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

Meantime, in peace, and blessedness reposed
The far Erythræan Isle; and stern farewell,
O Abel, to thy children, Famine's fiend
Pronounced; then, winged his way to distant shores.
—Now, from the beach, two Maidens fair behold
The fresh awakened sun from ocean rise,
Dallying awhile with the crisped billows' mirth;
Whose foam, else white, is tinted with a blush
From his salute; and, dimpled by the breath
Of the young breezes, breaks upon the waves
In sparkling smiles, innumerous, to hail
His resurrection from the apparent sea.
Of Love the maidens talked; nor were defiled,
For love was here religion—sinless—pure.
Of Love, and Hori, Junia talked with Nain,
The shepherd's sister; no ungrateful theme,
Yet not from sorrow free; since Junià
Pines that the youth, for whom her heart was sad,
Met not her virgin love. To him the stars
Had beauty far more excellent than all
The daughters of his land; and the bright moon
Was as a golden goblet full of wine,
A garland of renown, and on his soul
Shed inspiration, glory, life, and power.
Song him delighted too. The youth was wont
To mould the sea-shell to an instrument
Of music; and therefrom the tones extract,
Accordant with the feelings of his heart,
The thoughts of his high soul. And much he loved

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The solitude of ocean's shore, to muse,
And mark the poetry magniloquent
Of wave, and wind embracing. Hark; she hears—
Junia—the murmur of the shepherd's shell.
And, with her fairy finger, hushes now
The lips of her companion; both concealed
Behind a crag of rock, where well they list,
Unseen, the lay of Hori. Thus he sang:

‘Dear is the Ocean to the Island Bard,
As to the flapping Gull from coastward flying;
Or Swan, that in the bay, when waves are calm,
Conscious of grace, floats proudly on the rise,
And fall of billows; fearless; all the more,
Arching her neck with freedom, and delight;
Oaring her way, with glancing feet reversed,
Striking the enamoured surge to foam minute,
Like silver sparklets on an emerald urn.
—Frail was the tender bark, but fair, which bore
The remnant of the Martyr's exiled seed
O'er the thence-named Erythræan, to the wild
Of waters trusted—God their only guide.
Balm the propitious gales, and glass the sea;
For He had made it smooth, who wisdom gives
To the winged sojourners, to leave the land
Of coming winter for benigner clime.
Like them, they voyaged forth; and, as they went,
The lyre preluded to a pious hymn,
The winds enchanting, and relieving well
The else-wearied oarsman, with its cadences
Solemn, and sweet, and sweeter because solemn.
The Dolphins sported round, as pleased to hear
The anthem on the surge. Silence, and night
Succeeded; and the moonbeams rushed from heaven,
A cataract of light, on measureless
Expanse of ocean, and of air. The stars,

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With lamps of love, came dancing on the deep,
A solitude but for our lonely bark,
Companions lovely, smiling from the sky.
—Glorious the Sun-rise on the desart main;
The hum of billows awful, as they wake
Out of their silence, by the breathing Morn
Admonished of his coming, Seraph bright;
And the swift murmur of unnumbered fins,
Rejoicing in his welcome influence warm.
But he who would magnificence behold
Too broad to bear, intolerably bright;
Let him, mid boundless Ocean, in mid noon,
Gaze on the burnished billows, and o'ershade
His dazzled eyes from the volcanic orb,
Making a desolation, how profound
And hushed, throughout the wilderness of waves,
The universe of water, and of sky,
Interminable. Eden; like thy Mount
Cherubic-guarded, on the eternal sea
Of Sunset the great Vision. The wide West
Is as a Temple, and an Ark of clouds:
With pillar, and with cupola, all hues
Of costliest splendour, as in gems, and gold,
The chariot of the Sun. Awhile he stays,
So pausing on the brim ere he descend;
Until the mighty Shadow of his Orb
Apparent rise, where Heaven, and Ocean meet,
And he into her open bosom sink
In motion visible, and both immerge,
In bridal union, mystic, and divine.
All day, and night upon our endless way,
By Angels we were watched; till, lo, the Gull,
And fragrant breezes token gave of land,
Whereof our Dogs were conscious long before.
The faithful Dog, dear to the Shepherd's heart,
Dear partner on the hill side, and lone height,

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And meditative as the race he serves,
Inseparable friend—a pious brute.

How beautiful the far Erythræan Isle—
The ocean breezes visit her pale shore;
With grateful warmth, and genial moisture charged,
For wanton flower, and bud of living leaf:
With the far boom of rolling billows, borne
In murmurs on his ear, who muses, lone,
In the dim vale behind the cliffy beach,
On either hand a fair, and verdant hill,
Delightful solitude, an inland scene,
So nigh the world of waters deep, and wide.
And there are minstrelsies of torrent streams
And rivers, growling over rugged beds,
Fringed on each bank with trees as old as Time,
Sown in creation's hour; majestic Oak,
And leaf-proud Elm. And far away the woods,
Pensile, or level, stretch their shadows broad,
On upland slope, in valley serpentine;
Forests, and groves apparelled by the hand
Of the Almighty, with a luxury
Of bough, and branch, and foliage; bounty such
As his alone would on his works bestow.
How grandly rocks, and mountains heave their scalps
Into his heavens—the footstools of his throne.
With what delightful change, he scatters, o'er
The verdant sward, the prodigal flowers, amid
The waving grass, up-sparkling their own hues.
Myrtle, and Rose, and Woodbine; rathe, or late;
Report of human dwellings, to the eye
That, from the hill, the prospect meditates;
Nay, even the stern rocks hath he adorned
With Moss, and Lichen; and the barren heath
With dew-drop Blossoms, elegant though wild,
Small Shrub, and Berry, hyacinthine dark.
For this, thy children, Abel, on the brow

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Of yonder hill, have raised a votive shrine,
An altar to his name. There morn, and eve;
Where Eagle once, and Hawk, held sole domain;
Hymns celebrate his greatness; and the voice
Of choral psalm, and anthem magnifies
The praises of the Highest.

Sweet it is,
To praise Him who has cast the exile's lot
In this so lovely isle. Here glows the Vine—
How lush of tint, how frankly clustered. Fig,
And Olive flourish; the ripe Orange blooms.
Who may report his gifts? Who name the sum
Of the spread sands on ocean's shores, the stars
Within the firmament? He gave, even He,
The father's heart to man, to woman her's—
Sweet is the love of woman: sweet is Truth;
Of all things greatest: but far loveliest,
When in the heart of womanhood it lives—
How lovely then, my Junia, if in thine.’

Thus closed his song. Deep thrilled with bliss the soul
Of Junia, as she heard; and Nain exclaimed
Aloud with joy; and both, discovered so,
Were found of Hori: With a trembling lip,
His Sister he saluted with a kiss;
And to his bosom clasped his blushing Bride.

II. Michael, and Azaziel

No more of pastoral loves. War wears on high
His horrours, like a plume; and his loud voice
Roars, like a whirlwind, amid echoes wild
Of rocky beach, or desart solitude.
—Hovering like ominous bird; a veriest speck
Upon the horizon rising; might be seen,
A wingèd Bark, that larger, more distinct,

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Grew, and approached, ere long of men beheld—
Nor unobserved of angels. Michaèl,
Guardian of Nations, rushed on Helam down;
Bold cliff, that, beetling, far o'erlooked the main,
And not in song unfamed. For fable high
Thereof young Hori had conceived; supposed
Of island dwellers ere the arrival there
Of Abel's seed; a mythos well designed,
With passion graced, and manners suitable:
Nor ill-conjectured. For beyond them lay,
In isle remoter, that same race, for whom
Kaël was seër. Blinder they of mind
Than he of body; haply—'scaped from Naid,
In fear of vengeance for enormous guilt—
Furthest was best, they deemed, from that cursed spot,
Where justice might be born; but ne'ertheless,
The Cainite found them soon, and not as foe,
Chance-roving on the deep, in search of gain.
—Whereof let this suffice. Me it behoves
To speak of Michael, the Archangel, whom
Met strong Azaziel,—Fury of the War,
Demon of Battle,—on that rocky height.

Straight each the other seized, in mutual wrath,
Well matched; and wrestled there from morn to eve.
Meantime, the Cainite, with malicious speed,
Like a sea-hornet, from the o'erswarmèd air,
Lights on thy coast, O far Erythræan Isle.
Fame spread her bruit, and Battle raised his shout,
And his loud trump resounded. On the beach,
Full many a man of the invading hosts
Was victor—of a grave—a common grave,
Dug in the sands. For to the shepherd race,
Where'er they spread, the sacred threshold they
Of each loved home, the fender of each hearth,
The temple's portal, and the altar's steps.
Such was that shore—so dear—so sacred then;

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And holily defended, as from touch
Of sacrilege, with heroism so devout,
That whoso fell was as a sacrifice,
An offering slain to God; to whom the warm
Steam of the living blood, like incense, rose,
By angels in their golden censers waft,
When they present the Throne Divine before,
The prayers of saints, accepted graciously.
—O there is Sympathy for evermore
Of Angels with Mankind. Nor wanting proof.
Witness the infernal God of Battle wage,
With the Archangel, conflict terrible,
On Helam in the clouds; so high its scalp
The craggy summit reared. Less high the hill
In Rephidim, whose top ascended once
Musah, with Hur, and Aaron, while in war
Strove Isräel with Amalek. In hand
The Legislator held the Almighty's rod,
Wherewith the Rock in Horeb he had smitten,
Whence water quenched the thirst of discontent;
A weight but ill sustained: and ah, when fell
His arm, the foe prevailed; nor might succeed
The chosen race, if it were lifted not;
But, by the twain upheld, his heavy hands
Were steadily preserved, till going-down
Of that victorious sun. Like fortune waits
The seed of Abel, now. As prospers, here,
Michael with his assailant, on this height;
So they below advantage gain, or lose.

Nine days the Angelic Wrestlers, on the head
Of visionary Helam, ruled the doom
Of meeting armies. Hand in hand, they strove;
With strenuous wrist, at arm's length either held,
Lest, closing, one antagonist might win
Possession of the other, and o'erthrow.
Struggling they kept at distance, so from side

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To side swung with contention emulous,
And action muscular, supernal strength.
O for the war embrace. With outstretched hand,
Each aims to grapple at the heaving chest
Of his opponent: by a mighty gripe,
To strangle, and subdue; or to enclose
The staggering victim in the stringent folds,
As of a serpent's clasp, and so to crush.
Now, either shoulder clenched in either fist,
Their arms at equal length are mutual crossed;
But neither yet might cling to other's neck,
Not yet compressed the bosom, or the throat.
Deep-dinted in the substance; from such grasp
Reciprocal they shrink; and writhe, and reel,
Till shaken off, or with a sudden sleight
Removed; that, by some other joint, or limb,
The foe may be constrained; by hip, or thigh
Caught, and, with dreadful violence, elanced
From the strong wrestler's seizure, in his wrath;
As, from an arbalist, or catapult,
Arrow, or stone, the enginery of war.

With various fortune thus, but equal force,
On Helam strove the gods; while in the plains
Men fought with men, from morn to eve, engaged—
The invaders, and invaded; those constrained
Battle to court, and foremost to attack,
Safe only when assailing; these inclined
To wait occasion's favour. But ere long,
War won more inland passage; and hewed down
A pathway to the valleys, and the hills.
—O Vale of Elul; once so beautiful,
So tranquil in thy beauty: now in thee
Is exclamation; with the shriek, and shout
Of battle; wanton with the loud uproar,
As a glad hunter, with the merry noise
Of hound, and echo, discord musical.

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There, Hori, were thy mother, and thy sire,
Adra, and Abi, sheltered in their age;
Watched o'er by thee, and by thy sister, Nain,
With filial love; in humble confidence,
Reposing, and in peace, a blessèd pair.

But Strife now enters; and the whetted Sword
Is forth against the Shepherd. Warriours sing
To it their songs—to it, and to the Spear,
And to the Shield . . boasting that they with them
Till, sow, and reap, plant vines, and press the juice,
And hail them conquerours of field, and flood.
Slaves in Ambition's service; scorned by hell
For fools, less wise than are the fiends, who prey
Not on their kind, but, strong in multitudes,
Find wisdom in convention. Yet with these,
Man maketh widows, orphans, and doth mar
His brother's visage, and the father's face . .
With woe-begone expression for the slain,
The prematurely dead. In gorgeous weeds,
The fine proportioned, and elastic limbs,
(So skilfully marked out, that cunning art
Of painter, or of sculptour, fails to mend
Contrivance exquisite) of generous Steed
They gird for battle. Pleased with such array,
The heroic Courser, gently pacing, or
High bounding, goeth, proud of his career.
How mild the Elephant; yet him man makes
Furious in war, and cruel as himself;
Yea, and the adoring Dog instructs to rend
The human form, whereto the conscious brute
Else bows in awe . . the deity he loves.

There grew an old Oak in the Vale of Elul,
Old as the world, and planted in the Day,
In that mysterious day, wherein God made
The earth, and heavens, and each plant of the field,

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Before it was in the earth, and every herb
Before it grew, while man as yet was not.
Of stature scant, its sturdy trunk threw out
Huge arms, and branches o'er an area wide:
Birds loved it for its shelter, and its boughs
The Raven loved, to build her eyery in;
And young, and old of humankind, beneath
Its umbrage, on a summer eve, indulged
Innocent mirth; or listened to the speech
Of Abi, priestly man. There was he wont,
With Adra, to preside o'er pastoral sport;
And to the swains, and maidens oft would they
Give counsel prudent, couched in proverb quaint,
Or ancient saw, or present parable;
Then pause at intervals to listen, pleased,
To Hori's sylvan song, . . a happy group.
But, now, no more may Hori's numbers charm
Old age, or youth; the shepherd's pipe is changed
For battle weapon, and the rural bard
Lost in the patriot hero, brave to share
The common peril in his land's defence.
—Now the parental sage, and monitress
Are fain, beneath the favourite tree, to wile
The anxious time away, in simple talk
With sinless childhood; to their guardian charge
Confided, or resorting to their smiles,
For consolation, in the hour of doubt,
By weeping mothers tended, crowding round.
But, ah, not sacred long that spot from strife;
And massacre found unresisted way
With womanhood, and infancy, and age.
Slain by the Cainite, there flowed Abi's blood,
And Adra's, watering that agèd root
With needless moisture: for the murtherers,
In wanton malice, laid the axe of war
Thereat, and hewed it till it fell to earth,

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Groaning; its feathered burthens undislodged,
And, with their nests of many centuries,
Crushed with the crashing boughs; thus slaying, there,
The unfledged offspring, and the mother bird.
—Needs not of Hori's grief to tell; the heart
That's human will conceive; but rather now,
How, on the Hill of Dreams, angelic might
Mortal controuled, by mystic sympathy;
That so the coming doom, and what the end,
May be prejudged, and soothe the expectant mind.

Equal the wrestlers yet. Advantage none
Had either gained: and the ninth sun went down;
When, as by compact, each antagonist
Upon the summit slept, to rise refreshed,
As wont, when morning dawn. So Michaèl
Lay down to his repose; but in his heart
Azaziel had imagined treacherous wile,
And feigned to sleep, but slept not. 'Mid of night,
He rose; and the Archangel, where he lay,
Seized by surprise. In wonder, Michael, roused
From slumber, with a shout, alarm conceived,
And strove amain with his perfidious foe.
Yet, ah, what now avails?—Can this be night?
Than noon more radiant, but in terrours clad,
The sun knows not at mid-day? It is night,
With vesture all ablaze, and hair aflame,
Like a Bacchante, in her phrenzy fired,
With torch, for revel meant, to ruin turned.

The crackling Forest burns into the heaven;
And the clouds glow: the skies are drenched in blood;
Type of the blood now shed, in agony,
Upon the quaking earth. In Elon's grove
Of many trees, a wilderness of wood,
The race of Abel nightly shelter sought
From the invading hosts. Inspired by hell,
The Cainite, in his cruel mind, resolved

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To fire the forest in the noon of night,
And to each corner set infernal flame.
Gradual toward the centre of the wood
The element careered, converting to
Its proper substance, and consuming, all.
Escape was none; on every side was fire;
The baffled victim only could retreat
Into the depth of Elon, and await
His death in horrour. O what shrieks arose,
Unheard without; but not within, by those
Whose own soon echoed to the shrieks they heard:
Nor with the howl unanswered, wild, and drear,
Of beasts, and savage tenants of the wood.

What name had borne the fair Erythræan Isle?
Whate'er it was before, only by this,
After these deeds, 'twas known, . . Aceldama.
Hence fitly were that sea Erythræan called,
Which circled in that isle, or led thereto,
As to a land adjacent, red with blood:
But at the first, because that o'er its waves
The martyr's seed fled from the wrath of men,
It from the blood of Abel name derived.
—Not that the Persian, or Arabian Gulf,
Of Edom styled: they other; for o'er this
Great Deluge rolled, displacing every site
Of a past world, on ocean, or on earth.

III. The First Rain

Swift, o'er the far Erythræan, wings its way
The Slave-Ship of the World before the Flood.
Heaven loured above its course, and gathering clouds
Spake anger. But worse horrour waited it,
The Horrour of great Darkness, on the shore
Whereto it voyaged. Blessèd light enough
Was but permitted to debark the freight

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Of captives; then, into the city passed
The Cainite, and his victim. Capitol
Of Fratricide, what glories now adorn
The huge, and still enlarged metropolis?
Vision by gloom excluded; skill of man
Dies unadmired, unused. 'Twas morn—bright morn;
Bright as if meant to make more bitter still
What followed, and, with disappointment, carken
The care, and woe, and agony, which Wrath
Supernal had prepared. Night—starless night,
And moonless, quenched at once the Eye of Day:
Deep sleep o'ercame the Watcher of the Sun;
And Earth was Hades; and as ghosts were men,
Unseen, but not unheard. Shriek, sigh, and sob,
Were frequent; and the ear, grown sensitive
To malady, was startled evermore
With constant sounds of lonely misery:
A solitude, though crowded. When came on
The Darkness first, man converse held with man,
In mutual wonder; but, when it endured
From day to day, by weariness induced,
Silence—dogged, sullen silence, shut the heart,
In its own wretchedness pent broodingly.
By curses yet preceded; for, whenas
Communion ceased, and motion was essayed,
The blinded came in contact, and provoked
Contention in each other; ire, and oaths,
And blasphemy, and malediction, first
Cast on their fellows, next upon themselves:
But chief, 'twas horrible to hear the tone
Of woman's accent changed to malison,
Vindictive as more feminine:—the lips,
The very lips of infancy expressed
Feelings of desecration, and partook
The common madness with the common doom.
And there was random slaughter: father slew

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His son in darkness, and the son his sire,
In ignorance, and rage; as each opposed
The other's wished escape from out the cloud
Into what sunnier air, for so they hoped,
Might lie beyond. And reason for the hope
Had they; for, as at ease, and in the light,
They heard the voice of prophets, Woe—Woe—Woe—
Denouncing to the unrepentant still.
It was the voice of Noah, and his Sons,
Who through the darkness moved as in the light;
Protected, by the Holy Ones, from touch
Profane; nor touching in their progress aught
Of opposition, person, brute, or thing.
To them the Highest had appointment given,
To pass with word of warning, though in vain,
Through that great Plague of Darkness; and absolve
The Maker's mercy, and his justice save,
If man should perish, obstinate in guilt.

Such Portents spake impending Judgement nigh;
And well it might have seemed, that now had come
The very doom pronounced. For the dark cloud,
Whose bosom had embraced the sons of men,
Dissolving, shed upon the startled earth
Premonitory Rain; even thus forewarned
Of Power Divine, to accomplish that, prepared
For the unrighteous world, which it foreshewed:
But Wisdom ne'er with Unbelief consorts.
—First, was seen through the accumulated gloom
A flash:—'Twas Lightning.—Next was heard a peal,
And peal on peal succeeded. Thunder called
To Thunder, from his thrones of mountains, where
He reigns ubiquitous, expressive form
Of God in anger, voice armipotent.
And evermore the lightning's sheeted flame
Enlarged, and made a chasm of fearful fire
In that felt darkness' thick, and heavy fog,

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Infesting as with death the breath of life.
Then seemed heaven's gates to unshut, and the shower,
Ne'er known till then, to come down in a flood;
Nor ceased the lightning, nor the thunder, then;
Unquenched, its jaggèd jaws still oped, and closed,
Like to a dragon's mouth, outspitting fire,
In the o'erburthened air it purified.

Fear with that deluge fell; fear, that it was
The final doom. But, no: great Mercy sent
The Sign before, to warn, and to reclaim:
Yet with no Rainbow followed—such as, since,
Makes a triumphal arch of the whole Heaven,
For Earth redeemed from tempest once again,
Obedient to the promise. God's own bow,
Which in the clouds he set, encompassing
First Altar raised on the restorèd earth.
Such, too, as circled that Archangel's form,
Who stood in air, on ocean, and on earth,
All three engirdled in that triple round,
Bended on high by the Almighty's hand—
By Noah seen in vision, which foretold
The doom of Deluge, whose receding skirts
Therewith were beautified; for Love had shed
Light on the cloud, and grief to glory turned.
Token of everlasting Covenant
To Earth, and to her savèd worshippers;
Celestial way for Mercy to descend,
Upon a flowery bridge; a fluid arch;
The Brow of God shewn smiling, and appeased,
Visibly shewn, distended, and relaxed.

Sad was it to behold the scenes, and groups
Of men, and beasts, and things inanimate;
After such visitation. Trees were black,
And smouldering, blasted with the electric wrath;
And tower, and temple smitten to their fall:
And on the plain sheep, oxen, steer, and dog,

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Like statues, lay, or stood, as the swift stroke
Had found, and left them; life-like, but not living:
Life with a touch quenched, or transfused, or caught
With the quick flash, and to its source returned.
And human forms there, too, were piled in heaps,
Like ruined pillars—woman, man, and child,
Old, young, and middle-agèd; all in groups
Fantastic, or grotesque, or picturesque,
But each in mockery, and most so the last.
Cold—cold stood the survivours, though unscathed,
Shivering; and, soon, the unaccustomed Rain
Hardened to Hail, and agonized the flesh
With keen impression. Straight the symbol changed;
And it was Winter, . . such as winter is
In the restorèd world. Rain, vapours, snows:
Snows—like swan's down, or sea birds, they descend
On the diluvian earth; a volant flock,
Wonderous as novel, sailing on the wind;
Feathery, and flaky, sharp as arrows are:
And the bleak storm, with piercing violence,
And stern in desolation, teaches man
What wretchedness may yet appal his soul,
Or if not, penetrate his shrinking frame,
And task much fortitude of mind to bear,
And much experience to inure the flesh,
Else quivering with smart pain.

And were
The innocent race of Abel then involved
In the just vengeance that thus fell upon
The Cainite for his crime? That were unjust—
And thus in this Heaven's hand was manifest.
For not alone were Noah, and his Sons
Free from the darkness, but the captive race,
And with the prophets were delivered thence.
In Armon's vale, and in the Land of Streams,
They lived at large; while signal miracle

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The City of Enos, and the Land of Naid,
Irad's, and Mehujaël's capitols,
Methuselah, and Lamech, visited,
With signs of doom, and witnesses of power.

Free welcome gave the patriarchs of the vale,
O Abel, to thy seed; and young Zateel
The influence of his virtue, birth, and rank
Exerted in behalf of injured worth:
But, chief, with Hori rapt communion held,
By sympathy of soul; alike akin
To the great heart of nature, poets both.
—Born in the exile's land; far, far away
From old traditions, and the sacred soil,
Of high renown for deeds, and names of fame;
Fame honourable in the sight of God,
Not of men only; to the Shepherd Bard
Zateel had pleasing knowledge to impart.

‘Come with me, Hori;’ said the lovely youth—
(O both were lovely; amiable they
As Jonathan, and David, singer sweet,
In after-ages, whereof may be read
In Hebrew Scripture episodes divine.)—
‘Come with me, Hori; and in Armon's vale,
I will instruct thee in the wondrous spot
Where Adam was created, ere his Maker
Set in the garden Man whom he had formed—
Till then the child of Nature, thence of Grace.
Moreover, I will shew thee the sad Vale
Where fell the father of thy sinless seed,
Beneath the hand of Cain. Nay, weep not, Hori.’

‘It is no grief, Zateel; or if it be,
It pleases more than it afflicts—it soothes
With a calm joy that elevates the soul;
As when the dews have fallen, the fields revive,
And look with gladness into the blue eye,
And glittering face of the encircling heaven.

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IV. Vale of Adam

So to the Vale of Man's Creation came
The friendly pair. A shaggy wilderness;
Luxuriant, void of culture, beautiful
But savage; wide as wild, an ample grove,
Or rather forest country . . a wood world;
It stretches far, a wonderous theatre,
Huge, and majestic; of a scale so bold,
As Nature's hand may only operate.
On high rose cliff, and rock, and precipice;
Mountain magnificence; stupendous ridge;
Whereto the Teneriffe of an after age,
The Alps, and Andes of a future world,
Were common heights, or ordinary hills,
Mean, and domestic, by the eagle scorned,
Nor to be named in story, or in song.
—Far hiding in the skies their secret heads,
Above the lurid storm, and thunder cloud;
Serene, and hoar, no Sun may ever melt
The untrodden snows that face his burning rays,
With everlasting laughter bright as his,
And silent in its scorn. Down from their tops,
Rivers descend, large streams; and hew them out
Broad channels, and in hushed seclusion lie,
In linkèd fellowship, a chain of lakes;
And islanded therein, a brotherhood
Of crag, and brake, abode of bird, and beast;
Horrid with thorn, and briar; vexed with weed,
And binder, cleaving to the nobler trunk,
And intricated with the branches, bare,
Or leafy, and the boughs of tangled trees:
Haunt of the Asp, the Adder, and the Snake;
Jungle, and lair; and dens, and caves, and sands;
Desart, forlorn, and drear, and desolate;

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Marshes, and swamps, and bogs, and miry fens.
—There dwelt the Tapir; there the Jaguar dwelt;
Puma, and Bear, and Wolf, and reinless Deer;
Reptile, and Insect grown to monstrous bulk;
Viper, and Toad, and Bat, and noxious Ant;
Vulture, and Eagle; Condor, and Macaw.
Man had no habitation, here. August,
And lonely, to its silent solitude,
—So deep, and so profound it startled him,—
Chance-led, if he approached, he left it still;
Avoiding it from reverence: and that it,
(For so had God commanded,) should remain,
Type of man's state by nature; ere God's grace
Elect him, and exalt him to become
Heir of his mercy, child of Paradise,
Born to God's Eden, freeman of his Church:
Oft yet beheld at distance, or more nigh
Surveyed, permitted for example so.
Hence, hither led Zateel the Shepherd Bard;
Now both into the hallowed precincts set
Feet unprofane; yet they, with very awe,
Put off their shoes, as entering holy ground.
And it was holy,—and soon the twain adored.
For, in the navel of a woody scene,
Nigh to the portal of that mystic place,
As at the altar of an outward porch,
Guarding the sanctuary it precedes,
Sate, in a radiance flowing from himself,
One like Elihu, spiritually bright.
With fear, the apparition they beheld;
Their knees smote one another, and they fell
Trembling to earth, and worshipped silently;
For terrour made them mute. But mildly he
Rose gracious; and, advancing, gently spake:

‘Stand up; I am your fellow servant, sent
To teach what ye would learn.’

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With this assured,
Their confidence returned, and they resumed
An attitude erect; but, with bent brow,
In veneration stood, while he pursued.

‘Hence was the dust derived, whereof the Sire
Of Heaven, and Earth first moulded flesh of Man;
Then breathed into his nostrils breath of life,
That he became a living soul. Awhile,
Within these wilds he wandered, innocent,
And unrepining; and forsaken not
By him who made him, and, with thoughts divine,
Led to aspire, and warranted to hope;
Till in a cultivated garden set,
To dress it, and to keep it, lord of all.
Then he beheld how lovely Order was,
And how rude Nature put on novel charms,
When unto Law obedient, God's, or man's,
Trained by his will, and nurtured to his use.
But, ah, that blest estate he forfeited;
Living, not Knowing, he preferred to die,
Though by well living he had known all things,
And known all without evil, or delay.
Thence to the ground whence he was taken, Man,
Remanded, was by labour doomed to win
What Love had given, had he not doubted Love:
But that same Love it was, appointed now
Labour to Man; to call the spirit forth
Wherewith had God inspired him; to subdue
Chaotic Nature, and impose what form
His heaven-derived Intelligence decrees,
And so regain the life which he hath lost.
—Thus Man by Wisdom shall dominion use,
To govern, or evade all powers perverse,
Or rebel unto his supremacy,
And substitute them for his force of limb;

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And by his knowledge of them, and the might
Which knowledge gives, rise into blest estate
Of leisure, and ability to rear
Moral, and intellectual edifice;
Wherein, as in a temple, he may dwell,
With happiness, as to the present life,
And feel the Eternal, like an altar-flame,
Descending, in a cloud of glory, down
Into his soul, and charming it midway,
To meet it in the air, and guide to God.
—Not that the state of nature is not good,
For He who made it then beheld it so;
But that 'tis chiefly good, because it hath
Capacity of better, which to work
Is, under God, the privilege of man.
Beautiful on this silent wilderness,
Their cataract of light, the moon, and stars
Shed, like a sea; but few the forest paths
That feel their influence, few their shadows know.
Sublime, the sun at noon to burnished gold
Turns, with alchemic touch, the branches high,
That shine into the heaven; which, again,
Shines down on them, reciprocally bright:
But all within is as a dreary cave,
Scarce speckled, even at noon, with Uriël.
Still desolation spreads; bare rocks, and sand;
Nor visit there the seasons. Spring ne'er makes
The crevices of rocks to teem with life;
Nor hath the Summer beauty to bring forth;
Nor Autumn aught to garner: well it were
Might Winter's influence cool its scorching sands,
But they may thirst in vain. The unlaboured earth
Is hidden with the multitude of trees;
The untaught rivers, in no channels kept,
Drown, with perpetual flood, plains fertile else,
And to unhealthy moist convert the dry.

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Vain the warm sun, vain climate of the south,
Vain soil prolific, that, with idle growth,
And rank luxuriance, vegetation clothes,
And chokes the wood, and covers blessèd earth
With useless shrubs, and herbs, and noxious weeds—
Unfit for habitance, or nourishment.
To life unfriendly, breathes the stagnant air;
With putrid exhalations water teems;
And earth, encumbered, feels not sun, nor wind.
—Not there the brute gains vigour, though so wild.
And of the wild free denizen, and lord;
Dwarfed in his bulk, nor various in his kind,
Nor numerous, though undestroyed by man:
While the less noble tribes of creeping things
Increase, and multiply, and grow in strength
And size; the active principle of life
Its force expending on inferiour forms,
Offensive, monstrous, poisonous, and strange.
Only the birds, set free by gift of wing
From the controul of earth, howe'er it change,
Preserve their beauty, and their dazzling hue;
Yet with less various note, less pleasing song,
In the too-silent ear of solitude,
No man to listen, they attune their loves.
—Man, elsewhere, taught by Wisdom diligence,
Makes habitable what were desart else;
And with fertility, and beauty clothes,
For use, and ornament, the mended earth:
And, while he works, redeems from fleshly coil
The soul which animates it, and acquits
Some faculty from its imprisonment;
Till his perfection be accomplished quite
In revelation full, and use of all.
And One shall come, who, in the sight of men,
Shall the divinity of perfect man
Illustrate, and identify: and He

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The Word, and Will of God shall incarnate,
For Man's atonement, and instruction both.
His soul he shall possess in liberty,
Made free by truth, and purity of life;
And thence of all things shall he knowledge have,
And earth to him, and water shall submit;
And air, and fire acknowledge him divine;
And life, and death await upon his word;
And miracle on his creative will;
Who shall to Man ensample meet bequeath,
What, in the consummation of the age,
Shall crown him Monarch of the Elements.
—Meantime, shall many, though imperfect each,
Each in his several faculty complete,
Like functions of humanity set forth;
So that in all the whole may be expressed,
The want of one by other still supplied,
And that of many sometimes by the one;
But still by each his imperfection felt—
Nay, all—and over land, and ocean wailed;
So loud that heaven, and hell shall hear the moan.
Yet fear ye not; for peace shall come at last.’

He paused; but answer none his auditours
Had ready; mute with awe, and fixed to hear.
Then he resumed.

‘I go to Armon hence,
To Noah, and his house: there would I have
Your witness to the words, I bear in charge
To utter; and confirm them to the world,
That doubts the man who hath with me found grace.’

With this, he led them by the hand, and they
In silence yielded, unreluctantly,
And on each side attended him along.
Beautiful Armon: There, assembled, now,
The family of Noah. Chava sage

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Rejoices in her sons, a second Eve,
The mother of a world; nor less in you,
Her duteous daughters, lovely in your love,
Fair in affection; a domestic group,
A touching scene; but more pathetic made
By majesty of age, Methuselah,
Oldest of men, nor dying but with earth.

Noah was absent; for it was the eve,
When he went forth into the silent fields
To meditate, while nature was serene:
And often then he heard the voice of God.
Soon, at brief distance, he beheld approach
Zateel, and Hori, by Elihu led;
And hastened to adore. Anon his guests
He welcomed to his hospitable home;
Then Noah thus.

‘And hath my Lord come down
To see if Earth hath altogether done
According to the cry that hath gone up?
O be not wroth; permit thou me to speak,
Who am but dust, and ashes; and still spare—
Nor with the wicked slay the righteous too.’

Whereto, placed in the midst, Elihu spake;
‘Thus saith the Lord to Noah, and his Sons;
Man but for them should perish from the earth,
Whose countless sins have sieged the Eternal Throne;
And the loud voice of blood incessant cries
For vengeance. Soon He riseth, and will sit
In Judgement; and his sentence will go forth,
Armed with omnipotence; and on all flesh
Death ride in Deluge, that His Spirit may
Be freed from bondage, and new Life may teem
From the baptizing flood, and Conscience rise,
With Godward answer, meet, and right, and good.
—Therefore prepare, O Sons of Noah, now,

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For those appointed labours, which erewhile
Were set you; since by wonders, and by signs,
And tribulations hindered, for so long
The All-Patient waits; for what to Him is time?
But He to time is all: and therefore Time
Hath now heard warning spoken; pleased, awaits
Another change; not inexperienced, hails;
Knowing that each brings on the accomplishment
For which he worketh, anxions to become
Complete, and perfect in Eternity.’

This having said, he vanished. Heard with awe,
The household trembled; and, in prayer devout,
Sought for the soul that solace it imparts.

END OF FIFTH BOOK.