Page:Fugitive Poetry 1600-1878.djvu/64

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 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 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 grim 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 toward 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
Whose increase should repopulate a world.