# Fugitive Poetry. 1600–1878/The Deluge

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 roaring 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 shivering multitudes of human doomed Toiled up before the insatiate element.
Oceans were blent, and the leviathan Was borne aloft on the ascending seas To where the eagle nestled. Mountains now Were the sole land-marks, and their sides were clothed With clustering myriads, from the weltering waste Whose surges clasped them, to their topmost peaks, Swathed in the stooping cloud. The hand of death Smote millions as they climbed; yet denser grew The crowded nations, as the 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 succour. 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 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.