Before Ararat

OVER the leagues of lifeless sea
the white bird passed — repeatedly
the buffets of the savage wind assailed her flight;
while in the West, under the frown
of purple thunders southward rolled
along the marches of the night,
mantled in light and, like some old

rich-frescoed saint, gold-aureoled, the sun went down.

The white bird passed: no sign was there
of living thing in all the dark
vast waters spread, and overhead
no sign in all the empty world of air;
no sign of land — no mountain peak
pointed above the seas its naked reef,
no top of tallest tree from which her beak
might pluck one token-leaf:
nothing save, far below her flying,
in the gray troughs of ocean lying,
the tempest-battered ark.

And Noah looked forth:
cast and west and south and north
stretched fierce and wide
the sombre waters desolate,
while in the West the last dun light
of the sun died,
and night
came down upon the world — menace and fear and hate
through which not one star burned,
not one small lamp of hope through all the skies of fate.

And as the white bird, wearily
and heavily flying at her journey’s end,
returned
and at the feet of Noah fell dead,
Noah, sighing, to his children said:
‘To-morrow I will send
over the lifeless leagues of sea,
over the world deep-drowned in misery,
another dove:
for God is not perpetual wrath, but everlasting love.’