« And the waters prevailed and were increased greatly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered and all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.”
SCENE.-The front of a Cavern on the summit of a Mountain.-Tempest.
STILL, still the hurricano waves along
The darkly dreary sky, winged with the pale
Blue death-flame.- -O, how terrible
Is this once beautiful world become! The heavens
Wont to be bright with sunbeams, radiant dies,
And glowing gems, is filled with darkness, storms,
Loud-howling winds, and ghastly fires, and floods
Down-streaming ceaselessly. The earth, that late
Was one wild garden, fields with dewy flowers
Stained by the morn in her own lovely tints,
Rich woods of cedar, spicy-breathing bowers,
And groves with fruits of gold and purple hung,
Where love and beauty dwelt; where still were heard
Harmonious sounds of pastoral reed and pipe,
And joyous lays of birds, and fragrant winds.
Idling amid the dancing leaves and blooms;
Cities, with gates and bars, temples and spires,
Palace and tower, and pyramid sublime,
All overthrown, o'erwhelmed, and sunk beneath
The wide-destroying waters, which roll on
With still-increasing swell, making the world
A hideous wreck, a sea without a shore!
And will ye never cease, ye pitiless heavens,
The earth to deluge?-
-O, ye dismal clouds,
Still onward do ye roll, and still outpour
Your inexhausted stores of horrid rain.
An ocean floats above us; and a sea,
Gaining each moment on the highest hills,
Spreads out below.I see the waters rise
distant mountain top,
So late an island far above the tide,
And filled with shivering wretches famine-clung,
And howling beasts escaped the valley floods,
Is dwindled to a point.-And now that point
Is lost beneath the upward-mounting surge.
My friends are perished;—all but him I love,
My dear Shallumah, who, through storms and floods,
O'er rocks and precipices, hither bore
Me in his faithful arms: and he, perhaps,
In seeking to obtain for me some food,
Hath perished too by flood or ravenous beast.
Why did I suffer him to quit my arms,
In quest of that which I no longer crave.——
O, I am faint.Return, my Shallumah;
Return, and let me die in thy embrace.
Look up, my dearest Zillah, I have found
Some honeycomb in yonder dripping grove.
Alas! I need it not, my Shallumah.
The eager pangs of hunger now have ceased,
And 'tis in vain to hope that we can 'scape
The general doom denounced.
Why should we wish, then, for a few short hours
Existence to prolong; and that existence
Replete with nameless miseries? Look around,
And see if aught on earth remains to tempt
Our longer stay: the ever-weeping sky
The radiant sun hath with its tears put out,
Turned day to night, while night a tenfold gloom
Of horrible darkness wears! Through the black heavens
The rumbling thunders roll, and lightnings rush
Mid the cloud-fountains hissing, which spout forth
Water and fire in union terrible!
Dost thou not hear the onward-coming surge,
Lifted on high by the wild wrathful winds,
Outrave the tempest; and the thunder's voice,
Resolved to swallow all things up that live?
Look where yon lofty mountain stood, and seemed
An island blue, defying storm and wave;
Thou canst no more its towering height behold,—
'Tis sunk for ever! The dark flood hath closed,
And o'er the topmost steep curls its white foam;
While all the hapless creatures that had fled
For safety thither, in its dens and caves
Have laid their bones to whiten!-Look, sweet love,
One universal ocean covers all :
All but this little spot, this mountain top,
This lonely isle, that every moment lessens.
How awfully terrific! O, how dread
The soul-appalling prospect!
The flashing billows, far as eye can stretch,
Rolling in foam-clad mountains, us surround
And hasten onward to entomb us here.
Down pour their ceaseless cataracts the black clouds,
With redly glaring lightning half illumed;
While roar of waters, thunders, drowning beasts,
And shriek and wail of the last remnant left
Of human kind, in deafening discord mix
O hasten then, kind death,
And to my senses bid such sounds and sights
Be imperceptible.
On the inexorable heavens is written,
Despair!" in living characters of fire,
"Despair and die!"
SHALLUMAH.
Ha! see, O maiden pale,
Where yon black thunder-severed clouds commix
Their flame-edged skirts with the huge waves, I view
A buoyant vessel, by the surge upborne
In safety through the tempest.-'Tis the ark,
The ark that Noah built, forewarned by Heaven
Of this destroying deluge.See, it floats
O'er city-battlement and palace-tower,
Down tumbled in the multitudinous deep,
And o'er the weltering carcasses of those
Who laughed the patriarch's prophecies to scorn.
O, but for wings, the mighty eagle's wings,
O'er the wild dashing ocean thee to bear,
And seat thee on that pitchy bark, that tilts
The insolent waves so bravely from its sides.-
It will not be. -And must we, must we die,
My loved, my famished Zillah?
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