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

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.