leaf, and drops each blossom:
Earth groans as if beneath a heavy load.

_Noah_. Hark, hark! the sea-birds cry! 730
In clouds they overspread the lurid sky,
And hover round the mountain, where before
Never a white wing, wetted by the wave,
Yet dared to soar,
Even when the waters waxed too fierce to brave.
Soon it shall be their only shore,
And then, no more!

_Japh._ The sun! the sun[157]!
He riseth, but his better light is gone;
And a black circle, bound 740
His glaring disk around,
Proclaims Earth's last of summer days hath shone!
The clouds return into the hues of night,
Save where their brazen-coloured edges streak
The verge where brighter morns were wont to break.

_Noah_. And lo! yon flash of light,
The distant thunder's harbinger, appears!
It cometh! hence, away!
Leave to the elements their evil prey!
Hence to where our all-hallowed ark uprears 750
Its safe and wreckless sides!

_Japh._ Oh, father, stay!
Leave not my Anah to the swallowing tides!

_Noah_. Must we not leave all life to such? Begone!

_Japh._ Not I.

_Noah_. Then die
With them!
How darest thou look on that prophetic sky,
And seek to save what all things now condemn,
In overwhelming unison 760
With just Jehovah's wrath!

_Japh._ Can rage and justice join in the same path?

_Noah_. Blasphemer! darest thou murmur even now!

_Raph._ Patriarch, be still a father! smooth thy brow:
Thy son, despite his folly, shall not sink:
He knows not what he says, yet shall not drink
With sobs the salt foam of the swelling waters;
But be, when passion passeth, good as thou,
Nor perish like Heaven's children with man's daughters.

_Aho._ The tempest cometh; heaven and earth unite 770
For the annihilation of all life.
Unequal is the strife
Between our strength and the Eternal Might!

_Sam._ But ours is with thee; we will bear ye far
To some untroubled star,
Where thou, and Anah, shalt partake our lot:
And if thou dost not weep for thy lost earth,
Our forfeit Heav