See the mouse, and see its mate Scour along, nor stop, nor wait; See the serpent and the snake For the nearest highlands make; The tarantula I view, Emmet small and cricket too, All unknowing where to fly, In the stifling waters die. See the goat and bleating sheep, See the bull with bellowings deep. And the rat with squealings shrill, They have mounted on the hill: See the stag, and see the doe, How together fond they go; Lion, tiger-beast, and pard, To escape are striving hard: Followed by her little ones, See the hare how swift she runs: Asses, he and she, a pair. Mute and mule with bray and blare, And the rabbit and the fox, Hurry over stones and rocks, With the grunting hog and horse, Till at last they stop their course— On the summit of the hill All assembled stand they still; In the second part I’ll tell Unto them what there befell. PART THE SECOND When I last did bid farewell, I proposed the world to tell, Higher as the Deluge flow’d, How the frog and how the toad, With the lizard and the eft, All their holes and coverts left, And assembled on the height; Soon I ween appeared in sight All that’s wings beneath the sky, Bat and swallow, wasp and fly, Gnat and sparrow, and behind Comes the crow of carrion kind; Dove and pigeon are descried, And the raven fiery-eyed, With the beetle and the crane Flying on the hurricane: See they find no resting-place, For the world’s terrestrial space Is with water cover’d o’er, Soon they sink to rise no more: ‘To our father let us flee!’ Straight the ark-ship openeth he, And to everything that lives Kindly he admission gives. Of all kinds a single pair, And the members safely there Of his house he doth embark, Then at once he shuts the ark; Everything therein has pass’d, There he keeps them safe and fast. O’er the mountain’s topmost peak Now the raging waters break. Till full twenty days are o’er, ‘Midst the elemental roar, Up and down the ark forlorn, Like some evil thing is borne: O what grief it is to see Swimming on the enormous sea Human corses pale and white, More, alas! than I can write: O what grief, what grief profound, But to think the world is drown’d: True a scanty few are left, All are not of life bereft, So that, when the Lord ordain, They may procreate again, In a world entirely new, Better people and more true, To their Maker who shall bow; And I humbly beg you now, Ye in modern times who wend, That your lives ye do amend; For no wat’ry punishment, But a heavier shall be sent; For the blessed saints pretend That the latter world shall end To tremendous fire a prey, And to ashes sink away. To the Ark I now go back, Which pursues its dreary track, Lost and ‘wilder’d till the Lord