Dear ones of Lamech, listen to my speech: And spake, and bade, Arise, my father, go Say to my brother, Abel bids thee come; For Adam laid upon the head of Cain His hand, and Cain bowed down, and slept and died. And in his slumber's deepest, he beheld, Though to his wounding he did slay a man, Shall Lamech surely, and his people, die? ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 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 The lightning flickered in the deluged air, 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 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, Woman trod With wavering steps the precipice's brow, Smothering the voice of love. The giant's foot 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 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, 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, And cried aloud for mercy. But his prayer 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 ANONYMOUS 9 NIMRUD AND THE GNAT Heard ye of Nimrud? Cities fell before him; 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. |