubim;
Illusion all, as thou right well mightst know,
Who hadst been in the secret, and wert taught

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How such were fabricated, and adored,
For government, so that the few, or one,
Might lord it o'er the rest—the myriad minds,
Equal, and independent as their own.
Hence hardiest thou, and foremost in assault;
Filial impiety, but soon avenged;
And crowned with glory bright the insulted Sire,
With glory crowned, in sight of all mankind.

And soon Earth shook beneath those multitudes;
Horribly shook: and in the human heart
Was equal fear; flesh universal quaked,
Lest all the region gape, and swallow all:
But otherwise 'twas fated; One alone
Was doomed. Riven as with a thunderbolt,
The mountain yawned; and deep into his grave
Sank, diademed with light, Methuselah;
Thus buried, that no insult desecrate
A Patriarch's obsequies again, as mocked
With contumely Lamech's sacred bier.

Thus sank Methuselah, by earthquake gulfed,
Received to Hades. But, from out his grave,
A column high, and broad, of water wroth
Upspouted through a chasm, that might not close,
Forced by the impetuous element apart.
On high it towered a Fountain, and came down
A River, circling in the lofty air,
And flowing nether earth, a beauteous thing,
Yet terrible:—that arch of grace, and power,
In fluid motion, living in the light;
In agony, and action manifest
To ear, and eye—a spirit passionate,
Or spirits, in that stormy atmosphere,
Ascending, and descending—raging, wild.

Hereat all stood in stupid gaze. Meanwhile,
The Watchers of the Door of Paradise
Moved rapidly apart; and made a way

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For entry, or for egress, to and fro
The holy garden. Soon, between them, stood
The sainted form of Enoch, still in youth;
And still his voice was heard as ere he went:

‘He cometh, with ten thousands of his saints,
Judgement forthwith on all to execute;
And all that are ungodly to convince
Of their ungodly deeds, and their hard speech,
Which against him, Most Holy, they have dared.’

He said; and held aloft, in view of all,
The Tables of the Laws of the Most High;
Each letter made distinct with flames of fire,
And flashing outwards into trails of light.
In at the eye it entered, to the brain
It penetrated deep, and smote with pangs
Guilt where it found. With speed, and awe, away
Fled the invaders, ruinous retreat.

END OF TENTH BOOK.

308

BOOK THE ELEVENTH. DUDAEL

I. Noah Rejected

Then, prostrate in Jehovah's presence, spake
Noah, and said:—

‘O Lord, my God: now, hear,
And answer; for the press of thoughts, and things,
And men perplexes, now, thy servant sore.
Hast thou determined to destroy, indeed,
Earth, with her offspring? Should I then assume
Patriarch authority, paternal rule,
Over the people? And wherefore? seeing now,
In name, and not in substance, of long time,
And powerless, the station hath been held;
An ordinance obsolete, that hath lost its hold
On popular opinion, and repute?
Or, if I take on me the robe of power,
Oh, wilt thou pardon, thou Almighty God,
And rescue the doomed world, redeem, and save?
Rescue, redeem, and save, Omnipotent:
In mercy save, even for thy servant's sake,
If once I favour found, and still retain.’

Then spake Jehovah. ‘Thou hast favour found;
Nor mayst thou rightful Ordinance resign.
If they accept thee, well; if not, retire,
And make thee ready; for the Judgement sits.’

Such was God's answer unto Noah's prayer.
So he arose; and, on the morrow, called
The people to the Sacrifice. But not
For worship, but debate, they came: the wise,
And ignorant; the cunning, and unapt;

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Claiming alike free speech; philosophists,
And oratours; Palal, and Rumel: For
These twain had forces joined; and in the minds
Of men had made them empire; and, with power,
The democratic temper could persuade,
Combine, and wield its elements at will:
And Hherem who, with secret influence,
Directed all to slavery, while they
Of Freedom talked, and Rights unreasoning,
That owned no Duty, or to God, or man:
And wild Azaziel who, in nature's wrath,
Saw Liberty—the licence to destroy,
Which pleased him best; and Satan, who would rear,
On ruins of creation, a high throne,
That o'er against the visionary Mount
Might tower, audacious, opposite to God's.

Now, on the Altar-tomb had Noah placed
The sacred Book, to Seth by Enoch given;
And, kneeling, would have prayed; but Palal then
Began the wordy war.

‘Pardon,’ said he,
‘Intrusion out of course; but time has changed
Old channels, and the spirit of the age,
Would it be heard, must violate, where needs,
Old forms, and institutions, and make new,
That Law grow not save of the will of all,
Hold of existing circumstance, and fit
Accumulated knowledge widely spread.
Men know their rights, and to assert them now—
To will, and think, and speak as of themselves,
And to appoint what rules they will obey,
If any, and how. Well was it in old times,
The sire should teach the son, and children learn
From their forefathers, and believe: but now,
Change has accrued; and sons are who might lord

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O'er parents, if in wisdom be the right,
More capable to teach than they to learn.
Then, why should they be subject, and succumb
To authority inferiour, knowledge less?
Herein deem not, I Noah's wisdom doubt,
Knowing his worth, and eloquence; but this
I well may question, when he credit claims
For inspiration, whereof know I nought,
Nor may. For whence is knowledge? From the sense.
What we perceive by eye, and ear, taste, touch,
And smell, become ideas, and compose
Reason, and understanding; nor are they
Of other objects sentient. What is deemed
Of infinite, and eternal is made up
Of times, and spaces added without end;
And so some notion formed, how vague at best.
But Noah would of other knowledge vaunt,
Caught from some other state, or world, or age,
Discerned but by the Spirit, and on faith,
The credit of his word, to be believed—
Or haply of power miraculous, whereof
Was told me yesterday, and partly felt
And seen, though but in part, because afar
I stood, and saw, and felt imperfectly,
At distance. Earthquake—Gulph—and Fire!
Why, what's in these that Nature tells not of?
These rumblings of the earth are ordinary;
And, without wrath, may swallow whom they please:
Why not Methuselah?—And for the flame,
'Twas the volcanic blaze that ever tends
On Earthquake, and announces, and succeeds,
Cherubic guardians deemed of Eden lost.
Vain terrours; which the light of science, seen
In the horizon only, soon will chase—
Like shades before the sun at morning-rise.
Thus futile these pretensions; others may

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Be proved, perchance, as fond. Behoves it, then,
His claims be tested; and to all be given
Free opportunity merit to sift,
And chuse the wisest, and the best to rule.’

He ended, and was followed with applause
Unanimous.—Straight, from amidst the throng,
Rose, unexpected, Samiasa then;
And awe imposed, and silence.

‘Friends;’ he cried:
‘Patient I've heard, like patience shew to me.
'Tis said, no inner vision hath the soul,
But all its knowledge is derived from earth;
Yet 'tis confessed there is a power within,
Which from the finite argues infinite—
What is that power? O surely not of earth,
For earthly things fail it to satisfy,
And cannot shew the Object that it wants.
Is then that Object nothing? Nay, the soul
Perceives of it impression, with that eye,
Which, being spiritual, spiritually beholds;
As with a fleshly orb it apprehends
Material forms, intelligently seen.
And this Idea, or creative Word,
Reports of Law; of which the shadows be,
By symbols, shewn in nature, and the rule
Of government. But its high fountain is
Thy bosom, God! whose Being is the Law
Unto thy working; authour to itself;
Beginning all things for a worthy end,
And operation limiting thereby,
In measure, number, weight, according to
The counsel of thy Will; that Wisdom old,
More antient than the hills, co-mate with thee,
Eternal: Order, hence, appoints to all
His creatures, and creation, duties fit:
Celestial, natural; human, or divine;

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Fatal, or voluntary. Nature thus,
To Law obedient, Being to produce,
Generates forms, to be the souls of things.
Thus Angels love, adore, and imitate
The purity, the glory, and the beauty
Of him who placed their armies, and their hosts
In order, and degree, the ministers
Of virtue unto men. Thus men themselves,
Aiming at goodness, covet to be like
God in continuance, and creation both;
And seek to propagate, and to their works
Give constancy, and excellence like his;
And rise, by reason, to the knowledge pure
Of things, not sensible; and, by the power
Of will, the spirit of the mind,—of heaven.
Knowledge, and Will; whence Choice. Of these discoursed
Palal even now, and argued Noah false:
His premises proved false, prove Noah true.
Chuse ye the good, avoid the evil now;
And to the Laws by Reason given to Man,
For social rule, and peaceful fellowship,
And to old ordinance, old authority,
Bow as of right, that Order be not broke;
Knowing that intellect may not usurp
On moral power, and either damage 'scape.’

Thus ended he; and thought profound held mute
The assembly—soon by Rumel called to hear.
—‘Freemen;’ exclaimed the Oratour: ‘men free
By Nature; wherefore should ye to old saws
Yield, whom new prospects to new fields invite
Of great endeavour? At whose voice? At his,
Who by inheritance possessed a throne,
And was a king, and straight must ape the god,
And rather than in city, dwelt in wild?
Now, from his sway released, in the same line
Resides authority: how graced with virtue,

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Both in Azaradel, and Amazarah;
With what allegiance unto antient law,
Or modern, well appears to all, and each:
Yet little need be cared for, if it brought
Oppression not on subjects, scourging oft
The sins of other men, and taxing them
For maintenance of their own. The hour is come,
When Earth must throw off rule: and lawless Man
Be as at first; self-governed, or quite free;
Each waging his own right, or his own wrong
Avenging; following his own desires;
Self-arbiter of evil, and of good.’

At this was uproar, scarce by Noah stilled,
Who hardly audience found, though speaking there
The words of the Most High.

‘That man is free,
Who is not held in bondage of his lusts,
No servant to corruption; only he.
And all must be such slaves whom law rules not,
For those of Nature are, law of the Mind:
Hence parents check their children, and forbid
Indulgence, ruinous to health, or heart;
Thus God, the Father of the Universe,
Gave Law to Adam; and, above the flesh,
Enthroned in state the spirit; nor repealed,
Nor a jot bated its validity,
For his transgression. Adam to his Sons
Such government extended; how to live
In fellowship, though violated oft,
Yet ne'er annulled. And so, from race to race,
Each father was a king to his own house;
And, o'er the numerous households, one was set,
In right of Adam's rule, hereditary
Dominion to exhibit, and enforce.
Yet Life was before Law: the Maker, hence,

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For Adam made provision, ere he tasked
Obedience. And when Cain sought Naid afar,
Natural impediment, and penury
Were first assuaged, and many arts discerned,
Though but mechanical, ere he might rear
A city, and a state. Valour, and wit,
With conjoint effort, then relation fixed
Of Right, and Duty; but had to contend
With envy, strife, contention, violence—
Used both for good, and evil. Heed ye now.
The days are evil, justice is dethroned;
Fathers are scorned, and order set at nought,
Private, or social: all it doth behove
To take away all mutual grievances,
All injuries, and wrongs; and to appoint
Public agreement, social government—
Whereto yield ye submissive; and to whom
Ye grant authority, may peace, and bliss,
And to the rest, by them be still procured.—
Peace to the righteous: to the oppressor, woe.
Nor has the bounteous Maker left ye void
Of supernatural aid; but in his law,
The Testament of Enoch, taught to Man
The way of duty, and the gate of bliss.’

Thus Noah. But loud clamour rose, and scorn,
And laughter, and opprobrium, and the cries
Of insolent rejection; tumult soon,
And strife, and bloodshed. Veiled within a cloud,
God rescued from the outrageous multitude
His Prophet; and rage died, its victim gone.
—Died with the Rephaim, those giant twins,
Who sometime smote, by Adam's sepulchre,
Noah while preaching . . whereof hath been told.
And now, again, the demon Brethren sought
To smite him as he spake: but either deemed

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It honour to strike first; and, for the fame,
One with the other strove, until escaped
Their victim.—Then, upon his Brother each
His anger turned; wrath deadly—murtherous—
Wrestling in contest, gladiatorial strife:
Emulous of victory, seeking it as balm
To disappointment; neither wishing yet
To live thereafter, fired by frenzy so,
As if such loss bore no surviving, or,
After such gain, life worthless were, and stale.
High skill they shewed in combat; to assault
Or to defend, both equal; both unmatched
By any else; right artists in their kind,
Of all acknowledged, theme of saw, and song.
Long time, was either by the other held
At bay: their weapons clashed, but to protect,
And not to wound; until at length—at length—
Dagger of each was close at heart of each,
Mutually crossed; then, each in other's face
Looked, and laughed loud—and, as they laughed, they plunged
The poniards in; laughed, as they plunged them in—
And, laughing, drew them out; and, as they fell
Backward, laughed dying: laughing, so they died
In ecstasy, both victors, both death-crowned.
—Thus died the Born of Spirit, and of Flesh;
Apostate Spirit; (not apostate, guilt
Had then been none;) and thus on earth were they
Demons as giants, evil energies
In strength incarnate; errours masculine
Enshrined in clouds, yet not of Glory named,
But Hades—dark, oppressive, and corrupt,
Louring o'er earth, in battailous array,
Contending, bursting, falling but to bruise.

Thus died they, and more terrible the laugh,
That, from the hell-mouth of their gushing heart,

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In that death-transport brake, than were the fiends
To mock a mourner from some cave's deep rift—
Soft-hearted mourner for a doomèd world,
With exultation of the coming wreck;
Greedy of ruin, angels of mischance:
More terrible, and more oracular.

II. The Angels

That eve, in pensive contemplation, stood
The Angel of Repentance, Phanuel;
And, through the tear-drop in his quiet eye,
Watched westering Earth, with Uriel, in the Sun:
Beside him Archangelic Michael towered.

In the sun-world they stood, an orb of fire,
To heavenly seraphs only genial place;
To frames less ardent mortal element.
Burning both day, and night; a flashing mount
Was Uriel's throne: and, round about it set,
Seven other hills—compiled of fiery stones,
Brilliant, and beautiful, and living flames—
Supported on their slopes, and on their brows,
Unwithering trees, with odorous fruitage hung,
In clusters, breathing fragrance where he sate.
Hence, Uriel swayed the multitude of Stars;
Appointing them, in measure, and in weight,
Light; as they came, attracted; and, repelled,
Went thence to do his bidding. The Moon, too,
Waxing, or waning, was his servitress,
Handmaid of Uriel. Glorious was the throne;
And, at its footstool, flowed a river pure;
River of light, and life; billows of life,
And waves of light, which spake even as they flowed:
Tongues of quick fire, and cloven in the midst,
Singing immortal anthems, hymns divine;
Voices of music, harmonies of heaven:

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Angels, the guardians of the fount of fire,
Innumerable. Glorious were the Three,
Watchers of Heaven, clad in celestial white,
Of countenance transparent—clear aspect,
That as of crystal shewed the mind within,
Not hid deceptive: holy they, and true,
Bright Uriel, Michael strong, and Phanuel meek.
And, at the back of Uriel's throne, were hung
A bow of fire, and arrows fiery
Within their quiver, and a sword of fire,
Lightning, and radiance, splendours without end.

Now, the great Mother, active for her sons,
Came to the palace of the Lord of Day:
The rosy Hours about her coming throng.
They, from her dusky chariot, loose awhile
Her wearied steeds; and, out of golden urns,
Refresh them with the living streams of light.
Mournful in her maternal majesty,
Straight she descended from her lofty seat:
And, like the queen of sorrow, proud, and pale,
Entered the gorgeous dwelling of the Sun;
Whose glory dazed her elevated brow,
To treble wanness, and intenser grief.
The radiant angel, affable as bright,
His yellow tressèd head in homage veiled,
And gave her welcome from his shining state.
But, from her blanchèd forehead, she undid
Her oaken coronet, and cast it down
Upon the heavenly pavement, chrysolite;
The solemn foldings of her regal robe
Unclasped; and, on the footsteps of his throne,
Sank down, in woe, and agony extreme.

‘Me miserable:’ with a heavy groan,
Began the mighty Mother, mighty now
Only in sorrow. ‘Miserable me;
Whose children have been murtherers from the womb.

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Far other hope was mine, whom angel harps,
Emerging from the waste of Chaos old,
Hailed, on my natal, and my nuptial day,
Sister, and bride of the perpetual heaven.
How gladly, with diurnal industry,
I journeyed toward thy orient Capitol,
To alternate warmth, radiance, and delight,
To either hemisphere of my round orb,
Together with the sweet vicissitude
Of grateful shadow, and refreshing sleep;
And still, with indefatigable love,
Controled the seasons to the weal of Man.
I nourished him with milk from out my breasts;
Naked, I clothèd him; to him I gave
Country, and home, and heritage, and tomb:
But he, ingrate, my brow defiled with blood;
With armèd heel he smote my matron face,
With bloody hand he stabbed my pregnant womb;
And violence and lust possess the lands,
With palaces, and temples unto gods,
That are no gods, sore-burthened, and distrest.
My heart is broken, sick, and sorrowful.
Ay me, I fear that the Long-suffering yet
Will rise in wrath; and, in one common wreck,
Me, for my children's sins, with them confound.’

To whom thus Uriel: ‘O majestic queen,
O melancholy mother, beautiful
In sorrow, and sublime in misery:
Thou well hast done the work thou hadst to do.
This, as the Eye of the all-seeing God,
I witness; this broad heaven doth avouch.
Thee, hence, he circles still, as in the day
Of your espousals, with intense embrace.
And he hath heard thee groan, hath heard thy cry,
From midst the floods, whereon thy throne is set;
And soon the Avenger over thee shall pass,

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And thou shalt be avengèd; thou, and Heaven,
On your lewd daughters, and intemperate sons.’

Whereto the Mother: ‘Let me be overwhelmed,
Within the abrupt abyss; so but the doom
My children may escape.’

‘It may not be,’
Interposed Michael. ‘I, in my place in heaven,
Have testified to their iniquities.
The dreamers that defile the flesh, despise
Dominion, and speak ill of dignities,
Of things they know not, and beyond their sense,
Themselves corrupting in the things they know;
Spots in the festivals of charity,
Feasting in fearlessness, and thanklessness;
Clouds without water, borne about of winds;
Trees, whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead,
Uprooted; raging billows of the sea,
Out-foaming their own shame; and wandering stars,
To whom the blackness of deep darkness is
Reserved for ever: mockers walking still
After their own ungodly lusts, and who
Divide themselves, the moieties of men,
Sensual, of spirit emptied utterly.
And every Star that watcheth in the sky,
Hath, to his jealous God, his record borne
Of adoration strange; and, from her sphere,
The Moon hath also lifted up her voice,
And the bright Sun, abashed, doth veil his beams.’

Hereat, the heart of Earth sobbed forth aloud:
Then Phanuel sought with these to solace her.

‘Sorrowful mother of a sinful race,
Whose hearts I fain would turn to holiness;
Hear what my anxious care has learned for thee.
In Heaven there have been goings to and fro;
And, from among the Myrtle-trees, the Angel
Called to the Riders on the blood-red Horses,

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Who are ye? and they answered: We are they
Whom he hath sent to travel, up and down,
Thorough the earth. Well, asked the questioner:
Is earth at peace? As yet, the Courier said,
She sitteth still . . she is at rest as yet.’

Then thus the Mother. ‘'Tis the deepest calm,
Heralds the wildest tempest evermore.’

‘Trust in the Father; he is merciful.’
Thus Uriel comforted her misery.

So she departed; having, from his fount
Of light her horn replenished: her aspect
Glowed in his glory, radiant as the eve;
And the tall turrets of her diadem,
Fused by his eye, shone like a molten sea.

Who then had gazed into the billowy west,
Had deemed that Uriel on his orb declined.—
How beautiful his glory: how intense
The beauty: how poetical in dew:
How bright the crown of beams around his brows,
Imparadising, with their burning hues,
The clouds voluminous; that, in their joy,
Change to a myriad tints ineffable,
Gorgeously circling his refulgent throne,
And it, in undulating majesty,
Pageant to ocean, a glad company.

III. Phanuel, and Samiasa

And Michael soared into the Heaven of heaven:
But Phanuel sought the earth; such charge he had,
For Samiasa doomed to deepest grave
Of stern humility, that he might rise
To more salvation, cleansed of fatal pride.
Deep in Dudael, voluntary now,
Had he retired to brood upon the state
Of the rebellious world, and on the sin

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Unspeakable, yet in mysterious sleep
By Amazarah uttered. And he cast,
How he the horrid purpose, she had sworn
To the infernal Powers, might best impede.

Wrath in his soul was kindled: ‘Rule hath gone,’
Said he, ‘from man; dominion is no more.
All Ordinance hath vanished from all lands,
Because my sceptre ceased to sway the earth,
That I, her victor, had commanded once.
I will resume authority, and make
Due compensation for whatever wrong
Was then by me committed; will restore
The worship of the One, the Only-True;
And win obedience to the ancient ways.’

Then Phanuel stood before him—clad in light,
More pure than of the Sun—a frowning god.

‘Thou?’ said the Angel: ‘thou hast even prepared
The heavens, and set thy compass on the deep;
Their clouds established, and her fountains filled;
Secured the earth's foundations, and thereof
The measures hast appointed. Thereon thou
Hast stretched the line, and laid its corner stone.
Ocean flows in the hollow of thy hand,
And the proud isles thou liftest easily.
For is not Samiasa more than dust,
And his right arm can save him?’

Inly groaned
The fallen King. ‘Then verily am I
A Shadow on the earth, and better 'tis
That I should die than live.’

‘All men are such,’
Replied the Angel; ‘all such doom awaits;
And who art thou that thou shouldst save the earth,
And at the Judgements of thy God repine?’

Then Samiasa murmured:
‘Better 'twere,

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No pardon were vouchsafed unto my sins,
If no atonement may be wrought by me.
'Tis well that I be wroth, even unto death.’

Hereat wept Phanuel. With his flowing tears,
The heart of Samiasa melted too;
And his majestic mien all tenderness
Became; and, like a child, he listened now
The gracious Angel's words.

‘Thou knowest not
The heart of man; what wickedness is there;
And deemest of the race, and, in thy kind,
Even of thyself, more highly than should be.
Hence rightly thou hast said, atonement ought
By thee be rendered; but thou errest still.
Thou canst do nothing—but thou mayst endure.
Hence needs it thou be taught, what is in man,
What rank corruption; and, by knowing this,
Humility know too. I grieve for thee
To think of thine extreme, and more should grieve
But that the end is motive to the means.
Care not for thy great Mother's Oath infern;
Impediment awaits it from above.
And loth am I to say that chief by her,
In what thou now art ignorant, will come
To thee the penal cleansing of thy soul,
So that no pride rise in thy heart again.’

Silent the monarch heard admonishment;
And, with a troubled brow, the Genius kind
Bade him farewell awhile.

Soon o'er his mind
The gathering darkness Samiasa felt;
And passively submitted, while on him
Came the once dreaded Change. The demon spell
Was in his soul again; and prostrate he,
A creature prone, sank down into the sands.

Phanuel meantime sought Hherem; and him found

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Within that Cainite Capitol, even in
The Temple of great Mammon, brooding ill—
Glad by his mean Azaradel withdrawn
From Amazarah—with his absence pleased—
As fitting opportunity to put
That Oath in act, he had himself imposed
On the lost Queen in Hades. Glad his heart,
Her rival progeny should be to Hell
In sacrifice presented; and, at once,
Her jealousy, and his, in blood assuaged.

But otherwise 'twas ordered—for on him
Now Phanuel with celestial vigour seized,
And bare into Dudael. For the rest,
The Angel knew, that midst of her attempt
On wicked Amazarah flood would fall,
And stop her further crime. Need therefore none,
For Samiasa's aid: nor had availed,
Even if wanting, for mistaken he
In the doomed Objects of the unnatural pact,
As yet aware not of his Mother's guilt,
Nor of the Offspring of the Incestuous Queen;
But deemed her Victim-Children were none else
Than his bad Brother, and unwelcome Self.

And Phanuel brought the Fiend, where lay the King
Upon Dudael's sands; and there imposed
On Hherem his old doom; that he might teach
To Samiasa, 'twas of privilege,
Freely bestowed by God, he had been Man.

Such office was the demon's, self abased,
Man's nature to the bestial to subdue,
And, by unutterable sympathy,
Partake humiliation so profound;
A penal task. Albeit he had forgone
His own prerogatives, and was content
To bow his functions to the creeping thing,
That feeds on carrion, and on carcases:

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From such abasement as the monarch's soul
Was doomed to, yet, repugnant, he recoiled,
Astonished, and abhorrent. But the Power
Impelled him from above; and he fell down,
And ate the dust: so deep his misery,
He might not even in anguish gnash his teeth;
Much less give sorrow words. And so his soul
Consumed in silence; punishment most meet,
For him, degraded willingly. How keen,
Shrunk from his pride, and lapsed from such estate,
Were the affliction, and the agony
That seared the monarch's heart. How hot the fire
In which his will was tried, and purified.
—But patient he endured, and murmured not.

Dudael round them in a circle spread,
And them enclasped within his mighty arms,
Who recked not of his doings. The Simoom,
That parches the red air with arid heat,
And poisons nature with his sulphurous breath,
Swept over them unheeded—though the blast
Did, like the wrath of the tornado, whirl,
Did, like the water-spout of ocean, whelm,
The pensive pilgrim, lonely amid the wild,
Or merchant, and his numerous company;
A thousand corses withered by the storm,
Putrid, and swoln, and scorching on the sands.
—Surged to the clouds, they darkle, like a wood,
Within the heavy sky, the violet sun;
And, flecked by his bright rays, seem shafts of fire,
Pillars of flame, and columns all a-blaze,
Or moving fortress armed with demon bands.
Three days the tempest glowed, the vision glared:
Them, prostrate, the hot gale might visit not;
Nor the dread pageant awe. The Sarsar sped
His ice bolts through the wide waste wilderness;
And, from his black surchargèd cloud aloft,

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Made desolation yet more desolate
With cold: whereto the cold within the land
Of Hades, or the frozen tracts of Hell,
Were comparable only; so intense,
Extreme, and bitter: and it smote all things,
And in the heart of all things mortal burned;
Tree, bole, and branches, with the writhen bolt
Of winter blasted, leafless, barkless, sapless,
Bare, and of life devoid. And herb, and weed
Withered; and, in their headlong torrent, floods
Congealed, and stiffened to a stony sheet.
The wild steed stood aghast, whom rein had ne'er
Checked; now, by more than human vigour curbed.
And, in the human veins, the vigourous blood
Was shackled; and the rivers of the heart
Were as a sealèd fountain; and the veins,
Parched, became brittle, like to glass, and brake;
Or hardened into marble. Over them
The ice-wind wrought its work: but, on the ground,
They clasped the bosom of maternal earth,
Unconscious; and the spirit's misery
Had made the flesh insensible to change.

IV. Satan, and Azaziel

Who walked upon the whirlwind that o'erwhelmed?
Who sped the unerring arrows that destroyed?
Satan rode on the whirlwind that o'erwhelmed;
Azaziel sped the arrows that destroyed.
They came in their pavilions, tended thus
With their selected ministers: their tramp
Rang as of armies on a rocky pass,
Reverberate by the surrounding cliffs;
Their voices, as the roar of cataracts,
Hurled from a thousand hills enskied in heaven,
Resounded, and astounded, with the noise

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And repercussion, all that neighbourhood
Of nature's desolation, and of man's.

Descending from his secret place of storms,
Issued to sight the Majesty of Hell.
His foot clanged resonant on the trembling ground,
And his dilating presence royally
Spread o'er the wilds, and stretched into the clouds.
Gloomed o'er his brow the infernal diadem,
Like a black crag projected o'er a cliff,
White as the surge, the barrier of the main;
And, like a blasted orb once over-bright,
His eye, a ruin, burned; and on his cheek,
Immortal Beauty hideously shone:
A wreck as of a noble Ship long tost,
Stanced, where it rived, amid the calmèd sea,
Sublime though desolate, and beautiful
Though loveless; for her sails the winds about
Woo idly, and play round her keel the waves,
Recoiling, as in wonder, evermore.
Of her the mariner shall fable, how,
When withered by the seasons utterly,
She yet at night walks o'er the waters wide,
With all her bravery flaunting to the stars,
Weft of the wave, the Spectre of a ship,
And on her deck the Spirits of the crew;
While haunted ocean, in the shadowy gleams
Of the pale moon, looks ghostly, and aghast.
—Nor seemed less dreamy now the desart drear,
Than that old forest of the after-world,
Wherein the goblin guard, with impious pomp,
Held festival, whence awed fled all, save one:
He, through the fiery city high as heaven,
Passed bravely, unhurt; anon, by pity stayed, . .
For lo, each tree possessing sense, and speech,
The wounded rind forth gushed with human blood;
But, from the pleasant isle redeemed at length,

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Unmoved by sound, or sight, or amorous wile
Of her, love-lorn, whose palace had been erst
His o'er-sweet prison, thence the Appointed chased
Phantasm, and shape, and unessential flame.

But now no mortal virtue might dissolve
The terrours here: not visionary these;
But real, and substantial as the being
Of the immortal spirit, in the mind
Of unobscurable humanity.
Yet less to them they hover round about,
Than is a dream, forgotten ere the dawn,
To him whose quiet conscience sleeps serene.

Then Satan, with a mighty voice, which shook
The wilderness, to Hherem cried aloud:
‘Sleeper, what dreamst, in sleep profound as death,
Albeit not death—for spirit cannot die?
Of universal scorn, that, from the courts
Of hell, thee followed with disdainful hiss,
O'er Chaos, on thy way abrupt, and wild,
Precipitate, confounded, and debased;
From the dimensions of spiritual life
Dwarfed wilfully, the demon of the brute?
The brute hath sense, and oft, half reasoning,
Is of much understanding capable;
The worm owns feeling, and the insect worlds,
That are as of the dust with which they blend,
And seem but as its atoms most minute,
Have motion, life, are sensible to pain
And pleasure animal, though lowest kind,
And least degree. But thou art less than these:
A grain of sand is as a god to thee.
And thou to be the god unto the man
Who late was as a god unto mankind?
Astonishment invests me like a robe
Of poison, shrivels my angelic veins,
Consumes my blood, and licks it up like fire.

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Awake, thou sleeper of the sleep of death,
All but annihilation. Wilt not wake?
Then slumber on eternally—sleep on;
Inanimate of bestial, as befits.’

Thus, half in ire, and half in bitter scorn,
The Archfiend raged; and felt, in sooth, his blood,
Lapped in his veins as with a fiery tongue,
Celestial ichor with infernal flame.
For him within the consubstantial hell
Burned; and, perchance, to desperate act had wrought,
Pain unendurable to mitigate,
But that Azaziel, the destroying One,
Swept by, borne in his icy chariot; whence
Alighted now, he rested on his scythe
Magnificent, wherewith he moweth down
Whole armies, front to front, in radiant rank
Opposed . . proud, brave, and ardent; prodigal
Of active energy, and breathing life,
Seeking for fame in gore-accursèd deeds,
In death, and dust for immortality.

Of old, on plains celestial, he was bred
To sports heroic, and in valourous play
Had joyaunce, and delight. He loved to list
The trump of battle braze the ardent air,
And gird him with divinest panoply,
On mountain, or in mead. And, in the vale
Of slumber, he had visions of bright fame,
And glory without end; and held it eath,
To soar above the Heavens infinite,
Or into central Hades, and beneath
The unfathomable to descend, so he
Might lead bright Honour captive, or redeem
From durance far remote, obscure, and old.
And, haunted by the shadow of such dreams,
He ranged heaven's champain, a chivalric youth,

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In quest ambitious of great enterprise,
To tourney with his equals, and prevailed.
They wrestled in the strife of sacred love,
And where their weapons wounded there they healed,
For sin was not, and pain no spirit knew,
Till Lucifer aspired, ere long o'erthrown.
Exiled from heaven, he made wild work in hell,
And desolation marked his whereabout,
And aught of Order his transmuting spear
To chaos turned, to dissolution waste.
His front was scarred with thunder; and, above,
His battered helmet loured with lurid gleam,
As in the pregnant bosom of a cloud
Broods lightning, ripe for birth. His bloodshot eye
Gleamed mockery; his features were enlarged,
As if a rock could smile that had no heart,
With unangelic fulgour; and his words
Smote keenly cold the spirit they discoursed.

‘Prince of dark Powers, proud Autocrat of Air;
O let there not be told, within the realms
Of ether, or the gates of the abyss,
Of strange amazement thus disparaging
The majesty of unadoring hell.
Say, why is not thy bosom mailed as mine,
Thy soul as stern, thy heart as pitiless?
Think on the day when thy bold voice declared
The race of angels free. Did I not go
To that great battle, as a festival,
For which I was athirst? Drunk with delight,
I swept destroying on. This lance erewhile
That quickened where it vanquished, now dissolved
Each substance to its elements, approved
How mutable, and chased from form to form.
Annihilate I could not, though I would,
But I might change, and dissipate, and scathe.
Earth feels my tread, and quakes. Fear, and Decay,

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Famine, and Death, Storm, War, and Pestilence,
Confess my presence, as of him they serve,
Obey my mastery, worship me as god,
And do my bidding whatsoe'er I will.
Change daunts not me, nor ruin makes afraid.’

To whom thus Satan, gradually awaked,
Sadly replied. ‘Change I can contemplate,
O Angel, unamazed; such change as thou
Canst pleased behold, or gloriously produce.
Can Spirit be less privileged than that,
Which, in despite of efforts such as thine,
Subsists, in every change, and is in all,
By its own properties, identified?
Here lost I seem in wonder, like a man
Gazing upon a corse amazedly,—
He sees the attributes of body there,
But all the appertenance of spirit gone;
Yet, by the strange exception unconvinced,
That what has been can ever cease to be.
Of what once reasoned—willed—what here remains?
Insensible, inert, inanimate,
Of what had motion, and was sensitive,
Perplexes reason; wisdom fails me here.
Can He, who claims Creatour to have been,
Deprive the rational of faculty?
Why not of being? and annihilate
Essence spiritual, as it seems he can,
That by which only it may be discerned?
This, Angel, is a work thou canst not do,
Nor canst reverse. Thou canst not waken him.’

‘Let Him who lulled him to so sound a sleep,
Do that:’ replied the War-Fiend truculent;
‘If that He did the work, or can undo.
I rather argue for His impotence,
Than His omnipotence, which not consists
With liberty. Yon spirit had his will,

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Which him disposing to the lowest life,
He gravitated even unto this;
The Tyrant him restrained not, if he could.
All things are free, as in the reälties
Of Spirit, so in Nature; who, to change
So prone, so free, is ever born anew,
And propagated, and for ever teems
Herself with births; torn with perpetual throes,
Big with mischance, and procreant of caprice.
What power restrains the Avalanche? He sweeps
Terribly from the hills; and, with his foot,
Slays, and entombs, a snowy monument.
The Glacier, on his unobstructed way,
Goeth precipitate, an icy scythe,
And moweth more than armies in his march.
Who lets the Earthquake, when she minds to heave
Cities from their foundations? On the shore,
The Whirlwind, and Tornado have their will;
And, on the sea, the Tempests do their work;
And poor Humanity endures the wreck.
The Waves sport freely in the eye of Heaven;
Who checks the Winds? they blow even as they list.
For Liberty is the sole law that moves
The indefatigable Universe.
Lo, we are free; and may be what we will:
We will be gods, and shall be; nay, we are;
Or if not yet, and we have much to win,
'Tis but because 'tis easier far to fall
Than to ascend, as once we proved too well.
We are conquered, but our wills remain as free;
And Patience, well opposed, may outwear Power.
Meantime, we hurl defiance at His throne,
And thrive on hate.—My charmèd spear could once
Revive what seemed as dead: that spell has now
Departed, nor would I desire it back;
It went even with my wish, and at my will.

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But it may operate mutation yet,
Or in that corse, or spirit like a corse,
And re-establish in thy heart contempt
Of Power defied, and, not Almighty, scorned.’

He, thus blaspheming, smote them with his lance,
That straight returned effectless to his hand,
Whereat enraged, he but the more blasphemed.
But Satan from that unapparent thing,
(As hard for mind angelic to conceive,
As matter void of form, unqualified,
For human intellect, however wise,)
Averted his sad eye, and thus his mate
Admonished. ‘Fury of infirmity
Reports; Leader of Hosts, and Lord of War.
Beseems it us, whether He be, or not
Omnipotent, and may annihilate
Substance with attribute, yet to retain
Consistency, Eternity's sole law;
And change not in our hate, though he destroy.
And I have practised with the minds of power,
Whence strife shall grow, that shall repair defeat,
Lately experienced from the sacred hill,
Of Paradise, and, with more sure result,
Make earth our own, and give thy hands to do
What fits them most, and best thy heart affects.’

END OF ELEVENTH BOOK.

333

BOOK THE TWELFTH. THE JUDGEMENT

I. Azaradel

Communing thus, much truth and falsehood mixed
In their discourse, they heard the hunter's voice,
The hunter's voice within the wilderness—
A solitary shout, a lone halloo,
Well answered by the twain, who recognized
Azaradel, the brother of the king,
Usurper of his vacant throne, and worse,
The couch paternal, an incestuous man.
Arrived where now they stood, the audacious heir
Of premature perdition, mate of fiends,
Paused, . . not in wonder, but as having found
Who to his cry responded. Fair of form
As Belial, and attempering arrogance
With much lascivious grace; his presence bore
No stern rebuke, but pleasing dignity
Sate throned in comely pride: yet, couched beneath
That princely semblance, slunk a cruel heart.
An iron crown was girt around his brows,
And with his liquid, and voluptuous mien,
Made contrast strange; a merry eye was his,
A mellow cheek, a nostril dissolute,
A melting lip, yet curled as in contempt
Sportively. Like a morning iris arched
O'er the deep music of a cataract,
The imperial purple glowed about his limbs.
Lofty of stature, and of port erect;
A giant, or a demigod, he stood:
Like a fair hill, fit for an angel's choice,

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When he from some commanding eminence,
Would tell his heavenly errand—now a throne
Whence demons uttered the decrees of hell.

In pride of heart, and strength of sorcery;
Despite the Simoom's, and the Sarsar's rage;
He dared, through the wild desart, to pursue
Behemoth. With a courtly train, he went
Forth from the Cainite palace; and aroused
Earth's biggest born from his enormous lair.
Chief of the ways of God, compact of might
And hugeness . . sinewy, strong, and valourous,
The stormy perils daunted even him;
But man, the fiercer savage urged him out,
And braved the sulphurous whirlwind, and the cold:
Not long;—part, smitten prostrate by the blast,
Lay on the sands unburied, and the rest
Were frozen into monumental ice.
But him his spells, and mother's magic skill,
And the protection of the fiends, preserved;
Although astounded, and well nigh destroyed,
In the convulsion of the elements.
Subsided then, each dissipated sense
Restored;—his shout for help was recognized
Even by the twain whom he encountered now.

O'er whom they hovered soon he understood,
And his bad heart dilated. ‘What, thus low?
Thus with the dust confounded, thou, whose soul
Aspired beyond the visible confine,
Ethereal—after whom were cities named—
And to whose folly men bowed down the knee
In greater folly? Adon, yet they say,
Our father, did resent thy growing pride,
And smote thee thus: howbeit, I maintain,
'Twas from affection to his younger son;
Though he despise both thee, and him alike.’

Thus he, in pleasant vein. To whom replied

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Azaziel. ‘Sweeter than an infant's prayer,
The scorner's depthless voice and hollow gloze.
What reckst thou of things hallowed? fleshly-wise,
Thou lovest to enjoy substantial bliss,
No shadowy dream, like what fair Armon's sons
Would fain withal their souls imparadise.
Scorn they these carnal joys? Once more we'll prove,
Their sense refined not free from pain, like his,
—(It pleases thee, I see it in thine eye,)—
On whom no temporal, or eternal thing
Hath power of change, immaculate in death.’

Then did Azaradel rejoice, and say—
‘'Tis bravely thought, 'twere braver far to do.
My soul upon the present I expend:
For fools who mortify the fleshly mind,
Be that reversional eternity.
And hath it Samiasa come to this?
Less than the dust thou scornedst? less than he
Thou tauntedst with his altogether clay?’

But now with graver brow whereon sate pride,
Its proper throne, Satan the levity
Of their slight parle rebuked.

‘Such style of speech
Suits not the politic, and wary mind.
This present pleasure that thou prizest so,
Thou of our grace enjoyest; as even now
Thy safety in the storm of hot, and cold.
But lo, no tyrants, we no service ask
Unpleasing; such only as gives rein to mirth
Or ere the doing. We have filled thy sense
Topfull of joyaunce, nor from thee withheld
High Amazarah, proudly beautiful—
O how thou lovedst her as sons seld love
The mother of their manhood: How she loves
Thee as seld mothers love the sons they bore.
I mark thy swimming eye, thy purpled cheek

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I see—I feel thy beating heart. 'Tis great
To conquer nature, to be freed from law.’

Then thus Azaradel . . ‘High Lord of Hell,
I've worshipt at thy feet, thy slave for this.
How love the lawless impulse did resist,
Whereto it yielded yet . . the strife . . the strife,
Which it o'ercame, yet never reconciled,
Endless excitement evermore renewed.
But now another boon’—

More had he said,
While the incestuous man voluptuous sighed,
And at infernal feet lascivious sank,
O'ercome with fancy. But his speech had done
What to Azaziel's spear so late had proved
Impracticable. Horrour of the crime,
Wherewith the very dust was animate,
Thrilled Samiasa, and a miracle
Performed, even by a power of wickedness
Subtler than magic. Swifter than at touch
Of spell-rod, or a charming verse; the King
Arose, and o'er his prostrate brother stood
Terribly eminent. Was never yet
His visage marred as now; a thunderstroke
Had not so much disfigured that sublime
Forehead, whereon of old sate thought enthroned,
And yet in ruin there was visible;
Though shaded o'er with horrour dark as Hell:
Not totally obscured . . and thus he spake,
While with new fear the incestuous bit the ground.

‘What, she, whose beauty was so terrible,
Whose courage wooed her merited reward
Of ample realm, and huge metropolis;
Ay, for surpassing bravery, merited
Power, and all adoration, like a god?
What, she, whose speech was like a spell of power,
And spake a country, and a capitol,

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Into immortal life, . . whose lip was scorn,
Whose eye was lightning, and the index of
A spirit like the lightning, but more quick
To dare, and execute? She, who could call
Ghosts from the grave, and spirits from the sky,
As with the thunder's voice? She, to succumb
From all this greatness, condescend to mix
With that which owed her duty . . gratitude
For life bestowed, and nourished, and preserved,
Out of her substance? Adon; O my sire;
If that thou be'st a god, make it appear.
Vengeance on the unfilial. None but he?
Oh, I did check the deep contempt I felt,
Because he was my brother, for the stuff
Whereof he was compact. He, Adon's son?
Child of a fiend, thou progeny of Hell,
I'll tread upon thee as, with iron foot,
Death treads on the cold forehead of the fallen.
He is no son of thine—wherefore restrain
My fury?—Adon; he is no son of thine.
—No, no. I shall grow proud to have performed
A deed so great, and merit deeper doom.
'Tis for the righteous hand, and humble heart,
To recompense His vengeance, who repays.
I bow me to thy will, oh, God of gods.’

So saying, his strength did fail him, and he sank
Into the sands, and like to them became;
Deepest abasement, and pride's mortal wound.

When from amaze recovered, after long
And deadly silence, Satan thus pursued
His wily purpose—

‘Rise, and heed not, King,
The maniac words now hushed; unless thou wouldst
Be like their utterer, a corse—save when
We touch him into mimic life for sport—

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Awake. Arise.’

So by their help he rose.
‘This was no work of yours.’

‘No; for we make
No such wind-instruments, vessels, else void,
Of inspiration. We make Souls indeed,
That have both will, and purpose of their own,
And take some credit for the work they do;
Obstinate Spirits, to resist, and dare,
Like thee, whom in their pleasure we protect.
Thou seest His power, and ours thou knowst—on us
Thy joys depend. Prepare to yield them now;
Or league with us.’

‘Ye are my gods:—and now,
Give hear unto my boon. Maternal charms
Of Amazarah, most majestical
Of women, wisest, and most amorous,
Please me no more. In Mammon's temple lies
Edna, awaiting visit of the God,
Shrined in my person, not with love, but hate—
Now prosper my attempt, when I descend,
Mid deep of night, in all my deity,
On the expectant virgin.’

‘This we know.—
Now learn from us, that all thine ample realm
Is in revolt, and will confess no right
Hereditary, honour, or command,
Nor regal power; and they have risen wild
'Gainst Amazarah, and her Sorceries,
And him who would be Monarch. Hear us now.
Who would subvert Authority, though bad,
Best serves our aims—'twas for that end we warred
Against the Eternal. With the people, league
'Gainst Amazarah; so thou best mayst curb
Her jealousy of Edna, and secure
Thy new-made joys in peace.’

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‘Ye counsel well.’
‘Then we are thine . . thy refuge, and thy rock.’

So grimly pleased, Azaziel smiled.
‘Behold
A pattern of our power.’

Therewith he shrilled
A subtle sound that pierced the wilderness,
Not long unanswered. Hark, a silver neigh
Articulates the desart of the air,
And thrills the quaking echoes with sweet sounds.
All wanton as a mare in merry May,
A Steed milk-coloured, sudden at his feet,
Kneels in soft duty, beautiful of shape,
And fiery keen of eye, albeit suppressed.

‘Mount,’ said the Demon to the demonised,
‘For she will bear thee well, the desart-born,
Thorough the desart, whose wild perils else
Thou yet wouldst scape not.’

At the word, he sprang
Upon that strange steed's back, and swift away—
Afar—until the extreme Dudael's bounds
He reached; dismounting thence, he sped his way
Now safe, and she into the wild returned.

And Man hath lost his Sabbath-warning now;
For when the Angel of Repentance came
Upon the next, he found the King abased,
Past wakening, now more than ever lapsed
In last humility—extreme, intense,
Not to be broken, a deep slumber, as
Of death, but deadlier. Then the Seraph wept
Angelic tears, and said;—

‘From midst the heavens
I called; when in thy pride, thou walkedst forth
Among the multitudes, a human god:
Called from amidst the heavens audibly.

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Alas; how art thou fallen, Lucifer:
Son of the Morning, how thou fallen art.
Yet, surely God speaks through me. Thou hast now
Of thine abasement found the deepest deep;
More hope, then, bitter suffering shall have end,
And such repentance perfect be anon,
And thou arise more glorious from thy shame,
And as thy fall thine exaltation be.
—But not on earth, On thee the Flood shall fall,
But thou shalt know it not; and all thy frame
Be buried in the Deluge-soil, but thou
Shalt feel it not, and herein shalt be blest—
O Samiasa; wisest Man of men.’

So spake the pitying Seraph, bathed in floods
Of sorrow; sorrow that excels all joy,
In joy. Who feel not, never can be blest;
But the susceptible, albeit to pain.
In love, and pity so watched Phanuel there,
And guarded him the livelong Sabbath through;
And there till Deluge fell, and while it stormed,
Lay Samiasa in that death of death;
The quick soul buried in a sepulchre
Of torpid dust, which mutability
Changed not, supported by supernal Power
Divine. The Seasons did their work—Day, Night
Past o'er,—the Simoom's, and the Sarsar's rage
Altern destroyed, unheeded yet by him,
The spirit's grief absorbing fleshly pain.

II. The Ark

Nor was the Flood delayed. Defended still
From popular tumult in a cloudy shrine,
Noah abode, and ready made the Ark,
He, and his Sons.

At length, from Adam's Vale,

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Elihu came—‘Thus saith the Eternal’—(thus
Elihu spake)—‘thus saith to Noah now,
Even by me. Come thou, and all thy house
Into the Ark, for righteous thee have I
Before me in this generation seen.
Of every clean beast take thou unto thee
By sevens, male, and female; and of beasts
That are not clean by two, these likewise male,
And female; to keep seed alive upon
The face of all the earth. For yet seven days,
And it I'll cause to rain upon the earth:
Days forty, and nights forty, shall it rain;
And every living substance I have made
Will I destroy from off the face of earth.’

He said; and Noah followed then his steps
Into the Vale of Adam, where yet Ham
Abode, with the creation animal.

Anon, forth of that wilderness they came,
With the inferiour creatures, toward the Ark:
The fierce, and gentle, and the wild, and tame,
With the carnivorous, and those that feed
On herbs, and grasses, both of birds, and beasts,
Insects, and reptiles. First, the Quadrupeds
Came in procession: all that nurture well
Their offspring at the breast, resembling thus,
In structure, and in organs, humankind.
The furred, and maned preceded. Lords of all,
The Lion yellow-maned, majestic brute,
Noble of gesture, regal in his gait,
Came, with the queenly Lioness, ahead
Of the innumerable throng, in pairs—
Conscious of great occasion, proudly shewn.
The lynx-like Caracal, but without spots,
More fierce, and savage both of mien, and mind;
Carnivorous, but weak, and following slow
The Lion, on the fragments ever he

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Of his right-royal banquet safely preys:
The Panther and the Jaguar, beautiful
And mighty: the ferocious Ocelot:
The Race Feline, sagacious—fiercest, wildest
Of all the fierce, and wild—passed, with their prey
At peace, in tenderest fellowship, and love.
—Nor was the Mouse, mean creature, yet full oft
Graced with no little elegance of shape,
And stripèd colour, absent; noxious though
To housewife, and to husbandman provoked—
The cautious Mouse, freebooter mild, yet loathed,
Though not unamiable; such the force
Of honest prejudice, no beauty atones
For depredation; none the robber loves.
The Rats too, black or brown, both bold, and fierce,
The granary, barn, and storehouse to assail,
Unnatural, that on each other prey,
Cains of the inferior creatures; and next came
The fox-like Jackalls, hunting in their pack,
Full crying for the chase, a howl so loud,
The forest nobles rouse them at the noise,
And waken at the signal, apt to seize
The timid creatures flying from the yell.

Then came the Race Canine: the Wolf-Dog first;
An intellectual race, docile, and true;
And that Hare-Indian named, a slender sort,
But graceful, and, with light foot, capable
To run unsinking o'er the crusted snow,
In chase of Moose, or Reindeer; with the friend
Of northern hunters, bold, and patient still.
In every nation is the Dog the friend
Of Man, and numberless of breeds as he;
The Bull-Dog, and the Mastiff, and the kind
Who faithful watch their absent masters' wives
Left in their mountain-home, to strangers fierce,
Inimical. The generous graceful Horse—

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The Ass, poetic brute, and dignified
With great associations, patient, still,
And humble; free of spirit yet, and dull
Then only when enslaved; and tractable
In servitude, then only obstinate
When man's a tyrant, cruel, and severe:
The stripèd Zebra, wild, and beautiful,
With skin most glossy smooth, with white, and brown,
Varied the male, with black the female streaked:
The Musk-Deer, and the Fallow, and that One
Since found in Ind, the Axis, on the banks
Of Ganges numerous: tender-eyed Gazelle,
Elastic Deer, light-bounding on the hills:
All these, and more, came trooping of the race
Clothed with soft hair, in meet abundance given,
According to the clime, separate in most,
In some united into prickly spines;
—Witness the snake-fed Urchin, that even here
Into a pointed circle self-involved,
Is girt with spinous armour for defence;
And the quill-armed uneasy Porcupine,
Hystrix, and the Arboreal, loving spring,
With the fasciculated, fretful all;
Raising its spires irate, and stamping earth,
In its defensive armour swelling big;—
But flattened on the Manis into sharp
And pointed scales, and to a shelly coat
Upon the Armadillo, strong of claw.

Nor are the bearded, and the whiskered tribe
Here wanting, bristly race. The Ape, and Goat—
The bearded Goat came with the beardless Sheep,
Unhorned, and horned, clad or with wool or hair,
A various race, and gentle; with the Lamb,
Sacred for worship, innocent as love,
Or hope in infancy, and without spot,
Meek creature, blameless martyr, man to save—

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The Buffalo, and Bison, larger Ox,
Of forehead broad, and high, with withers huge,
Shaggy with hair, a black and woolly mane,
Short-horned, brief-tailed, short-legged and muscular—
The Wild Ox, and the Zebu, and the Yak,
The Musk Ox, race cornute, and ruminant,
Dew-lapped, robust, yet elegant of form—
The Aurochs, and the Arni. Mild the Cow,
Domestic, useful, yielding of her milk
For human needs. Man's burthens bears full oft
The serviceable Ox, and for man's food
Treads out the corn; ungrateful he who seeks
The brute to muzzle, to such labour tasked.
—Callous of breast, and knee, the timid Hares
Come leaping; and the Camels, desart-born,
And in the desart faithful friends of man:
As long he travels o'er the unbounded waste,
His water-cruise, and scrip half spent, and gone;
His burthen-bearers through the lonely wilds;
—O grief; though by the pang of thirst constrained,
To slay the loved companion of such toils,
For the refreshing stream by nature kept
In wallet at the stomach provident.—
And Llamas ruminant, yet with the hoof
Unparted, like the Camel, and, like him,
Provided against thirst with water-pouch,
Also unhorned, long necked, and small of head,
Mobile of upper lip, and straightly backed;
A rampant race, for precipices formed
To scale, and to descend, wild, bright of eye.
The Otter, found by river, and by lake;
A skilful fisher, for the finny spoil
Avid, and fierce, and nourished by such food;
Or by the sea, a bright, and beauteous thing,
Of polished black, or silvery white of hue:
Parental love its passion, pining oft

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To death for loss of offspring, on the spot
Whence it was taken dying. Small the tribe
With it came on. But larger followed now:
The tuskèd Hippopotamus, uncouth
And heavy—slow on land, but, in the flood,
Bold, active, skilful to attack, and sink
Boats on the river, perilous to man;
But not the Deluge might his race survive,
Save in the pair that enter now the Ark:
The Sea-Horse, living both on sea, and land,
On icy island, and in ocean cave;
And Seal, inhabitant of caves, and coasts
By the sea side—a roamer of the deep;
Yet them had Deluge utterly destroyed,
If not protected thus from its dread swoop.

In fellowship, and friendship with their Prey,
Walked the Devourers the smooth plain along,
And up the sacred hill, into the Ark,
Appointed for their rescue by high Heaven.

Then followed the Oviparous broods, egg-sprung—
Solicitude parental needed not:
Of life tenacious—cold, and stern, and harsh,
Of blood, and face and voice, yet mild of deed,
And disposition; dwellers by the sea,
Or in it, rivers, and their banks—the marsh—
The pool—the lovers of the wet, and moist;
The Tortoise, Lizard, and the Crocodile.
Nor fierce, nor cruel, see the Crocodile,
With mouth beyond his ears, enormous gasp,
Dreadful with lipless teeth, with fiery eyes,
Like to the burnished eyelids of the morn,
As if in rage lit up, beneath a brow
Wrinkled in frowns for ever, terrible;
Proud of his scales which close him as a seal,
So near together, air scarce intervenes;
Sporting along the deep, beneath him boil

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The waves like to a cauldron, and the sea
Froths as with unguents, while his glowing path
Makes hoary the great waters, wrought with foam.
Yet need it was that from the Deluge storm
He should be rescued, though devoid of fear,
Created to look down exalted things,
And hold high rule—a monarch over all
Children of Pride, who misesteem of God.
A sympathetic race, by hunger wrought
Only to fury; now he glides, in peace,
To refuge from such storm as even he
Might not escape. With him the Lizard race
Came on, both emerald, and of golden hue;
The changeable Chamelion—nor declined
To join the train the pleasing Basilisk,
Or Little King, whose agitated crest,
And crown erect, speak satisfaction, while,
With motion light, he glances, and reflects
Light various coloured from his polished scales.

The Serpent tribe succeed. Nor feet, nor wings,
To them belong; yet nimble as a shaft
Shot from a hunter's bow, they move along
Upon the summits of the highest trees,
And round their trunks, and branches as they come,
Twisting, and then untwisting flexibly,
In rapid sportiveness: of every size
And thickness, but all scaled; yet in the head
A vulnerable race: elastic, strong,
And brilliant both of frame, and hue. Here are
The Serpent of the Sea; the Viper, green,
And yellow; with the Boa, and the Snake;
The Insects, and the Worms. The wingèd Flies,
Gaudy of hues, and varied in their forms,
Swarm in the sunlight, and, as of themselves,
Do make a radiant atmosphere of flowers,
In noiseless motion, the soul's images;

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Ants, Bees, and Beetles, Spiders, Wasps, and Gnats,
Not mean, though small, in will as free as gods:
Some luminous with light of life, brief tribe,
In the shut Ark lit up their faery lamps,
Stars of its night, and made it like a heaven,
Beautiful Insects, living but to shine.

The Sloths were there, tree-climbers. Those not saved,
Were glad at first to hear the tempest storm,
And quickened with new life. The winds might blow,
The strong trees bow; the branches did but wave,
And meet to form a pathway for their march:
Till the wild rain subdued them, and o'ertopped
The forests, and the mountains. Saved in vain
The Megatherium, and the Mastodon—
And huger tribes, yet by the Flood o'erthrown;
Hence found in barren tracts, in sand, and ice.
The traveller to the Frozen Ocean bent,
Shall pass o'er mountains high, through valleys deep,
Guided by tiny brooks, and arid plains,
Where not a shrub appears; last to the gulf
Shall come, and in the crystal mass detect
Carcase of Walrus—and soon after trace
The giant Mammoth through the melting ice;
Till, at the length, the plane of its support,
Inclining, let it fall, by its own weight,
Upon a bank of sand—for ages lost,
Discovered only then, perhaps there laid
Embedded since the Deluge which I sing.

Then came the Birds that fly, perch, walk, or swim:
For each hath on the globe its proper site.
Highest in air the Birds of Prey upsoar,
On trees the Insessorial station hold,
Midway 'twixt air, and earth; on earth itself
The Gallinaceous tribes nest, feed, and walk,
Their wings for flight unsuited; fens among

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And marshes, haunt the Waders; and on brook
And lake and river float the Swimmer race:
All these are here; for even the ocean brood
Flood would destroy, and shipwreck of a world.
All these, according to their several kinds,
Their classes, orders, and their families.

The Condor, and the Vulture Californ,
Both large of bulk; one caruncled of beak,
And void of comb, but both with ruff of down,
Female, and male, about the neck ornate.
Dwellers in air upon the peak of snow;
Nor from such height descending save brought down
By hunger; when with beak, and talons they
Subdue their victim, next to banquet fall,
Till gorged, their wings avail not for the flight,
Then on them comes the hunter, and with ease,
Surprising with the lasso, them secures.

The Caracarra, darkly beautiful,
And dignified of walk; inhabitant
Of tree, and bush, and preying upon all;
Also the Vulturine, of attitude
Erect, like eagles, in their prime of pride.
—The gorgeous Harpy, short of wing, robust
Of leg, and strong of beak, and talons curved,
To prey on larger kinds, a crested bird,
Imperial but ferocious, sternly wild,
Boldly destructive, fearing not or man,
Or beast; but rare, else with tremendous power
'Twould rule alone—even as it loves to live,
Far in the solitary depth, and gloom
Of thickest forests, perched on tree aloft,
In voiceless, and in motionless repose—
Sans rival, or sans subject, species sole.

The Owl—the snowy Owl—nocturnal bird,
Untufted, small of ear, and large of eye;
Hairy of leg even to the very claw;

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Of plumage soft, close, thick; meet armour warm
For arctic region, burying even the beak
Within the feathery disks: the Eagle-Owl,
Plumèd of head, with beak, and back, and leg,
Covered with plumage, sable-fawn of hue;
Singular bird, and lover of the dark,
By day in dusk, and solitary place
Retires he, waiting twilight, silent perched,
In all the unconscious gravity of sleep,
The type of Wisdom. Him thus sadly set
The smaller birds attack, in hate, or sport,
With wanton insult: teazed, but not awaked,
About his dusk retreat the dreaming Owl
Shuffles from spot to spot, or standing fixed,
His plumage ruffles, changes attitude,
Grotesque display: meanwhile his opening eyes,
And shutting, mirth provoke; yet then his beak,
Hissing, or clattering, would premonish well
Of wrath reserved for sunset, when, with eye
And ear capacious to detect slight sound
Of rustling leaf, or herbage, he wings forth
On the poor bird retiring to its nest,
Or tiny creature to its burrow bound.
Stern, and terrific, in the wilderness,
His sudden shout by moonlight, to the lone
Traveller benighted there, from slumber roused,
Startled with screams, suppressed, and suffocate.
Of humbler grade the Barn-Owl, friend of man,
Defence of cornfield, and of granary
From rodent swarms: but now in mutual peace
With their small prey. And these, even with the Fowl
The farmer would protect, come on in groups
Associate, nor unaccompanied
With household feelings to the poet dear.

The Linnet, and the Finch; and chief, that One
Gorgeous of lengthened tail, and bright of hue:

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The Starling, Hornbill, and the Humming-Bird:
The Blackbird, and the Crows, with bill prolonged;
The Toucan, broad as well—a feathered sylph;
The Cockatoos, with rose crest falling back,
Or sulphur upward curved, of plumage white;
And the Macaws, all hues: the Parrot tribe
Magnificent, Bird-Monkies, but with voice
Human sometimes, in mockery of speech:
The Meleagris beautifully wild,
Increasing in its splendour with its years—
Strutting it came, obstreperous in pomp,
Of self-importance full. The gorgeous Fowl,
Whose plumage in a tropic sun presents
An orb of many colours, and his crest
A jewellery tiara, blue, and green,
Crowning the gracefullest of crownèd heads:
The Bird of Gold, with long and archèd tail,
Varied with scarlet, white, and dusky brown,
A princely bird: the Silver Pheasant, too,
A hardier race, though elegant of form,
And hue, and attitude; also the kind
With ring-encircled neck. With them came on
The Crested Partridge, the Raloul, and Grous,
With Tinamous, and Francolins, and Quails,
A graceful brood, and various. There too were
The Plaintive Turtles, of Love's Queen loved Birds—
Aye-coupled, ever-wooing, ever-wed;
Heard in the season of that pleasant time,
When the birds sing, and flowers appear on earth,
And puts the fig-tree forth her verdant figs,
And with the tender grape the vines are fragrant,
The winter past, the rain all gone, and over:
The Pigeon, bearer of the word of man,
Epistolary, through the air afar,
And specially renowned for all who love
The story of the Deluge, as 'twas sung

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By Musah, the great poet, skilled in lore
Of Mitzraim, leader thence of Israel
Through Sea, and Cloud unto the promised land.
Thrice Noah sent the Pigeon from the Ark
He enters now; the second time she found
Rest for her sole; but to the Patriarch brought
The branch of olive back—then Noah knew
The waters were abated from the earth;
Hence seven days after, when he let her free,
No more returned, she made the air her home.

The scarlet Ibis, mythologic bird,
And sacred, with its slender long-arched bill
And scalèd legs, and plumage brilliant, walked,
Inviting worship by its stateliness:
The Anser, whose migrations shall invade
The silent desolation of the pole,
Countries unknown, by icy barriers shut
From human vision; with the queenly Swan,
Pure white, and sable both, and tame, and wild;
And Cereopsis, and the humbler Duck,
Yet beautiful full oft, with hues of green,
And violet, and brown, with ornament
Of crescent, and of undulating lines,
Embellished on the neck, and breasts, and cheeks.

Birds of all climes—both of the East, and West—
Of England, native land. Birds of the air
I breathe; sweet are ye, and I raise, like you,
Both morn, and even, hallelujahs high,
That ye found rescue once, and were restored
To hymn the Highest, in the ear of man,
Singing your guileless loves, from death redeemed.
Dear birds of England, of her woods, and groves,
Her fields, and running rivers, hills, and vales,
Streamlets, and brooks. The Blackbird, largest kind,
Of all thy Birds of Song, my native land;
Whose notes are out before the leaves, and woo

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His partner to embraces, ere the frost
Has melted from the fields, and boast his young
Even in the March-wind's eye. The Song-thrush next,
No summer bird alone, he winter charms:
The Missel-Bird, the Red-wing, and that One
Who builds on heaths: the Starling, hardy tribe;
The docile Bullfinch; both of human words
Articulant: the Goldfinch, gay of hue;
The lavish Chaffinch, and the Greenfinch strong:
The Linnet sweet, and curious in his lay;
The Twite, a sojourner, all mirth, and glee;
The Sky-Lark, who builds deepest, highest soars,
And sings as he upward flies; the Wood-Lark, too,
The rival of the Nightingale; and thou,
O Nightingale, wert there, whom, as a type
Of my sage theme, these epic numbers oft
Have honourably mentioned. Thou wert, too,
Saved in the Ark, and, with the Wood-Lark, triedst
Thy skill; while Noah listened, and his Sons,
And Chavah, and her Daughters, to the strife.
Also were there sweet birds of humbler type:
The Titlark, finely feathered, and the free
Redbreast, familiar, shrill of melody;
The Redpole, winter race, and emigrant;
The small Redstart, and shy; the common Wren,
A tiny minstrel, high, and bold of song;
The Yellow-Hammer, and the Reed-Sparrow;
And he who haunts the hedges: and the Bird
That comes in barley-seed-time, and departs
In Spring—brief visitant unto the land
I love; even like this song of mine, which now
The present for the past must quit again,
And England leave for Eden.

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Thus into
The Ark were entered Bird and Beast; nor lacked
The Phœnix, bird of ages; nor, I ween
That wondrous Hippogriff, whom antient fame
Spake near the sources of the ocean born,
Straight leaving earth for heaven, or dwelling on
The mount, he smote with his impatient foot,
That raised the Hippocrene; thereafter he,
Bellerophon cast off, soared to the skies,
By Jove among the constellations placed.
Well ween I the poetic animal
Stayed not behind, but in the mystic Ark,
Bare heavenly Fancies on his wingèd back,
Divinely moving to the sound of song;
A sacred courser, taught there, and preserved
For such, among the future race of men,
As with ambitious soul would visit heaven,
And bring therefrom celestial airs to earth,
For human voices to repeat enrapt.
And while the heart of man was thus poured forth,
Spirit divine upon the Cherubim
Descended glorious, and his mind became
The chariot of its God. And so was sung,
Not uninspired, the harmony which kept
The kinds now reconciled in bands of love,
Link joined on link, throughout the wonderous chain
Of regular gradation, shading oft
Resemblance into difference, multitudes,
And tribes of animals, diverse of shape,
But beauteous all to the instructed eye;
Nor was forgotten that prophetic time,
When Eden's peace shall reign once more on earth,
And the meek Lamb with the fierce Wolf repose,
The Lion, and the Leopard, and the Kid;
—But still the dust shall be the Serpent's meat.

Straight from the wilderness, whence hand Divine

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Led Man to Eden, and along the Vale
Of Armon, and across the common plain,
Even to the Mount of Paradise, defiled
The Living Circle, infinite degrees—
From the most perfect of all animals,
The articulated, sensible of nerve,
Strong, persevering, swift, and diligent,
Docile, long-living, various in pursuit,
Sagacious for set ends, to such as are
But as self-moving plants, whose lowest groups
Pass to the vegetable kinds, immersed
In mass insentient. Hence, into itself
The living circle upward aye returns:
White-blooded race compact of scattered parts,
Threaded with nerves together, gifted but
To taste—to touch—to see; and the clothed tribes
That, having no distinction in the sense,
Breathe yet, and concentrate a nervous mass,
And circulate the blood; the groups affine
Of vertebrated life, that bodily
Connects the inferiour Animal with Man.

Such was the long array: a throng so huge,
That, passing from yon Antre to the Ark,
Where they were safely stalled, from morn to eve,
From earliest morn to latest eve, seven days
They took in their progression. Such the time
Was granted, that the wicked might be warned,
Even on the eve of Judgement, if they would.
—And now the inferiour creatures all have passed
Into the place of refuge. But proud man
Seeks none in his repentance, doomed to die.

And thus within the Ark was furnished all;
Not only ranged the race of animals,
According to their kinds, but Enoch's Book
Had Shem deposited, rightly preserved
For the instruction of the World restored;

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And Japhet of his art the workmanship
Contributed, for ornament, those forms
Prophetic, by his God-directed hand
Sculptured.—Sage Brouma, of the mystic line
Of Magog, who Japetan energy
Inherited, and over Asia
Carried successful arms, and over Ind
Diffused the arts; of doctrine authour he
Braminical, and Scythian creeds, and rites
Of wise mythology o'er Egypt spread,
Phœnicia, Greece, and Asian continent;
That group symbolic, too, which shewed the Roman,
Brave son of Japhet's race, victorious o'er
The servile seed of Canaan, realm of slaves;
Their petty princes, from the earliest time,
The tributary vassals of the land
And monarchy of old Assyria,
From Asshur sprung, the second son of Shem.
In later ages, fled the Canaanite
From Joshua's conquering arms; the remnant left,
Expelled by David, were in Africa
Found of the she-wolf's foundlings, vanquished soon,
And to their sway subdued. There, too, was he,
Great Alexander, Victor of the East,
Who made encroachment on the lines of Shem—
By Aristotle taught, the sage on whom
Thy mantle, Plato, fell, but worn reversed.
Yet peaceful meaning had the oracle,
No less than warlike, by its prophecy
Of Japhet's dwelling in the tents of Shem.
This Portugal, this England, Holland, France
May witness; Japhet's race, part settled now
In Ind, and bringing there to realms once dark
The light of Truth. And Commerce vouches, too,
The passage by the Cape to orient climes,
And by thy straits, Magellan. Crowning all

356

The figure of Messiah, central form,
Gave meaning to the statues, and the Ark
Made radiant with the glory of his brow.
But all were beautiful, and when released
From that their place of refuge, and beheld
By the new world, with admiration smote
Hearts, who their purpose understood but ill,
And bent to worship blind religious zeal,
That soon to mere idolatry declined.
—So in abuse corrupt the best of things,
Their origin forgotten; and, abased,
Conduce to foreign ends, and evil aims.

The Hedge-Sparrow.

The Aberdivine, called in Sussex the Barley Bird.

III. Noah's Vision

Thus Noah's work was done. Wearied with toil,
At the down-going of the seventh eve,
Deep sleep fell upon Noah, as he lay
Within a tent, preserving duteous watch
About the appointed Ark. Even as grew
The Prophet's frame insentient, all the more
His inner sight was opened, and his soul
Had vision of high heaven. 'Twas noon of night;
The Sun was absent, but the Moon shone out
And ay the world of Stars. From orb to orb,
Was singing heard in answering echo-hymns.
One to another, in his hearing, called
The Watchers, to make ready; for the Thrones
Were planted, and their witness in the court
Was summoned, to be rendered when the Judge,
Antient of Days, should sit. Straightway the floor
Divided in the midst, and Noah's eye
Pierced upward; or his liberated soul
Soared thither. Up he soared, and soared until
He saw celestial palace opened wide,
Both walled, and paved with crystal stones, on ground

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Of crystal, and the roof flashed sparkling down;
And, in a sky of water, floated there
Seraphic ardours, and about the walls
Burned flame, and blazed its portal all with fire:
Alternate heat of fire, and cold of ice
Amazed with fear who entered. On, and on,
Trembling with terrour, the winged Patriarch sped,
And to more spacious habitation still
Arrived; with tongues of fire surrounded; each
Vocal, like storms so loud, with words of zeal,
In praise, and prayer: a glorious place, and vast,
Majestic, and magnificent, and bright,
Excelling all report of magnitude
And splendour: fiery floor, and wall, and roof;
Lightning, and star-light interpenetrant,
With ceiling, and with pavement all ablaze.
—He dazzled looked, and saw a great white Throne,
And Him who sat thereon; Antient of Days,
In garment white as snow, and of his head
The hair was purest white. So was his Throne,
The fiery flame white in its purity;
A living throne by Cherubim up-borne,
Wheeling self-moved in orbs of burning fire:
And from before him issued fiery streams,
And from beneath the effulgent Throne of Life,
Rivers of flame impetuous gushed, and foamed,
And from too near approach warned off, and kept,
With voice of hymn, and anthem, song, and psalm,
The thousand thousands ministering to him.
Yea, myriads of myriads stood there,
In the full presence of his Majesty,
With veils upon their faces, for the light
More mighty than the sun, more white than snow.

And Noah saw two Books—two sealèd Books,
And they were opened; and another Book—

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The Book of Life. The Dead, both small and great,
In terrour watched their opening; for the Sea
Gave up her dead; and Death, and Hades both
Delivered up their dead—and all were there.

So sate the Judge, for grand assize prepared:
And, at his side, was One to minister,
Whom, but for the great glory of his face,
That dazzled even prophetic dreamer's eye,
Noah had deemed Elihu's very self;
But now in doubt, for even the Lord of Doom,
Antient of Days, himself like semblance cast
From the bright radiance; but it came in rays,
And those so keen, no sight could scrutiny
Aspect of person whence such emanate,
And bring report of likeness sure. Nought sure
Was there and then, but that great Doom approached,
Nay, was then sitting; and the midst One was
The Angel of the Judgement. On his left,
Stood the strong form of Death, a seraph armed,
With brow severe—the form of Death, and Time;
Not like the Spectre on the Pale Horse, seen
By Japhet in his vision, but more like
The Archangel who foretold the coming Doom
To Noah, from the rainbow, standing on
The earth, and on the sea. He gazed again,
And even from him Elihu's countenance,
Only less gracious, sterner, and in frowns,
Looked out. In front of the mysterious Three,
(Like those who once partook of Noah's board,
Travellers, and guests, yet glorious now as gods,)
The Accusers—Satan, and Azaziel—stood.

Then said the Antient One. ‘I have looked on earth:
Flesh wholly hath its way corrupted there:
And now the End of all before me comes,

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Yet fit that each Accuser first be heard,
And Witnesses, that Mercy may find hope
Of palliation, rescue, and redeem.’

Hereat rose Satan: and, behold, to him
A Roll came flying, a huge Volume; swift
It came, and darkened where it flew. Soon seized,
The Fiend unfolded, and displayed its breadth,
And length—and then exclaimed,

‘Behold—behold—
The Book of Curses. On this side, and that,
Writ are transgressions manifold. All crimes
By all have been committed on the earth:
Even at his hearth whom thou hast favoured so,
Sin, well thou knowest, is found. In every house,
This Roll should enter, and remain, and burn:
That were the fitting end—a flood of fire,
Utterly to consume, and not of water,
Only to cleanse, and that but outwardly—
The Doom of Fire, let it come on the World.’

This said, from midst the Throne a Voice commanded,
To give the Roll of Accusation up;
Right willingly obeyed. Azaziel next
Was loud in menace.

‘Wherefore Fire alone?
Why not Annihilation? Why should Fire
Be? Let the Elements dissolve—for all
Is evil—Wherefore Nothing not?’

‘To be,’
It was replied, ‘is good; and not to be
Nor good, nor evil. What I make is good.
Where are the Witnesses?’

Then slow approached,
By Michael, and by Phanuel, on each side
Supported, the decrepit, withered form
Of melancholy Earth. In tears she came,
Before the Judge, and wept—and only wept—

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Words found no way—tears only—only tears.
So she retired; those twain first having said:
‘Our words are written in the Opened Books,
Whence judged are all the dead, according to
The things which there are written, and the works
That they have done. Well-speed the Book of Life.’

Then followed all the Planets, and the Stars,
With the bright Moon herself; and testified
Of worship—and the Night also came on;
She, too, had votaries, but no worshippers,
Atheists, who doubted of her being even,
Whose badge they wore, and, haply, of their own.
Then came the Orb of Ocean, like a wheel
Instinct with life, cherubic; and his globe,
Else watery pure, was dotted o'er with blood—
Blood shed in war unrighteous, robbery,
And murther, and the trade in human flesh,
To slavery forced or sold, no terms premised
Of mutual good, protection, or what else
For service should be rendered. Next appeared
The Heavens, and the full Air; for they had heard
Wails, sighs, and curses sore. The hirèd Man
Had toiled but for the wind, and with the east
His belly had been filled; and 'mong the poor
The Labourer was numbered. Wife, and child
Sobbed loud, and loud in execration shrieked;
Whence the sad Airs had borne, upon their wings,
Their lamentations to the ear of God:
For all are Angels, and can sympathize
With human sorrow; sacred Messengers;
Appointed Ministers of will divine;
Spirits, both felt, and feeling. And the Seas,
And Heavens have potent Spirits; and the Moon,
The Stars, and Clouds; Thunder, and Lightning, too;
And Angels dwell in Frost, and rule in Hail;
Snow hath a Spirit, solitary he,

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And vapourous; Mist, also, gorgeous still,
Summer or winter, or by day or night—
The glittering Dews, and the baptizing Rain.

These rose before the Judge, and with them rose
The Spirit of the Deep; and witness bore,
That he into his bosom had received
Methuselah, descending through the earth,
By earthquake; and, according to his charge,
Had broken up the Fountains of the Abyss,
And one revealed to air, upboiling thus,
And visible, impatient to expect
Heaven's Windows opening, and their Spirits thence
Co-operant descending. Nature next,
Complained of outrage, not in groves, and glens,
But violation in the heart, and flesh
Of reprobated man; and after her
Came Hherem, and reported sensual crimes,
Akin to brute, and worse. Dim Hades last,
And Hell, presented from their storehouse, Wrongs,
And ghosts of Misery, and shades of Guilt,
Madness, and Apathy, and Fear, and Wo;
And worst the evil Tongue, and evil Heart;
Malice, and Envy, and licentious Thoughts;
And passions, Love and Lust, Horrour and Hope;
Fancy, and Understanding; Reason, too,
Gone wild in speculation, and in act
Lost in the sense; and Sense itself; and Sin
And Death—a multitude of phantasies
Thronging: and Plagues substantial—Famine real,
Spiritual Famine, hunger of the soul,
And of the heart, and Thirst—eternal Thirst:
And Will perverse, Perdition, and blind Hate,
Anarchy, Chaos, and the Second Death.

There was the world's first martyr, Abel; nor
Was absent Cain, his brother. Him had God
Repentance granted, blest him to become

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The Father of a People, and to found
Arts, and a city, polities, and arms;
Defective, yet the best imperfect man,
Heroic though, and virtuous, might achieve.
Then Cain bowed down his face before the Throne,
Unconscious yet of transit from the Deep—
If yet such was, whereof I cannot tell—
Exclaiming thus—

‘And has my Lord come down
To Hades, seeking him he lost? Thy face
To me is turned again, whom long I've known
The Reconciled, since to my carnal heart
That sign miraculous was once vouchsafed.
I do confess my sin, and will repeat
Thy mercies in the hearing of the ear
Of the great congregation. Of old time
Thou broughtst to me thy Sister, and thy Bride,
Eternal Wisdom; that, in hours of toil,
I might with her be solaced, whose delights
Were with the sons of Adam. Often she
Met me when at my work, and from the ground
Allured my upward gaze, and taught me how
To sweeten labour, by deriving thence
Knowledge, and prescience, whether of the soil,
Or of the seasons, moving so my heart
To piety, and worship of the heavens.
With Abel she disported too, and drew
The Veil from the Invisible for him;
Hence he had visions often wished by me,
Produce of leisure, such as I desired,
Yet wanted faith to win, mid earthly cares,
And habits firmly fixed. Yet ne'ertheless
Would thoughts grow on my mind, erroneous thoughts;
Of God in anger, who had doomed the ground,
To task the sweat of man, and sacrifice
Demanded, knowing not the spotless Lamb

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Was an accepted body; purified
Of appetites, and lusts; and consecrate
To truth, in danger, and in death devote.
Then came to me a Form like to thy own,
Sterner, but beautiful; a Fury, clad
In radiance of angelic loveliness;
And words of wisdom spake, and knowledge deep,
And argument sublime, of all that Death
Should teach the soul. O fool, who then forgot
With Life dwells Wisdom, with true Being, Truth;
All else illusion, unsubstantial, vain.
How, then, he led me into Hades' realms,
Avoiding yet this better Paradise,
And what he shewed me there of phantoms fond,
Brood of the idle brain, thou knowest well;
Nor would it profit to repeat at large
Void fancies—dreamy lies. Thus then, seduced
From Wisdom in my anger, I returned;
And, in the Fury wrath enslaved me to,
My brother smote—and perished. Hence from me
Men learned to slay the Brethren, (all are such,)
In duel, or in war; till needs at length
A flood of waters stay the flood of crime.
Meantime, old Wisdom parted from the world,
And here awaited thee, thy Sister-Bride;
Whom late I found again, when, Angel-met,
I left my wearied flesh, as travelling home
From Adam's burial in too deep despair,
And gained what ne'er I hoped—a home indeed.’

Whereto the Antient One. ‘In three-fold wise,
And three-fold dispensation, hath the Age,
Now consummate, made manifest the Truth,
Whereof I am the Life. Thus He who spurned
At prohibition, that he might approve
Knowledge of evil, was from Eden sent;
And Cain, transgressing, was exiled to Naid;

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And sons of God, betrayed by carnal love,
Daughters of Men in marriage who conjoined,
Accumulating guilt, shall earth cast out
To Hades, first baptized within the waves
Of utter Deluge, where-above shall soar
The Ark, expectant of the World Restored.’

Only not there was Uriel. And it seemed
To Noah in his Vision, Satan rose,
And spake in taunting wise. ‘Of man was I,’
He said, ‘the Watcher, and Ambition hurled
Me from my former place, my archial seat.
Sure, He who rules the day may rather brood
High thoughts, conceiving like emprize, more like
To prosper. Be it given me to tempt
The Seraph, I would prove his faith perverse.’

Straight Word returned to him, ‘A lie is in
Thy mouth, and be the Seraph's faith approved.’

So Satan on his mission passed away;
And, in his place, came on a Spirit stern,
Over the seven celestial Cataracts
Prime Watcher. ‘The dread Angel of the Deep’—
Exclaimed he—‘cries, for answer to my sphere;
How long? how long?’ Hereat the Souls of Men,
Complaining of oppression when on earth,
Took up the cry—‘How long? O Lord, how long?
Speed justice, God of gods, and King of kings.
Avenge our blood, the blood that still is shed
Of righteous men—haste, Lord; let judgement haste.’

Then rose the Antient One, who made the days,
The Eternal of the ages, terrible
In indignation, terrible in wrath.
—‘Have I not sworn? and cometh not even now
The Seraph of the hairy Star, whose course
The dispensation of the time completes,
Of Uriel now expected, with his Orb,

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And the round Moon's, in dread conjunction met,
Whence Deluge shall descend? For he hath heard
The Almighty Oath whereby the heavens were hung,
Ere the worlds were that orb the eternal depth—
And the firm earth was founded on the flood,
And from the secret fountains of the hills,
Rivers, from time's beginning to his end,
Issued in ceaseless motion, and flow on,
For ever and for ever. By its power,
The sea, and his deep bed, were formed; and fixed
The limitary sands that should restrain
His fury; and therefrom the great abyss
Received her strength, to keep her stated place,
Aye irremoveable. Thereby the Sun,
And Moon, and Stars are ordered, and obey
Unswerving high command; also the Winds,
The Thunders, and the Lightnings, Hail, and Frost,
Treasures of Dew, and Snow, and Rain, reserved
For Judgement, and for Mercy—by this Oath
Are they established, guided, and preserved.
—Have I not sworn? hear, and record the Oath.
Thus saith Jehovah; I created Man,
And will destroy him from the face of earth,
Both Man, and Beast, and creeping things, and fowls
Of air, whom it repents me I have made;
But in my eyes hath Noah favour found.’

Hereat, into the circle sudden came
Cherubic Chariot, and received at once
The Thronèd One, and Wisdom his espoused,
Who at his feet had there been sitting;—while
Hymn hymeneal rose, as they were borne,
Ascending from mid Hades to high Heaven,
Thus; ‘Holy; holy; holy; Father; God;
Who gave to Adam Law. Hosanna; Son
Divine; who Truth to righteous Abel shewed;
And Hallelujah to the Spirit sing,

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Who dwelt with Seth, and unto Enosh taught
Jehovah's Name. Elohim holiest,
Who but Jehovah our Eloah is?
Hath he not heard the Spirit, and the Bride?
Thrice holy he—Eternal—Wise, and Good.’

Then Noah woke. One hour it wanted yet
Of dawn; yet up he rose, and called his Sons,
Ready to make the Ark for coming doom.

IV. The Cherubim

How sweetly breathes the Angel of the Morn—
How beautiful the smile upon his face;
And as he whispers in the rising breeze,
What music in the mercy of his voice,
The dewy tones compassionate: the drops,
That hang the leaves, and grasses, are the tears
Wept from the eyes of Pity. Lovelily,
To him who looks his last upon her face,
Beams the great mother; and his heart is touched
With sympathies celestial—nay, divine.
Nor Earth less sympathizes, and her Sons,
Who in the sight of Heaven had found grace,
Feel in their souls her passion; and come forth
To tend yon mystic Ark, that shall for her
Preserve a race alive; while she, baptized,
Wash off corruption, dying to be born
Anew . . to her old glory, nay, to more,
Redeemed, so that no spot upon her orb
Should be that was not holy, capable
Of consecration, or even needing none.
—Noah with Chava, mid their duteous Sons,
Each with his Bride, stood at the guarded door
Of the appointed Ark, and thence they gazed
For the last morn on the devoted Earth.

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Then in the presence of the Cherubim,
Even on that Mount their Sacrifice they lay,
Accepted soon of that enkindling Cone,
That fiery pillar, templed wherein dwelt
The Image of the Majesty Divine;
While on their faces the Noachidæ
Adoring fell; and thus the Patriarch prayed:

‘God of our Fathers; God of Adam; God
Of Abel; God of Seth, and Enosh; hear.
Hear, God of Cainan, and Mahalaleel,
Of Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah.
O God of Lamech: listen to our prayer.
—Wisdom of old with thee pronounced the Light,
And Laws Eternal to the Worlds prescribed,
Thy making. Wilt thou mar what thou hast made,
And, o'er the fair face of thy Universe,
Bid Ruin pass in Deluge, like the Deep
Ere Order was? Have Mercy yet on Earth:
Mercy on Man who in her bosom dwells.
—But Doom is said, and none may refuge find
Save in the Ark, and only Eight Souls there,
Of all Mankind. There comfort thou our Souls,
O God of Consolation: comfort us,
For the destruction of our Brethren; for
The peril which will threat us round about—
And for the doubts that may perplex our souls.
Save us, deliver us, from out the Flood,
And set our feet upon the ample round
Of earth again. Save us, deliver us—
O by the Sorrows of our Sire forgiven:
O by the Blood of Abel: by the Truth
Of Seth; and Enoch's Immortality.
We pray thee; we intreat thee; we implore.
Us guard—us guide—and from the waters bring.
So that Creation perish not, for lack
Of Man to contemplate her countenance,

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And call upon the works of thy great hand,
The Sun, and Moon, and Stars, and Heaven, and Earth,
And the wide Sea, to praise and magnify
Thy Wisdom, and thy Power, and thy Love.’

Such was the prayer of Noah, while the Fire
From the immediate Cherubim replied,
And kindled into flame the Sacrifice,
That on that hill, as on an Altar, lay;
And when it was consumed, the Eight arose
Cheered, but yet felt a sadness in their joy.

Not without tears, the Patriarch's family
Gazed on the doomèd World. In Noah's breast,
The venerable Chava hid her face,
In grief extreme; and very sad it was
For thee, Ahama; though with Japhet blest,
To leave so bright an orb: and, Leila; thou
Wert sorrowful exceedingly; nor thou,
Ahola; mightst restrain the gushing heart:
Loved earth, and her inhabitants, and those
So near, and dear, friends, parents, kin beloved,
Brother, and sister, and the playmate blithe,
And generous acquaintance, all foredoomed.
Nor were, be sure, Zateel, and Zerah far—
There partings were of such, for they had come
To take eternal farewells: for not all
Were evil, though not favoured so with grace,
As patrial Noah to regenerate
The renovated world; yet were they blest
With patience, and with resignation meek,
To meet the coming Judgement, and what doom
Might God appoint them. These, with ardent lips,
And feelings all mysterious, and too deep,
Stood by the place of refuge with the saved;
Nor end had been to their embrace, but then
Elihu came, and, interposing aid,

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Soothed the afflicted, and the downcast raised:
Within his arms he brought the Tables erst
To Enoch given, by him to Eden borne,
And from its gates so late promulged anew
With such effect. Them to the hands of Ham
Elihu did confide, with strict command,
Within that Ark securely to enshrine
For preservation. These the Tables were
Of which tradition tells, by Ham preserved
From deluge, and in Mitzraim since laid up
In temples, though concealed by hireling priests,
But not from Musah, skilled in Mitzraim's lore—
To whom on Sinai they were renewed.

Now slow, though unreluctant, went in faith
Into the Ark, sage Noah, and his Wife,
And Shem, and Ham, and Japhet, with their Brides;
Then on them fast he shut secure the door,
And the world vanished from their veilèd eyes.

As for the rest, they to the Cherubim,
All save Elihu, bowed adoring down.
He, to the hill returned, transfigured stood,
Person divine, amidst the fiery cone,
In glory ineffable by me—yet I,
(The Poet, gifted by the Spirit's Voice,
To summon from the vastiest Deep the Dead,
Those who aforetime disobedient were
In Noah's days, when Patience, heavenly throned,
Delayed the doom that God had fain recalled,
Had Man permitted Mercy to prevail,)
Looked with my spiritual eye on Paradise,
Heard with my spiritual ear her harmonies,
And saw the great array of Cherubim:
The cloudy column fast outflashing fire,
With the four-facèd creatures pillared there,
As in a temple of the elements,
Throned on the summit of the sacred hill,

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And bickering, as with lightning. And they spake,
As with the voice of thunder, but in songs
And rythmic dialogues. Fierce was the fire,
And vehement the sound of their discourse.
Such cloud the body is wherein we live,
Such fire the spirit, which, enkindled right,
Shall fain consume it, burning out thereby
Corruption, purging out the dross of sin.
Such cloud of smoke, as from a furnace sped—
Such flame, as of a burning lamp,—were seen
By Abram, when the sun declined, and him
A horrour of great darkness fell around;
Such Musah in the Holy Bush surprised—
Such, in a pillar both of cloud and fire,
With Israel in the Wilderness along,
Went night and day, and found, at last, abode
Within the Holiest, the Glory there.

There, overhovered by the Seraphim,
Elihu stood, between the Cherub twain,
And on the waiting and expectant Ark,
Looked down, and blessed it with uplifted hands.
Next, and more inward, amid Myrtle groves,
Were Horses with their Riders, in a vale,
A velvet bottom, mid the sacred hills
Of Eden; whom erst Phanuel heard enquire
The Angel, touching earth, then sitting still:
But now the storm was speeding, which that calm
So ominously threatened. Swift they came,
And went, the Cherub-steeds; and went, and came,
And then stood still: and then away—away,
On errand strange; and shouted choral hymns,
And anthems, all too loud for mortal ear,
In dreadful quire: and then returned again,
And chaunted epode, terrible, and wild.
And there were Chariots too, with harnessed Steeds
Of many colours; red, and black, and bay,

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Grisled, and white—the chariots of the Lord,
Spirits of Fire—his ready messengers,
Between the mountains, waiting for his voice,
To send them forth to the four ends of heaven;
And there the Horses, too, that Japhet saw,
In vision. He that bare the Crownèd One,
Who had the bow, and went to conquer forth—
The White Horse: He that bare the Sworded One,
Commissioned to take peace from earth away—
The Red Horse: He that bare the Balancer,
Who scanned the slanting scales with sceptic eye—
The Black Horse: He that bare the Name of Death,
Whom Hades followed, Famine and dread War,
And Beasts to slaughter Man, and Pestilence—
The Pale Horse.

And the Vision frighted me—
Frighted the more, since Satan I beheld
Fall from the sun, of Uriel thence cast down,
Defeated by his brightness; while soft sounds
Sighed from beneath, above, and all around,
‘How art thou fallen, starry Lucifer.’
Then seemed, as 'twere, the Future, yet unborn,
Rose from the germ; expanding:—and, from far,
To the mid air, wherein, suspended, swam
The falling deity, up from the deep
Floated the form of an unbodied Man,
Paul, the Apostle, rapt to the Third Heaven.
There, for awhile, delayed; to look upon
That Majesty obscured, but not destroyed.
And thus the Saint addressed the Demon-Prince:

‘Satan, or Zeus; Archangel of the Light,
The fluid Light, whereof a part became
The firmamental Heavens—thy primal realm,
Whose cosmic ether filled unmeasured space;
Knewst not, thou wert create, when Mystery,
(Whose Deep obscure thy Being's womb had been)

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Of Darkness older than thyself, remained,
Beyond thy limits, separate, distinct,
A barrier that no beam might penetrate?
—That Darkness but Light absolute, intense,
Whose glory blinded thine intelligence.
Over the cycles of unfolding Time,
Thou thence didst hold dominion. Day was thine,
And so was Night, where wander all the earths,
Conglobed of luminous matter, swayed by thee,
God of the worlds, Usurper. But a secret,
Wherewith still nature groaneth, big with travail,
Hath aye been uttered by Promethean souls,
Threatened but not revealed. Deliverance comes,
But not by thee, whom Fate thus overrules,
Down-falling.’

Having spoken, upward sped
The Saint upon his flight;—and downward still
Satan descended, shadows hiding him,
Fogs, vapours. But at length were these dispelled:
And far beyond the myrtle-groves I saw,
Astonied, further in, just by the Tree
Of Lives,—(a Templed Shade, wherein reposed
Enoch, awaiting yet translation thence,
To place more heavenly, to yet higher heaven;)
A glorious tree, and fruitful; at whose foot,
River of Life, ran, eloquently sweet,
A spiritual stream,—seven Angels stand
With Trumpets, all prepared for instant sound:
And an Archangel over them, with wings
Outspread, sublime, and with a golden voice
Of music, like melodious thunder-peals,
Calling aloud, and not unechoed then
Nine-fold; Wo—wo—wo. Straight the Trumpets blew
A blast so high, and deep, and broad, and long,
Heaven shook, and the great Earth; and all that Mount
Of Paradise was shaken. And forth rushed

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Seven angry Ones, seraphic, terrible,
Like gods, with vials in their giant hands,
Brim-full of wrath—brim-full of wrath—and they
Soared up, and made toward earth, right by the way
Where the strong Watchers of heaven's Cataracts
High station held.—Straightway the Archangel stood
Within the Rainbow, he whom Noah saw
In vision; and his hand was lifted up
To swear—but terrour made me blind, and deaf.

The Veil for me was drawn awhile, then closed.
A calm broods on my soul, and on my mind,
As I return unto the common world,
Yet full of mystery to the sage, and saint;
An Epos it, in mythic characters
Composed by hand divine, Creator pure;
Whom with this hymn I worship—His own gift,
With humble heart contrite, with holy fear—
Not unbaptized with water, nor with Fire.

END OF THE JUDGEMENT OF THE FLOOD.