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

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.