When virtue, peace and right­eous­ness
From Adam’s race had fled,
When folly, vice and wick­ed­ness
Had filled the world with dread;
The hour of vengeance had ar­rived,
Jehovah’s anger rose,
And justice called the mighty flood
To overwhelm His foes.

Then Noah formed the sacred ark,
Ordained by Heav’n to save
A remnant of all living forms
From nature’s watery grave.
The bird of air, the beast of earth,
Its spacious rooms con­tain;
While all the sons of vice and guilt
In thoughtless mirth re­main.

Then rushed the torrents of the sky,
And o’er the mountains spread;
The waters of the raging deep
Then rose above its bed;
And shrieks of woe—and sights of fear
Were mingled with the storm,
While o’er them rushed the foaming wave
In death’s terrific form.

The ark upon the water rides,
And every tempest braves,
Nor heeds the driving of the winds,
Or rolling of the waves,
Till on the mountain’s top it stands,
Secure from every harm,
Protected in its devious path
By God’s almighty arm.

His sacred word Jehovah gives
To drown the earth no more,
While ages roll or time re­mains,
Till time itself be o’er.
Upon the cloud He sets His bow,
A token of His grace,
And still His boundless favors flow
To all the human race.

Roswell Park, Oxford, June 1825
Published in Selections of Ju­ve­nile
and Mis­cel­la­ne­ous Po­ems, 1836