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  • A STRAIN OF SODOM

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    2. A Strain of Sodom

    (Author Uncertain.)

    Already had Almighty God wiped off

    By vengeful flood (with waters all conjoined

    Which heaven discharged on earth and the sea's plain1

    Outspued) the times of the primeval age:

    5 Had pledged Himself, while nether air should bring

    The winters in their course, ne'er to decree,

    By liquid ruin, retribution's due;

    And had assigned, to curb the rains, the bow

    Of many hues, sealing the clouds with band

    10 Of purple and of green, Iris its name,

    The rain-clouds' proper baldric.2

    But alike

    With mankind's second race impiety

    Revives, and a new age of ill once more

    Shoots forth; allotted now no more to showers

    15 For ruin, but to fires: thus did the land

    Of Sodom earn to be by glowing dews

    Upburnt, and typically thus portend

    The future end.3 There wild voluptuousness

    (Modesty's foe) stood in the room of law;

    20 Which prescient guest would shun, and sooner choose

    At Scythian or Busirian altar's foot

    'Mid sacred rites to die, and, slaughtered, pour

    His blood to Bebryx, or to satiate

    Libyan palaestras, or assume new forms;

    25 By virtue of Circaean cups, than lose

    His outraged sex in Sodom. At heaven's gate

    There knocked for vengeance marriages commit

    With equal incest common 'mong a race

    By nature rebels 'gainst themselves;4 and hurts

    30 Done to man's name and person equally.

    But God, forewatching all things, at fix'd time

    Doth judge the unjust; with patience tarrying

    The hour when crime's ripe age-not any force

    Of wrath impetuous-shall have circumscribed

    35 The space for waiting.5 Now at length the day

    Of vengeance was at hand. Sent from the host

    Angelical, two, youths in form, who both

    Were ministering spirits,6 carrying

    The Lord's divine commissions, come beneath

    40 The walls of Sodom. There was dwelling Lot

    A transplantation from a pious stock;

    Wise, and a practicer of righteousness,

    He was the only one to think on God:

    As oft a fruitful tree is wont to lurk,

    45 Guest-like, in forests wild. He, sitting then

    Before the gate (for the celestials scarce

    Had reached the ramparts), though he knew not them

    Divine,7 accosts them unsolicited,

    Invites, and with ancestral honour greets;

    50 And offers them, preparing to abide

    Abroad, a hospice. By repeated prayers

    He wins them; and then ranges studiously

    The sacred pledges8 on his board,9 and quits10

    His friends with courteous offices. The night

    55 Had brought repose: alternate11 dawn had chased

    The night, and Sodom with her shameful law

    Makes uproar at the doors. Lot, suppliant wise,

    Withstands: "Young men, let not your new fed lust

    Enkindle you to violate this youth!12

    60 Whither is passion's seed inviting you?

    To what vain end your lust? For such an end

    No creatures wed: not such as haunt the fens;

    Not stall-fed cattle; not the gaping brood

    Subaqueous; nor they which, modulant

    65 On pinions, hang suspended near the clouds;

    Nor they which with forth-stretched body creep

    Over earth's face. To conjugal delight

    Each kind its kind doth owe: but female still

    To all is wife; nor is there one that has

    70 A mother save a female one. Yet now,

    If youthful vigour holds it right13 to waste

    The flower of modesty, I have within

    Two daughters of a nuptial age, in whom

    Virginity is swelling in its bloom,

    75 Already ripe for harvest-a desire

    Worthy of men-which let your pleasure reap!

    Myself their sire, I yield them; and will pay

    For my guests' sake, the forfeit of my grief!"

    Answered the mob insane: "And who art thou7

    80 And what? and whence? to lord it over us,

    And to expound us laws? Shall foreigner

    Rule Sodom, and hurl threats? Now, then, thyself

    For daughters and for guests shalt sate our greed!

    One shall suffice for all!" So said, so done:

    85 The frantic mob delays not. As, whene'er

    A turbid torrent rolls with wintry tide,

    And rushes at one speed through countless streams

    Of rivers, if, just where it forks, some tree

    Meets the swift waves (not long to stand, save while

    90 By her root's force she shall avail to oppose

    Her tufty obstacles), when gradually

    Her hold upon the undermined soil

    Is failing, with her bared stem she hangs,

    And, with uncertain heavings to and fro,

    95 Defers her certain fall; not otherwise

    Lot in the mid-whirl of the dizzy mob

    Kept nodding, now almost o'ercome. But power

    Divine brings succour: the angelic youths,

    Snatching him from the threshold, to his roof

    100 Restore him; but upon the spot they mulct

    Of sight the mob insane in open day,-

    Fit augury of coming penalties!

    Then they unlock the just decrees of God:

    That penalty condign from heaven will fall

    105 On Sodom; that himself had merited

    Safety upon the count of righteousness.

    "Gird thee, then, up to hasten hence thy flight,

    And with thee to lead oat what family

    Thou hast: already we are bringing on

    110 Destruction o'er the city." Lot with speed

    Speaks to his sons-in-law; but their hard heart

    Scorned to believe the warning, and at fear

    Laughed. At what time the light attempts to climb

    The darkness, and heaven's face wears double hue

    115 From night and day, the youthful visitants

    Were instant to outlead from Sodoma

    The race Chaldaean,14 and the righteous house

    Consign to safety: "Ho! come, Lot! arise,

    And take thy yokefellow and daughters twain,

    120 And hence, beyond the boundaries be gone,

    Preventing15 Sodom's penalties!" And eke

    With friendly hands they lead them trembling forth,

    And then their final mandates give: "Save, Lot,

    Thy life, lest thou perchance should will to turn

    125 Thy retroverted gaze behind, or stay

    The step once taken: to the mountain speed!"

    Lot feared to creep the heights with tardy step,

    Lest the celestial wrath-fires should o'ertake

    And whelm him: therefore he essays to crave

    130 Some other ports; a city small, to wit,

    Which opposite he had espied."Hereto,"

    He said, "I speed my flight: scarce with its walls

    'Tis visible; nor is it far, nor great."

    They, favouring his prayer, safety assured

    135 To him and to the city; whence the spot

    Is known in speech barbaric by the name

    Segor.16 Lot enters Segor while the sun

    Is rising,17 the last sun, which glowing bears

    To Sodom conflagration; for his rays

    140 He had armed all with fire: beneath him spreads

    An emulous gloom, which seeks to intercep

    The light; and clouds combine to interweave

    Their smoky globes with the confused sky:

    Down pours a novel shower: the ether seethe

    145 With sulphur mixt with blazing flames:18 the air

    Crackles with liquid heats exust. From hence

    The fable has an echo of the truth

    Amid its false, that the sun's progeny

    Would drive his father's team; but nought availed

    150 The giddy boy to curb the haughty steeds

    Of fire: so blazed our orb: then lightning reft

    The lawless charioteer, and bitter plaint

    Transformed his sisters. Let Eridanus

    See to it, if one poplar on his banks

    155 Whitens, or any bird dons plumage there

    Whose note old age makes mellow!19

    Here they mourn

    O'er miracles of metamorphosis

    Of other sort. For, partner of Lot's flight,

    His wife (ah me, for woman! even then20

    160 Intolerant of law!) alone turned back

    At the unearthly murmurs of the sky)

    Her daring eyes, but bootlessly: not doomed

    To utter what she saw! and then and there

    Changed into brittle salt, herself her tomb

    165 She stood, herself an image of herself,

    Keeping an incorporeal form: and still

    In her unsheltered station 'neath the heaven

    Dures she, by rains unmelted, by decay

    And winds unwasted; nay, if some strange hand

    170 Deface her form, forthwith from her own store

    Her wounds she doth repair. Still is she said

    To live, and, 'mid her corporal change, discharge

    With wonted blood her sex's monthly dues.

    Gone are the men of Sodom; gone the glare

    175 Of their unhallowed ramparts; all the house

    Inhospitable, with its lords, is gone:

    The champaign is one pyre; here embers rough

    And black, here ash-heaps with hoar mould, mark out

    The conflagration's course: evanished

    180 Is all that old fertility21 which Lot,

    Seeing outspread before him, ...

    No ploughman spends his fruitless toil on glebes

    Pitchy with soot: or if some acres there,

    But half consumed, still strive to emulate

    185 Autumn's glad wealth, pears, peaches, and all fruits

    Promise themselves full easely22 to the eye

    In fairest bloom, until the plucker's hand

    Is on them: then forthwith the seeming fruit

    Crumbles to dust 'neath the bewraying touch,

    190 And turns to embers vain.

    Thus, therefore (sky

    And earth entombed alike), not e'en the sea

    Lives there: the quiet of that quiet sea

    Is death!23 -a sea which no wave animates

    Through its anhealant volumes; which beneath

    195 Its native Auster sighs not anywhere;

    Which cannot from its depths one scaly race,

    Or with smooth skin or cork-like fence encased,

    Produce, or curled shell in single valve

    Or double fold enclosed. Bitumen there

    200 (The sooty reek of sea exust) alone,

    With its own crop, a spurious harvest yields;

    Which 'neath the stagnant surface vivid heat

    From seething mass of sulphur and of brine

    Maturing tempers, making earth cohere

    205 Into a pitch marine.24 At season due

    The heated water's fatty ooze is borne

    Up to the surface; and with foamy flakes

    Over the level top a tawny skin

    Is woven. They whose function is to catch

    210 That ware put to, tilting their smooth skin. down

    With balance of their sides, to teach the film,

    Once o'er the gunnel, to float in: for, lo!

    Raising itself spontaneous, it will swim

    Up to the edge of the unmoving craft;

    215 And will, when pressed,25 for guerdon large, ensure

    Immunity from the defiling touch

    Of weft which female monthly efflux clothes.

    Behold another portent notable,

    Fruit of that sea's disaster: all things cast

    220 Therein do swim: gone is its native power

    For sinking bodies: if, in fine, you launch

    A torch's lightsome26 hull (where spirit serves

    For fire) therein, the apex of the flame

    Will act as sail; put out the flame, and 'neath

    225 The waters will the light's wrecks ruin go!

    Such Sodom's and Gomorrah's penalties,

    For ages sealed as signs before the eyes

    Of unjust nations, whose obdurate hearts

    God's fear have quite forsaken,27 will them teach

    230 To reverence heaven-sanctioned rights,28 and lift

    Their gaze unto one only Lord of all.

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