Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/64
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The Deluge.
With wavering steps the precipice's brow,And found no arm to grasp on the dread vergeO'er which she leaned and trembled. SelfishnessSat like an incubus on every heart,Smothering the voice of love. The giant's footWas on the stripling's neck; and oft despairGrappled the ready steel, and kindred bloodPolluted the last remnant of that earth'Which God was deluging to purify.Huge monsters from the plains, whose skeletonsThe mildew of succeeding centuriesHas failed to crumble, with unwieldy strengthCrushed through the solid crowds; and fiercest birdsBeat downwards 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 chainsThat mapped out nations sank; until at lengthOne Titan peak alone o'ertopped the waves,Beaconing a sunken world. And of the tribesThat blackened every alp, one man survived:And he stood shuddering, helpless, shelterless,Upon that fragment of the universe.The surges of the universal seaBroke on his naked feet. On his grey head,Which fear, not time, had silvered, the black cloudPoured its unpitying torrents; while around,In the green twilight dimly visible,Rolled the grim legions of the ghastly drowned,And seemed to beckon with their tossing armsTheir 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 soundsProclaimed that it was peopled. Hope once moreCheered the wan outcast, and imploringlyHe stretched his arms forth toward the floating walls,And cried aloud for mercy. But his prayerMan might not answer, whom his God condemned.The ark swept onward, and the billows roseAnd buried their last victim!Then the gloom Broke from the face of heaven, and sunlight streamedUpon the shoreless sea, and on the roofThat rose for shelter o'er the living germWhose increase should repopulate a world.