And then the deluge came with awful stride,

And with o'erwhelming surges buried low

The deep polluted world!

But to preface

That desolating work, a Prophet was

Sent forth.

Indeed the registry of Time

Declares a warning voice has ever yet

Preceded the outpouring of the wrath

Of the Almighty; and a Prophet is,

And always has been, the forerunner of

Some curse prepar'd, some dreadful overthrow,

Or some dire revolution, shrouded with

A vast, enormous fold of consequence.

No wonder, then, that Prophets have to bear

The vilest obloquy of all the vile

Pour'd out upon them.

Noah had to flee

His native country to escape the hand

Of persecution, and he was esteem'd

An artful fanatic—a pious fool.

The storm came on, and Noah, safely in

His ark, which for a century had been

A fertile theme for jest and ridicule,

In awful triumph rode securely o'er

The wave-washed ruins of a guilty world!

The waters were assuag'd—Time rode along,

And his impartial sketches boldly say

That human nature still remain'd unchang'd.