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Confused, the Shepherd hearkened; and beheld
The wanton sport; and had ere long been left
Alone within the hall; . . for now the Court
Prepared to rise, contemptuous of his suit;
But a loud voice from Speaker, yet unseen,
Insult arrested.

‘Sons of Adam, hear.
Have mercy on the Brethren, as your God
Was merciful to Cain, who slew their sire.’
—All turned, awe-stricken. Gradually revealed
Out from the air, the contour of a man
Appeared, as if a god, or angel stept,
Far forth the mystic hiding of his power,
The visible into. Beheld of all,
A venerable man, and yet not old,
Solemn of attitude, erect, unmoved;
Heroic form; awaiting who should speak,
Stood Noah, Prophet of the Most High God.

But none that apparition might address,
Except Naämah, of her beauty vain,
Like a young ash in bloom. Her wanton lips
No awe might check, no virtue might controul.
How delicately beautiful—as foam
On the wild ocean, and as sportive too:
Even in anger sportive, whenas waves
Toss high the slender bark, while suddenly
The moon is hid in heaven, and through the gloom
Thunders laugh loud—such was Naämah now.
As in a vale of pleasant bowers, o'erhung
With an aërial fleet of stormy clouds,
Conscious of gathering darkness, the bold oaks
Bend down to greet the shock; so men to her
Bow, as in worship, to avert what ire
Lours on her brow, else marble, so serene—
Or haply waiting, till far-faring winds
The squadron meet, and lead to other skies;
Rejoices then the vale, escaped from wreck,
And fair uprise her oaks in light renewed:
Thus smiling, she the Man of God bespake.

‘Pleasant surprise thy sudden coming was—
Fair jest thy words implied; that Cain's, forsooth,
Should pity Abel's race. We pity them:
Seed of the strong, we pity, and contemn
The children of the feeble. Corn, and oil—
Have they not flocks, and herds? or have they grown
So tender, they would spare a lambkin's life?
Less brave, then, than their father; for when he
Held sacrifice with Cain, not well content
With earth's first fruits, the firstlings of his flock
He slew upon the altar of his God.
Blood chose he as an offering; for his own;
And yet his own was offered. Death, since then,
On Life hath feasted; so hath Life on Death.
Go: kill and eat.’

Tears trenched the Shepherd's cheek,
When this he heard. Deep feeling, like the Nile,
River since known, and symbol of past Flood,
O'erflowed; and scarce, by fortitude restrained,
Permitted brief reply.

‘God gave to man
Each herb seed-bearing on the face of earth,
Each tree wherein is fruit that yieldeth seed
For meat, as to the beasts of earth he gave,
And to the fowls of air, and creeping things,
Every green herb. For holy rite reserved,
To make atonement with offended Heaven,
The sinless creatures roam, unfearing death.’

Whereto the Tetrarch. ‘To the Teraphim
We offer, like our father, of earth's fruits
Acceptable, whereby we spare our flocks,
And not the less our harvests they increase.
And, by the Teraphim, we will not bear
With other worship, blasphemous, profane.
Hence; glad to scape with life: so, linger not.’

Then Noah lifted up his voice, and spake.
‘Hear ye the words of the Omnipotent.
—With Chavah, and my sons, one eve I sate,
In social converse, at our frugal meal;
When, lo, three Men, for such the Strangers seemed,
Approached, not long unwelcomed, and became
Guests at our board, as travellers from afar.
Anon, of things far off we 'gan discourse,
And then to reason high on holiest themes;
As speech of distance will wake highest thoughts.

‘Survey,’ they said, ‘this world; a Paradise
Within an Eden, starry realm of space;
But greater far those things that are concealed:
Whence mind, and its dominion; . . and the law
That animates, and beats in every pulse
Of the all-teeming earth, which aye revolves
In ceaseless agony, producing aye.
And man is of these twain, and knowledge would
Of both, but can of neither, unless he
Become what he would know; and one is Life,
And one is Death; unique, or else impure.
'Tis in his will to choose, in Adam's was,
When God to him o'er earth dominion gave:
In sign whereof, two Trees he did appoint;
One called the Tree of Lives, the other named
Of Knowledge, and of Death; thus bidding him:
—Abstain from this, freely of that partake,
As he would live, and in God's love abide,
And knowing nought, know all. True wisdom this,
Not understood—till before human sight
God brought the Creatures; then Man felt the power
Whereof God spake, and gave them each a name,
According to its nature. Coupled they;
He was alone, and perfect in himself,
Awing the brute, yet awed himself of God.
They gambolled in the love-sport, like with like;
He held with a Superior high commune;
Not all unequal to such colloquy:
Or with himself discoursed, till thought grew big
For utterance, and wished companionship.
Then he discerned his insufficiency,
(Yet innocent, albeit deserving nought,
Having his being of Almighty grace;)
And what was good before became not good.
—These things return upon us as a dream,
As of the sleep he waked from, when thou, Eve,
Clad in thy beauty, burnedst on Adam's gaze.
He was not what he had been, yet was blest,
Beyond conception blest. What he desired
Had being, love-created, made for love.
‘Eve,’ he exclaimed, ‘flesh of my flesh thou art,
Bone of my bone.’ . . nor knew how he should quit
His heavenly Father, when he prophesied,
That therefore man should willingly forsake
Father, and mother, and his wife prefer,
More amiable, relation closer still.
—Her thus in virgin innocence he wooed—
‘Our proper bliss is to enjoy what God
Created, but enjoyment temperance needs,
Else none; and chief in kind, and in degree,
Moral delight; of sensual much eschew,
Evil, effect of sin, and cause of death.
For the capacity of sense hath bounds,
Being, as its object, finite; sated soon,
And lost all relish in excess. For this,
Test of our temperance, yon Tree hath God
Prohibited, of knowledge, and of death,
Of good and evil, . . evil the abuse.
But of our spiritual faculties
How infinite the scope, and only can
With what is infinite be satisfied;
Knowledge of God, to love whom is to know.’
—In such discourse, reposed they underneath
The Tree of Lives; whose umbrage broad, and cool,
Them there imparadised, and felt this truth—
To be is far more noble than to know.
Ah, all must be, what they would know aright;
And to know good, or evil is to be.
Whence sin, and whence redemption . . How redeemed?
By labour, and by death. For knowledge made
Man's nakedness ashamed of its own need,
Which hiding, from the Sacramental Tree
Its ample leaves they plucked. Aiming at what
Was His sole property who formed the heart,
They learned their wants, but not their remedy.
Discovery vain, till he, whose frown they feared,
Made manifest the love they dared to doubt,
As if the liberty of choice were not
Sufficient pledge of bounty. O forewent
Was reason then; false oracle believed,
Of knowledge without power; that God, and Man,
Made twain, until the Woman's Seed atone;
Better ambition justified, and man
With his celestial Father reconciled.
—Though as by fire; for who will not believe,
Must try experience, though it torture him.
Doubt if ye will, in order to believe,
But not to doubt; much less believe, to doubt;
But, and in faith, both doubt ye, and believe.
Men prove that fire will burn, by feeling it;
Yet he who feels to prove, must have believed,
That he should prove it, first, by feeling it.
—And why should Man doubt God, but to believe
The Adversary, false oracle, whose sense
Is double?’

There I answered; ‘True, my lord,
Of such false faith iniquity abounds.’
—Then spake again the Elder of the Three.
‘My Spirit shall not alway strive with Man,
For he of flesh as spirit is compact:
One hundred years, and twenty be his term.
His wickedness is great; and, in his heart,
Is each imagination of his thoughts
Evil unmixed, unchanged. Me it repents,
That I have made him; yea, it grieves my heart.
Whom I created, him will I destroy,
Even from the face of earth; both man, and beast,
And creeping thing, and fowl that wings the air.
That I have made them it repenteth me.
But in my eyes, thou, Noah, hast found grace:
Know, therefore, that the End of all flesh is
Come up before me; for the earth is filled
With violence through them: and lo, I will
Destroy them, with the earth. Make thee an Ark;
Of gopher wood, pitched inside, and without;
Three hundred cubits long, and fifty broad,
And thirty high; with rooms three stories up;
A window, and a door, set in the side.
For lo, I bring, even I, a Flood on earth
Of waters; for destruction of all flesh,
Wherein is breath of life, from under heaven:
And every thing that is in earth shall die.’
—So saying, they departed suddenly,
Or vanished; and we knew too late that we
Gods unawares, or angels entertained.’—

Thus, while spake Noah, o'er that lawless group
Passion, or influence, held attention mute:
But now it passed, or changed; and they exclaimed,
‘Ha! thou art Noah? Not to us unknown
The fame of what thou speakest. Pity though,
Prophets, who would save others, show small skill
In what themselves concerneth. Knowst thou now,
While thou art idling here, thy proper hearth
Protection needs; for that the sword of war
Hath entered Armon; and thy wife, and sons,
Thine aged fathers, call in vain for aid
On Noah's name, vaticinator vain?’

Whereto the Prophet, ‘He who brought me here
Will take me hence, if so his wisdom will.
Hither not of myself I came; for, as
Walking upon this Sabbath-morning forth,
To worship with my Sons at Adam's Tomb,
And thence to preach to the assembled throng,
Concerning the completion of that Ark
Appointed me to build, howe'er ye scorn;
A hand invisible seized by the hair,
And without pain conveyed me where I stand,
So soon, I may not count the time elapsed.
—Repent, or ye shall perish: and, in sign
Of my commission, learn; since ye refuse
The sons of Abel needful corn, and oil;
Your Seed-time, and your Harvest, they shall fail:
Your Cold, and Heat, shall strange mutation know:
Summer, and Winter; Day, and Night; shall cease.’

The Prophet's curse was spoken. Uproar wild,
And rout succeeded; but that unseen cloud,
Which him before concealed, now girt not him
Alone, but in its ample folds embraced
The Shepherd, too; and safely from that hall
They passed invisible—the righteous twain.

Now, sailing on the broad Erythræan sea
Were they. 'Twas past the noon, and from the shade
The herd had driven his flock; yet broad the sun
Shone o'er the billows. Fair the sight of beams
Reflected; grateful were the breezes cool;
And sweet to look upon the ancient trees,
Along the fringèd shore: while, in frail bark,
They voyaged to the Land of Abel's race.
So long they voyaged, that behind the hills
They saw the sun decline, and felt the gale
Of coming night blow coolly o'er the waves;
While rested sea-birds on the rocks about,
And silence slept upon the shores around.
—But deem not that in silence voyaged they;
Sweet commune long they held, and Noah thus
Instructed Hori, (such the shepherd's name.)

‘Fear not, although your corn, and oil have failed;
For he who took away, can give again;
Or if not, will permit that you supply
Your need with substitution, though of what
Is dedicated to the holiest use.
Nor take to heart that this the scoffing sons
Of evil dared to urge, nor do it not.
For man is lord of all the things of earth . .
All places, times . . his mind both place, and time.
Thus too, of Sacrifices be it said,
It is the soul that fits them, or unfits;
And fruits, and kine may both in turn be ill,
Be good: nor was the sacrifice of Cain
Refused, because the produce of the soil
On which he laboured; but on that account
Had been the more acceptable, if offered
With willing heart devout. Atonement may
With corn, and grape, earth's fruits, in liquid wise,
Or solid, as of bread, and wine, be shewn,
A bloodless sacrament; as well as by
The blood of bulls, or goats; or sheep, or rams.
All equally significant of this—
That man is not sufficient to himself,
On this hand, or on that; or earth, or heaven:
Needing both food, and raiment; would he live,
And have defence from Nature in her wrath.
This, physically, bestial sacrifice
Declares not only, but provides; and thus
Redeems the body into life again,
Ay, and well-being. But what thus is done,
For perishable flesh; in higher guise,
The human spirit asks, and shall obtain—
Even spiritual food, and covering,
Of quality divine, . . the Right, and True.
And this, methinks, less carnally were shewn,
In simpler rites expressed, by corn, or grape,
Such as Cain offered, or by them in what,
By art of man, has been from them produced;
Both bread, and wine; the latter rather, since
This Art is even a symbol, and a seal,
A part of the Redemption: shewing thus,
The soul is truly furnished, as it would,
With power, and wisdom; knowledge meet to save,
Food of the soul, at once, and clothing, too.
Hence, all these rites the Lord of all permits,
That none be superstitious. Hence, dread not
To put your holy things to common use,
But rather seek to use your common things
As holy. Make the business of life
Religious; every deed, and word, and thought:
Then, will each aspiration be a prayer,
Discourse a priestly lecture; nay, the act,
The simple act of dressing when you rise,
A pledge of reconciliation with your God;
Each common meal, a sacramental feast.’