"Time yet was young[4], but old iniquity, 2380 Outcast of worlds redeemed, on earth was rife, And, self-enchained, a fallen race lay prone At feet of Lucifer. And demons laughed, And hell rejoiced, and all that ribald host Clapt hand, and danced and jeered derisively; While gods and angels wept, their pitying tears Whitening the spectral mountains cold and lone, Wakening to virile springs a spirit waste. "And there the sainted commonweal[5] arose, Haven divine, hill of the sanctified, 2390 Oasis-like 'mid burning sands of sin; God's people, pure in heart, and one in all, No poor among them, pride and greed unknown; Saved by the tidings first to Adam taught, And next to Enoch's generation told. "Righteous, they dreamt no evil, feared no ill, And death, the universal doom, defied. Earth not their pillow; they shall one day pass From mortal to immortal painlessly. "Self's chain was sundered[6]; devils glared aghast, 2400 And gnashed their teeth with disappointed rage, Trembling in terror lest perdition's pit Engulf them ere the time. Then gathering power, As if for Armageddon's conflict[7] dire, When triumphs Michael o'er the foe unchained, Hell's molten belch of burning hatred hurled Upon those hapless sons of earth who scorned The refuge of the righteous; her bright towers, Far-beaming with terrestrial radiance[8]-- The promise fair of full celestial change,-- 2410 Bidding the vile beware, nor venture near The awful mountain of God's holiness. "Waxed foul the world in wickedness, piled high A hideous monument of shame and crime, Which, toppling with its own weight, crashing fell, Whelming in ruin the guilty race of man, Whose spirits, as fierce seas their dust devoured, By fiercer fiends to dungeon deeps were driven. Nor thence redeemed till He who died for all Soared from the cross to set the captive free[9]. 2420 "The while, on fearless wings of purity, Cleaving as bird or ransomed soul the air, The sainted city entered into rest, Envied of Babel, climbing robber-like[10]; Bride of the Highest, midway hovering, Till folded in the bosom of the Gods, Where Zions from unnumbered worlds have fled. Type temporal of spirit antitype, A future moral height foreshadowing. "Foreseen the fatal deluge. Ere the doom 2430 Of all save faithful Noah and his seven,-- Tri-branching tree[11] of race regenerate, Yielding anew life's fruit and foliage,-- Earth mourned as Rachel, Rizpah, o'er the slain, The slain of men unborn, who yet must die Degenerate in the days that were to be. "Then Enoch wept, and sued in sympathy, And God gave answer thus: