The Flood of Thessaly The Girl of Provence, and Other Poems. By Barry Cornwall [i.e. Bryan Waller Procter] |
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 | The Flood of Thessaly |  |
There, on the strand they lay,—Deucalion,
Father of this fam'd world, progenitor,
And Pyrrha the sad mother, goddess-born;
Both wreck'd, tho' saved, because their brothers did
Antediluvian sins,—because the wrath
Of the high God, great Jove, lay on the earth,
And was not to be quenched, unless by blood.
There lay they, long-time sleeping; while a Sea—
To which the Atlantic with its waste of waves
Is poor, tho' from its warring depths it flung
Alarums to the moon, and that broad belt
Of waters where the Baltic storms are bred
Is nought, nor where the Arabian snake is seen
Wasting the Nubian coast—A boundless Sea,
Paved like the dreamer's brain with livid looks,
Rolled far and near, and shook its hideous loads
At Heaven; and ever, as the billows bared
Their mountain backs and sank, worn with the toil,
Howled to the dreaming winds, and the winds sent
Fierce answers back and dashed the waves to snow.—
So, ere it slumbered in entire repose,
Antick'd the Ocean: then, by great degrees
Descending from its cloudy strife, tamed down
The plunging billows and impetuous depths,
Roaring for prey.—And now great Heaven had shut
Her windows, and the fountains of the world
Damm'd with a word;—and gentle calm came down,
And a power arose, which to the earth's deep heart
Sucked the vast floods, till vales and hills appeared.
Father of this fam'd world, progenitor,
And Pyrrha the sad mother, goddess-born;
Both wreck'd, tho' saved, because their brothers did
Antediluvian sins,—because the wrath
Of the high God, great Jove, lay on the earth,
And was not to be quenched, unless by blood.
There lay they, long-time sleeping; while a Sea—
To which the Atlantic with its waste of waves
Is poor, tho' from its warring depths it flung
Alarums to the moon, and that broad belt
Of waters where the Baltic storms are bred
Is nought, nor where the Arabian snake is seen
Wasting the Nubian coast—A boundless Sea,
Paved like the dreamer's brain with livid looks,
58
At Heaven; and ever, as the billows bared
Their mountain backs and sank, worn with the toil,
Howled to the dreaming winds, and the winds sent
Fierce answers back and dashed the waves to snow.—
So, ere it slumbered in entire repose,
Antick'd the Ocean: then, by great degrees
Descending from its cloudy strife, tamed down
The plunging billows and impetuous depths,
Roaring for prey.—And now great Heaven had shut
Her windows, and the fountains of the world
Damm'd with a word;—and gentle calm came down,
And a power arose, which to the earth's deep heart
Sucked the vast floods, till vales and hills appeared.
| The Flood of Thessaly | |