8

THE DELUGE

The judgment was at hand. Before the sun Gathered tempestuous clouds, which, blackening, spread

Until their blended masses overwhelmed

The hemisphere of day: and, adding gloom
To night's dark empire, swift from zone to zone
Swept the vast shadow, swallowing up all light;
And covering the encircling firmament
As with a mighty pall! Low in the dust
Bowed the affrighted nations, worshipping.
Anon the o'ercharged garners of the storm
Burst with their growing burden; fierce and fast
Shot down the ponderous rain, a sheeted flood
That slanted not before the baffled winds,
But, with an arrowy and unwavering rush,
Dashed hissing earthward. Soon the rivers rose,
And, rearing, fled their channels; and calm lakes
Awoke exulting from their lethargy,
And poured destruction on their peaceful shores.

The lightning flickered in the deluged air,
And feebly through the shout of gathering waves
Muttered the stifled thunder. Day nor night
Ceased the descending streams; and if the gloom
A little brightened, when the lurid morn
Rose on the starless midnight, 'twas to show
The lifting up of waters. Bird and beast
Forsook the flooded plains, and wearily

THE DELUGE

The shivering crowds of human beings, doomed, up before the insatiate element.

Toiled

Oceans were blent, and the leviathan

Was borne aloft on the ascending seas

37

To where the eagle nestled. Mountains now Were the sole landmarks, and their sides were clothed

With clustering myriads, from the weltering waste Whose surges clasped them, to their topmost peaks, Swathed in the stooping clouds. The hand of death Smote millions as they climbed; yet denser grew The crowded nations, as th'encroaching waves Narrowed their little world.

And in that hour

Did no man aid his fellow. Love of life

Was the sole instinct, and the strong-limbed son,
With imprecations, smote the palsied sire
That clung to him for succor. Woman trod
With wavering steps the precipice's brow,
And found no arm to grasp on the dread verge
O'er which she leaned and trembled. Selfishness
Sat like an incubus on every heart,
Smothering the voice of love. The giant's foot
Was on the stripling's neck; and oft despair
Grappled the ready steel, and kindred blood
Polluted the last remnant of that earth
Which God was deluging to purify.

Huge monsters from the plains, whose skeletons
The mildew of succeeding centuries

Has failed to crumble, with unwieldy strength

Crushed through the solid crowds; and fiercest birds,

Beat downward by the ever-rushing rain,

With blinded eyes, drenched plumes, and trailing wings,

Staggered unconscious o'er the trampled prey.

The mountains were submerged; the barrier chains

That mapped out nations sank; until at length
One Titan peak alone o'ertopped the waves,
Beaconing a sunken world. And of the tribes
That blackened every alp, one man survived;
And he stood, shuddering, helpless, shelterless,
Upon that fragment of the universe.

The surges of the universal sea

Broke on his naked feet. On his grey head,

Which fear, not time, had silvered, the black cloud Poured its unpitying torrents; while around,

In the green twilight dimly visible,

Rolled the dim legions of the ghastly drowned,
And seemed to beckon with their tossing arms
Their brother to his doom.

He smote his brow,

And, maddened, would have leapt to their embrace; When lo! before him, riding on the deep,

Loomed a vast fabric, and familiar sounds

Proclaimed that it was peopled. Hope once more

Cheered the wan outcast, and imploringly

He stretched his arms forth towards the floating walls,

NIMRUD AND THE GNAT

And cried aloud for mercy. But his prayer

39

Man might not answer, whom his God condemned. The ark swept onward, and the billows rose

And buried their last victim!

Then the gloom

Broke from the face of heaven, and sunlight

streamed

Upon the shoreless sea, and on the roof

That rose for shelter o'er the living germ
Whose increase should repopulate a world.

ANONYMOUS

9

NIMRUD AND THE GNAT

Heard ye of Nimrud? Cities fell before him;
Shinar, from Accad to the Indian Sea,
His garden was; as god men did adore him;
Queens were his slaves, and kings his vassalry.
Eminent on his car of carven brass,

Through foeman's blood nave-deep he drave his wheel;

And not a lion in the river-grass

Could keep its shaggy fell from Nimrud's steel.

But he scorned Allah-schemed a tower to invade

Him;

Dreamed to scale Heaven, and measure might

with God;

Heaped high the foolish clay wherefrom We made

him,

And built thereon his sevenfold house of the clod.

Therefore, the least Our messengers among,
We sent; a grey gnat dancing in the reeds;
Into his ear she crept, buzzing,—and stung.
So perished mighty Nimrud and his deeds.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD

ΙΟ

ABRAHAM AND HIS GODS

Beneath the full-eyed Syrian moon,
The Patriarch, lost in reverence, raised
His consecrated head, and soon

He knelt, and worshipped while he gazed:
"Surely that glorious orb on high
Must be the Lord of earth and sky!"

Slowly towards its central throne

The glory rose, yet paused not there,

But seemed by influence not its own

Drawn downwards through the western air,

Until it wholly sank away,

And the soft stars had all the sway.

Then to that hierarchy of light,

With face upturned the sage remained,—

"At least ye stand forever bright,

Your power has never waxed or waned!" E'en while he spoke, their work was done, Drowned in the overflowing sun.