stands Parnassus with his forked top,
Above the clouds high-towering to the stars.
To this Deucalion with his consort driven
O'er ridgy billows in his bark clung close;
For all was sea beside. There bend they down;
The nymphs, and mountain gods adore, and she
Predicting Themis, then oraculous deem'd.
No man more upright than himself had liv'd;
Than Pyrrha none more pious heaven had seen.

Now Jove beheld a mighty lake expand
Where late was earth, and from the swarming crowds
But one man sav'd--of woman only one:
Both guiltless,--pious both. He chas'd the clouds
And bade the dry north-east to drive the showers
Far distant, and display the earth to heaven,
And unto earth the skies. The ocean's rage
Remains no more. Mild Neptune lays aside
His three-fork'd weapon, and his surges smoothes;
Then calls blue Triton from the dark profound.
Above the waves the god his shoulders rears,
With inbred purple ting'd: He bids him sound
His shelly trump, and back the billows call;
And rivers to their banks again remand.
The trump he seizes,--broad above it wreath'd
From narrow base;--the trump whose piercing blast
From east to west resounds through every shore.
This to his mouth the watery-bearded god
Applies, and breathes within the stern command.
All hear the sound, or waves of earth or sea,
And all who hear obey. Sea finds a shore;
Floods flow within their channels; rivers sink;
Hills lift their heads; and as the waves decrease,
In numerous islets solid earth appears.
A tedious time elaps'd, and now the woods
Display'd their leafless summits, and their boughs
Heavy with mud. At length the world restor'd
Deucalion saw, but empty all and void;
Deep silence reigning through th' expansive waste:
Tears gush'd while thus his Pyrrha he address'd:
"O sister! wife! O woman sole preserv'd!--
"By nature, kindred, and the marriage-bed,
"To me most closely join'd. Now nearer still
"By mutual perils. We, of all the earth
"Beheld by Sol in his diurnal course,
"We two alone remain. The mighty deep
"Entombs the rest. Nor sure our safety yet;
"Still hang the clouds dark louring. Wretched wife,
"What if preserv'd alone? What hadst thou done
"Of me bereft? How singly borne the shock?
"Where found condolement in thy load of grief?
"For me,--and trust, my dearest wife, my words,--
"Hadst thou amidst the billows been ingulph'd,
"Me als