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.