LXIX: Hope explained

What happens

Themes in this chapter

• Faith and Doubt

  Faith admires the desolate scene and trusts in the promise of salvation despite the judgment.

• Sin and Redemption

  The flood is seen as a baptism and type of Christ's redemption, leading to hope for the faithful.

Characters to notice

• Unknown

  The speaker reflects on the hope of salvation through the flood typology.

• Christ

  Referred to as 'Him who was to come' and 'the Lord' who has come and gone.

• Faith

  Personified as the virtue that admires the desolate scene and trusts in the promise.

Key passages

• “We are not children of a guilty sire, Since Noe stepp’d from out his wave-toss’d home, And a stern baptism flush’d earth’s faded bloom.”

  We are not condemned by original sin because Noah's flood was a harsh baptism that renewed the earth.

  The flood is reinterpreted as a cleansing baptism rather than mere punishment.

• “The Lord has come and gone; and now we wait The second substance of the deluge type, When our slight ark shall cross a molten surge; So, while the gross earth melts, for judgment ripe, Ne’er with its haughty turrets to emerge, We shall mount up to Eden’s long-lost gate.”

  Christ has already come, and now we await the final judgment, which is like a second flood of fire; our fragile ark (the Church) will carry us through the molten sea, and while the proud earth is destroyed, we will ascend to the lost paradise.

  The poem uses typology to connect Noah's flood with Christ's coming and the final judgment.