Are madly joining to effect its fall,

250. God sees them from the heav'n of heav'ns on

high,

And saith to Noah, "it e'en grieveth me

That man I form'd!-for all his thoughts are
vile!-

I will destroy him!-earth shall feel the deed,
When heav'n's windows open'd are on high!"

And now it thunders! Hark! it rolls!-'tis loud!

Now louder!-now tremendous!-Hark

again:

"Tis weaker!-not so loud!-and now it dies!

A voice no other than the voice of God Breaks forth from yonder cloud! but only Noah 260. Can hear the voice! and thus Jehovah saith: "I've look'd on th'earth! and lo! it is corrupt! 'Tis fill'd with violence, and not by beasts Is wrought the violence!-'tis not that woods Echo the roarings of the lions' cry!

'Tis not the tiger hungering after blood,-
Not the hyhena,-not the howling wolves,-
The horn'd rhinoceros,-the raging bear,-
Or behemoth,-or huge leviathan,—

'Tis not by these the ruin hath been wrought! 270. Man, man alone, the lord of these my works,Man, man, man only,-only man, I say, Hath done great despite unto me, his God! What lately bore the impress of my hand, What was mine image, and I said was good, Is now all vile!-the work must be destroy'd! Thou, Noah, hast kept righteousness in midst Of evil minions! go, preserve it still!

Bear my memorial, o'er the water's surge,

To people not yet born!

280. Make thee an ark. Of gopher wood construct
The vessel destin'd for th'approaching storm!
Rooms fabricate, and pitch outside and in!—
Three hundred cubits be the length of th'ark!
The breadth be fifty! thirty be the height!
A window make! and finish it above

E'en in a cubit! In the side of th'ark

Let be a door! (Ah, safe, and they alone,

The inside tenants, when that door shall close!)

Three stories be the ark! In after day 290. Thou❜lt know what's figur'd by th❜emphatic

Three!

My cov'nant is with thee! Come thou, and thine,

Thyself, thy sons, thy wife, and thy sons'
wives:-

Come; when the ark is builded, enter in!
Of all things living two of ev'ry sort
(Male and his female) bring into the ark!
For lo! yet seven days! and I do send
A deluge such as ne'er has yet been seen,-
A flood of waters send I on the earth!

290. Thou'lt know what's figur'd by th'emphatic three.-I presume (with profound reverence, I would hope), that the three stories of the ark of Noah prefigured the three persons of the sacred Trinity. Mankind, in early times, were taught much by symbols.

Through forty days and forty nights the rain 300. Shall fall in torrents! and all flesh shall die, Save it hath shelter in the buoyant ark!"

The voice here ceases: and the Patriarch tries
To stand erect: for, prostrate on the earth
He lay, with ear attent, while yet God spake.
And now erect, he off'reth sacrifice,

He and his fam❜ly, to the earth's great King!

This done, a letter, unto Noah address'd,
Arrives, and this the tenor of its words:
"Conceited upstart! Patriarchal moon,

310. Shining with light all borrow'd from thy slaves!
Thine own adopted daughter has elop'd
With progeny of Cain!-for thee she scorns!
She's Odin's wife! and Odin has an axe

To fell thee to the ground, old sterile stump!"

Th'anonymous epistle Noah reads

In th'hearing of his wife and his three sons:

Sorrow is loud, and lamentation raves,

For that Mirandah, resolute in ill,

Fled from a home where virtue held her court,

320. To be foul Odin's drudge, miscall'd his spouse!

"Ah!" says the Patriarch's wife, "the tale's

untrue,

Mirandah ne'er was false!"

"Yea," answers Shem, "mayhap the tale's

untrue;

Yet recollection that the girl prais'd Cain
And Cain's posterity, may bid us think
Mirandah has been false!"

Japhet replies, "if words proclaim the soul,
Mirandah's soul is false!"

"Pity me, Heav'n!" with energy unmatch'd 330. The Patriarch cries; "O shield me from the

wrongs

Of my adopted, foster'd, much-lov'd child! The wrongs?-Nay, but I stagger, wrongs she'd none!

The story's false, unfounded, and most foul!