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

Fair, at the close of this tumultuous day,
Art thou, O Moonlight, on this field of death;
Reposing here where mortal flesh decays,
Even at the portal of Eternity,
While, in the myrtle walks of Paradise,
The virgin spirit contemplates its bliss.
Sweet are the breezes that now cool our brows,
Erewhile with wrong inflamed; soft breathe ye round
These peaceful beds; and soft, ye honey dews,
Drop on the rocks, and fitting soil prepare
For vegetation. Mallow, purple-streaked,
And Asphodel with yellow flowrets, bloom
Where'er the dead are pillowed. Weep, ye Trees,
Shed your dishevelled leaves o'er the calm vale
Of their deep slumber. Willow, Ash, and Birch,
With heads suspended, mourn—and hang your fruit,
Ye laden Fig trees, to the hallowed ground.
Or rather let the mountain Cypress, with
The Poplar, and the Fir, of spiral form,
And floating foliage, point, like Faith, to God,

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Nature's own obeliskal monuments,
Raising their arms to heaven, while they deplore
Their brethren of the earth. But chief the Pine,
In his perpetual green of solemn hue,
His shape pyramid, his aroma sweet,
And his wind-shaken branches' hollow moan,
Symbol of grief, and immortality.
Also, thou Yew, whose years outlast the tomb,
And on the wreck of temples flourish still.
Osier, Oak, Vinestock, Laurel evergreen,
And Myrtle; Violet pale, and meek Primrose;
Ivy, and Olive; with the Jessamine,
Heartsease, and Holly; Honeysuckle, too,
With Palm, and Cedar, consecrate with life
Thy garden, Death. Thus, at extremest South,
The sepulchre of nature, Winter's tree,
Rich in perfume, perennial, shades with green
Valleys of snow, and territorial ice,
Mountain, and promontory, frozen isles,
And floods of crystal, and wide tracts of snow,
Even by the Petrel, and the Penguin shunned;
Left all to loneliness, and sullen gloom,
Save gleam of star, or moon, or meteor wild.
For Thou, who madest, givest to the soul
Lift, in the regions whither she is gone—
There morning from the orient aye looks down
Upon the laughing sea, that hyaline
By saints in spiritual vision seen;
And in the Eternal Presence she subsists.
Thus to the Patriarchs came serenest peace;
But on the race of Cain prediction fell.

Behold the Stags—how mournfully they gaze
Upon the waveless brooks, and pass away
In sorrow. Is it Winter? No—the time

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Of Autumn only; and but late the fields
Were white for harvest: but no harvest now
Hath Hope to glad withal her prophet eye.
A blight, and mildew, and a blasting wind,
Passed o'er the plains; and withered every ear.
One morn, the Huntsman rose; the biting air,
Charged full with fog, and mist, rebuked his sport,
And made him glad to shut his casement close,
And cower anigh his hearth. Then stood aghast
The Statist, and authority decreed
The Sower to go forth. The plough, and wain,
With clods of iron, and a soil of brass,
Prevailed not; and full soon the labouring Ox
Was to his stall returned. But not to feed:
For his provision now is needed more
By man; and he himself must die for food,
If the superiour animal be still
To live, and lord it o'er the barren earth.
The lowing Kine awaits the flowery mead;
But cold hath parched the pasture—and the grass,
The everlasting verdure of the earth,
Hath perished.

What may then long time survive?
For it is written, that no higher can
Without the lower be; albeit the least
Seek to the greatest, by that perfect law
Which urges to perfection all that is.
Hence appetite, in man, and brute, desires
The inferiour aliments which earth provides,
Inanimate, or animal; as those
Without which all would cease. The vegetable
The inorganic nourishes, and thus
Aspires to better; so the herbage soars
To a superiour life in beast, and man:
Material transmigration, melting one
Into the other; from mere mineral

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To human, and divine. But, now, the links
Are broken of that mutual harmony;
Interdependence wise.

Work, self-despised,
Is scorned; nor labours in his hut the Hind,
While dreams the Hound upon the household hearth.
But he hath slain his faithful Dog for meat;
And from the axe, and spade the Robin dashed,
That there for refuge perched, a famished bird.
Then Pestilence came on, a meagre fiend;
And wretches blessed the Winter, whose sharp cold
Was a defence against infection's breath—
In vain. For now the heavens all glowed, as they
With fervent heat would melt: the sun was wroth,
And glared with anger. Then the chains dissolved
Wherein the soil had suffered. But the race
Of men, plague-smitten, at their useless toil,
Died; and the unseasonable solar heat
Pierced the cracked ground, and obvious laid the seed
To bird, and beast, or smote it in its bed,
For lack of moisture, with a treacherous ray—
Life from the germ extracting. Tree, and shrub
Died with excessive heat.

Men cried to God,
He would withdraw the sun from midst of heaven.
And soon their prayer was heard. The months arrived
That Summer had been wont to visit earth;
When lo, the cold returned. With evening airs,
Came on the incipient chill; and men were fain
To shelter in their homes. Hour after hour,
They slept, and waked; and slept, and waked again;
But still no dawn. They looked out, and behold,
The round red moon, of unaccustomed size,
Made pale the planets' ineffectual beams;
And rose, and set in blood, and rose again.
But the sun rose not. Night had Day usurped,

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And Winter, Summer; as before it had
Autumn displaced: and blank uncertainty
Made strange vicissitude more hideous still.
At length the sun appeared; O blessed orb—
And warmth came with him: but sad earth was bare
Of vegetation. Morn, and noon have been;
And evening looks to see the Sun decline:
Still reigns the fiery king, and Day prolongs
From week to week, until the wearied eye
Loathes the unchanging light: and the worn heart
Sickens with uniformity, and longs
To sleep in darkness unashamed; . . nor less
Ashamed in day so long to waste the hours
In idleness, or only half employed.
'Twas Autumn; but no harvest was there, now,
To gather in the barns; nor grass to mow,
Nor fruit to pluck. But all was to begin
Anew: earth lay before them as a map
Uncoloured, and unnamed; and of their toil
No certain issue. Winter came at length;
Spring, Summer; and the soul of man rejoiced
To look upon the produce of the fields,
Grass, corn, and fruits; and flower, and herb, and tree.

Not only in the great metropolis
Of Enos;—but in Naid; its towns, and fields;
And in the Capitol that Irad built,
Won from the wild; and in the Cities, too,
Of Mehujaël, and Methusaël;
And the luxurious town of palaces,
For Lamech's pleasure edified; prevailed
These Wonders; that their dwellers might repent.

And were the Wicked warned? Hither, oft came
The Prophets from the land of Eden; Shem,
And Ham, and Japhet, and their Sire; to preach
Sincere repentance, that these ills might cease;

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And more, the threatened Flood not drown the Earth.
But they were hardened in increasing sin,
Because of the dread judgements; which were signs
Of Power divine, and Will for punishment.
And, chief, their hatred burned against the line
Of Abel; for whose sake, and by whose arts
Of incantation, evils so extreme,
(Thus they believed, by malice rendered prone
To credit aught against the race they wronged,)
Fell on them: and they sware, in council met,
To wreak dread vengeance on the favoured seed.

But greater grief remains for me to tell,
Whereto my shuddering soul may scarce give voice.

Nature is like a chariot, and needs Movers;
When drawn, it runs; not drawn, it standeth still;
Spirits of Fire, like steeds, are its precursors.
They fly; it follows flying, as they fly,
A glorious equipage, round a circle driven,
Bounded by the Infinity alone.

Beyond the bounds of the Erythræan main,
A Continent dispreads; a region wide,
And unexplored, named of an elder world,
Whereof who dwell therein believe a Wreck
The present was, and wherefrom claim descent.
Hear, then, their Creed.

Long ere Man's story dates:
Upon this planet sudden Judgement fell;
And it was blotted from among the stars,
Made void, and formless. But that Land was saved,
Though still in gloom involved. At length, the Light
Was reapparent; but not whence it came,
The solar orb, or any planet else,
Lunar, or stellar. Gradually, the dense,
And dismal pall of vapoury darkness melts;
Until, behold, the dawning Sun awakes,
Cheers with his beams the mountains, and the vales,

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And shines on seas, and rivers, as of old—
Him saw, and, after him, the Moon, and Stars
Saw those who dwelt on that surviving Land,
Masculine Creatures; whom Paternal Love
Created for his Glory, each one so
Begotten at the Source, not generate
By sexual mixture, and successive births;
Each one, like Adam, called a Son of God,
Immortal Offspring of Eternity.
Both him, and them, saw these; and, when they saw,
Shouted aloud, and hailed their glorious show,
Decking the forehead of the firmament;
A radiant crown, illuminate with globes,
Illustrious as with gems, and spheres of light:
Shouted aloud, with most exultant joy,
On their once-more inhabitable realm,
Encircled with a purgèd atmosphere,
And arched above with azure clear, and pure,
In the swift billows mirroured.

Happy they,
Those Sons of God; for they were sinless, then;
And proved, while so, imperishable too,
Even mid utter ruin. But, alas,
Not sinless they endured: . . by Woman won,
They fell, like Adam's self, and Adam's Sons,
Whose Daughters they beheld; beholding, loved:
And, their superiour natures mixing thus
With human, became Sires of giant men;
Who overran the earth with their renown,
And quelled all opposition by their might;
Making, and ending wars, as if for sport.

Alas, those Fathers of that Titan brood
Had bartered Immortality for Love;
Wedding with mortals, mortal had become,
And, with her Daughters, shared the lot of Eve.
—As Light unto the Sun, is Truth to God.

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Now on that Land, in melancholy groups,
Those Signs, and Wonders, prophesying Doom
They had observed; mutation, and surcease
Of Day, and Night; of Seasons, and of Times;
Mysterious, and premonitory signs:
Not deathless now, defiant of mischance,
As when the perished world, they had survived,
Felt the dread shock that crushed her germens in,
And made her as a grave, or as a womb,
To bury one, and bear another earth.

Great is their fear, expecting Destiny.
As yet, not one amongst them had felt Death,
Alarmed the more by inexperienced pain,
Which yet, by Oracles they might not doubt,
They knew themselves predestined to confront.
Great is their fear; and Terrour, like a god,
Their souls o'ershadoweth with his wings unseen,
Whose distant thunder spake of his approach.