 | Poems |  |
THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON.
Luxuria incubuit.------
Juv. Sat. vi. 292.
ARGUMENT.
Exordium.—Time of the Destruction of Babylon (seventy years after “the carrying away of the Jews”)—Cyrus conquers Sardis; —and diverts the Euphrates.—Belshazzar's Feast.—The army of Medes and Persians, under the conduct of two Babylonians (Gobryas and Gadatas) enters the city, along the channel of the river.—The capture—and present state of Babylon.—Address to Rome,—and London.—Conclusion.
No more to rise and gild the front of day,
Far-beaming Babylon? Those massive gates,
Through which to battle rush'd a hundred states;
Cars strove with rival cars in fearless flight—
What! Could not all protect thee? Ah! In vain
Thy bulwarks frown'd defiance o'er the plain:
Fondly in antient majesty elate
Thou sat'st, unconscious of impending fate:
Nor brazen gates, nor adamantine wall,
Could save a guilty people from their fall.
Which taught thy feebled youth a scorn of foes?
And the wan artist, child of sorrow, pin'd:
Destin'd, as Death crept on with mortal stealth,
And the flush'd hectic mimick'd rosy health;
'Mid gasping crowds to ply th' incessant loom,
While morbid vapours linger'd in the gloom?
On Syrian bough Judæa's harp had hung:
Deaf to their despots' voice, her tribes no more
Wak'd Sion's music on a foreign shore;
But oft, his tide where broad Euphrates rolls,
Felt the keen insult pierce their patriot souls:
And still, as homeward turn'd the longing eye,
Gush'd many a tear and issued many a sigh.
Yet not for ever flows the fruitless grief!
Cyrus and Vengeance fly to their relief.
And wields with mighty arm his hallow'd sword.
Reluctant realms their sullen homage pay,
As on the heaven-led hero bends his way:
Opposing myriads press the fatal plain,
And Sardis bars her two-leav'd brass in vain;
Her secret hoards the hostile bands unfold,
And grasp with greedy joy the cavern'd gold.
And rebel states augment the swelling force:
Firm to their end 'mid scenes of rural love,
Unsoften'd by those scenes, the victors move:
And, as in lengthening line their ranks expand,
Spread wider ruin through the ravag'd land.
And shakes the harmless battle from her sides.
In vain the ram its vigorous shock applies;
The mines descend, th' assailing towers arise:
Till Treason comes the baffled chief to aid,
And briefer arts succeed the long blockade.
Wrest the huge river from his native coast;
And bid his flood its wonted track forego,
'Twixt other banks through lands unknown to flow.
Euphrates follows, as a mortal guides:
His surgeless channel, now a pervious vale,
Invites the foot where navies spread the sail;
And soon no barrier, but the eastern main,
Shall bound the conqueror's progress or his reign.
Impetuous Fire precipitates his waves,
The flaming ruin rushes on the plain;
And art and nature rear their mounds in vain.
Should some high-rampir'd town obstruct his course,
The red invader rises in his force:
Swells with dread increase o'er the adverse towers,
Then furious on the prostrate city pours;
And scornful of the check, and proudly free,
Extends his blazing triumph to the sea:
With refluent stream the straiten'd billows flow,
And yield new regions to th' insatiate foe.
Domestic treason, or a world in arms.
'Mid her gay palaces and festal bowers
Flutter'd in sportive maze the rose-crown'd hours:
Loud burst the roar of merriment around,
While wanton dance light tripp'd it o'er the ground;
When, bent the long-drawn revelry to spy,
Hush'd in grim midnight Vengeance hover'd nigh.
Nor vain her care; by wine's soft power subdued
The courtly troop with gladden'd eye she view'd:
The frantic mob in drunken tumult lost,
The drowsy soldier nodding at his post,
The gate unclos'd, the desert wall survey'd;
And called her Cyrus to unsheath his blade.
The luscious draught and drain the maddening joy;
And bid the Satrap emulate his Lord.
With pencil'd lids , the scandal of their race,
Thy crowded halls a thousand princes grace:
Ill on such legs the warrior greaves appear,
Ill by such hands is grasp'd the deathful spear;
Fitter 'mid Syria's harlot train to move,
And wage in safer fields the wars of love.
Alternate rang'd (with faces not more fair,
Nor hearts more soft) that harlot train is there:
The virgin's wish her half-clos'd eyes impart,
And blushless matrons boast th' adulterous heart;
Sigh heaves to sigh and glance to glance replies.
Let these th' achievements of thy Gods rehearse,
Raise the lewd hymn and pour th' unholy verse;
Proceed! With sacrilege enhance thy wine!
Let the vase circle, torn from Salem's shrine.
Empire and wealth for thee unite their charms;
For thee bright beauty spreads her willing arms:
Who shall control thy raptures, or destroy?
Give then the night, the poignant night, to joy.
That frozen cheek, whence life's warm crimson flies!
That lip, on which th' unfinish'd accents break!
Those hairs, erect with life! Those joints, that shake!
The wondrous hand, which stamps yon wall with flame,
Speaks the fear just that labours in thy frame;
As round it sheds self-mov'd the living ray,
Which mocks the lustre of thy mimic day.
Let Daniel's art the threatful lines explain:
Haste! For the prophet bring the scarlet vest;
If so, seduc'd, his words may sooth thy breast.
Ah! no: That phantom with the style of fate
Inscribes the doom of thee, thy race, thy state.
In curses then, rash Youth, the hour upbraid;
When first, by pleasure's meteor beam betray'd,
From virtue's path thy heedless foot declin'd,
And whelm'd in sordid sense the devious mind.
In vain! Even now is wrought the deed of death:
This moment ends thy glories and thy breath!
Above, beneath thee feasts th' insatiate worm;
Completes the murderer's rage, and dissipates thy form.
March Gobryas and Gadatas: Hold, rash pair;
'Tis parricide! Can nothing then atone
Your private wrongs, save Babylon undone?
With docile fervour flourish or expire?
No: When th' insulting Mede is at your gates,
And your pale country shakes through all her states;
For her your cherish'd enmity forego,
To wreak its fury on the public foe:
Renounce the hoarded malice of your breast,
And only struggle—who shall serve her best.
Her giant voice invades the startled ear;
With death's deep groans the shouts of triumph rise:
The mingled clamour mounts the reddening skies.
From street to street the flames infuriate pour,
Climb the tall fane and gild the tottering tower:
In cumbrous ruin sink patrician piles,
And strew amid the dust their massive spoils;
While, with stern forms dilating in the blaze,
Danger and Terror swell the dire amaze.
Though Gods, unequal to a mortal sword!
In awless state th' unworshipp'd idols stand,
And tempt with sacred gold the plunderer's hand.
The Attic warbler trill'd her changeful song:
Their varied green where pensile gardens spread,
And Median foliage lent its grateful shade:
There oft, of courts and courtly splendour tir'd,
The fragrant gale Assyria's Queen respir'd;
With blameless foot through glades exotic rov'd,
And hail'd the scenes her happier prime had lov'd.
Of infant Science pierc'd the midnight sky;
First dar'd 'mid worlds before unknown to stray,
Scann'd the bright wonders of the milky way;
And, as in endless round they whirl'd along,
In groups arrang'd and nam'd the lucid throng:
Nay, in their glittering aspects seem'd to spy
The hidden page of human destiny!
Vain all her study! In that comet's glare,
Which shook destruction from its horrid hair,
Of her sage train deep-vers'd in stellar law
Not one his country's hapless fate foresaw;
No heaven-read priest beheld the deepening gloom,
Or with prophetic tongue foretold her doom.
Her fretted roofs shall Babylon display;
No more her nymphs in graceful band shall join,
Or trace with flitting step the mazy line:
And moral drops shall gather in her eye;
As 'mid her day-dreams distant ages rise,
Glowing with nature's many-colour'd dies:
Resound the rattling car, th' innumerous feet,
And all the tumult of the breathing street;
The murmur of the busy, idle throng;
The flow of converse, and the charm of song :—
Starting she wakes, and weeps as naught she sees
Save trackless marshes and entangled trees:
As naught she hears, save where the deathful brake
Rustling betrays the terrors of the snake;
Save, of the casual traveller afraid,
Where the owl screaming seeks a dunner shade;
The hollow bittern shakes th' encircling groves.
The hour will come, nor distant is its date
(If right was caught the prophet's mystic strain,
Which aw-struck Patmos echoed o'er the main)
The hour, which holy arts in vain would stay,
That prone on earth thy gorgeous spires shall lay;
And, with their vain magnificence, destroy
Thy long illusion of imperial joy.
For once, like thee, lost Babylon was gay:
With thee wealth's taint has seiz'd the vital part,
As once with her, and gangrenes at the heart.
Profusion, Avarice, flying hand in hand,
Scatter prolific poisons o'er the land;
And reptile mischiefs on its surface swarm:—
Like hers, or deaf or faithless to the vow
Of honest passion are thy daughters now:
With well-feign'd flame th' obedient maidens wed,
If wealth or birth adorn the venal bed;
With changing beam the jointur'd brides survey—
Madly they fly where appetite inspires,
Dart the unhallow'd glance and burn with real fires.
Thy sons like hers, a fickle fluttering train,
Th' illustrious honours of their name profane;
Stake half a province on the doubtful die,
And mark the fatal cast without a sigh:
Wakes the dull blood and lights lascivious smiles;
Then in the stews they court th' impure embrace,
Drink deep disease and mar the future race.
When her dead chiefs the plains of Crecy strew'd;
Proud of such heroes, and by such rever'd,
In that blest age far other dames appear'd:
Blest age, return; thy sternness soften'd down,
Charm with our better features and thine own!
Come; but resign those glories of the field,
The gleaming falchion and the storied shield:
Renounce the towery menace of thy brow,
Which frown'd despair on vassal crowds below;
And true to order, and of all the friend,
To varied rank unvarying law extend.
Ah! In the snowy robe of Peace array'd,
Led by the Virtues of the rural shade,
Regenerate man, and other years of gold.
No traitor point the dagger at its side;
But each with patriot toils his hours shall crown,
And in his country's welfare find his own.
The classical reader will not be sorry to find a conjecture of the learned Gilbert Wakefield, on the passage (Isai, xiv. 12.) whence this metaphor is taken, transcribed from his notes on Virg. Georg. ii. 97. which reflects great credit upon his ingenuity and erudition.
“—Thou that didst subdue the nations!”
—Quâ proprietate de stellâ matutinâ prædicari potest, illam subigere nationes: Nos sanè—quibus Hebræi textûs (præsertim in Prophetis et Hagiographiâ) penè infinitas corruptiones, veterum versiones tractantibus, notare contigit—minimè dubitamus errorem sublatere, ab inverso literarum ordine (ut solet) profluentem; quod minùs illi mirabuntur, qui L. Capelli de his rebus librum evolverunt. Pro voce [HEBREW], quæ nihili est, substituimus [HEBREW] vel [HEBREW], mittens, quæ mittebas; aut etiam [HEBREW], mittebaris. Τους ο emendationis nostræ fautores tibi exhibemus, qui habent ο αποστελλων εις παντα τα εθνη: Hi igitur in exemplaribus suis legisse videntur [HEBREW], qui mittebas per omnes gentes. Ad hunc demum modum totam clausulam libentissimè refingeremus (et harum rerum æquos æstimatores fortiter appellamus; cæteros enim, in Hebræis literis planè hospites, nihil moramur nec nucis vitiosæ facimus) [HEBREW] qui lucem mittebas per omnes gentes. Nihil elegantius, aut quod Hebraicæ poësis concinnitatem pleniùs sapiat: nihil denique Prophetâ maximè sublimi dignius, &c.
—κεκοσμημενον και οφθαλμων υπογραφη και κρωματος εντριψει κ. τ. λ. Xenoph. Κ. Π. α
Ambitiosam hanc ornatûs rationem gentes Orientales, in luxum effusiores, excogitârunt. Ita olim Jezebelem, ut regiam præ se ferret gravitatem, oculos fuco ornâsse legimus, II Reg. ix. 30. Ad quem locum lxxii. habent εστιμμισατο τους οφθαλμους, i. e. stibio depinxit: Hoc enim lapide ideò in pingendis oculis homines decoris nimiùm studiosi utebantur, quòd eos non nigravit tantùm sed etiam dilatavit: &c. (Hutchinson. ad loc.) —“Ob vim nempè astringendi (στυπτικην) contrahebat palpebras, et adeò oculos ipsos dilatabat.” Zeun.
For an account of these hanging gardens, the walls, tower, &c. of Babylon, see Id. ib. pp. 94-105.
Sir Brook Booth by in his Answer to Burke, speaking of the reflections that will suggest themselves upon the view of Versailles in its present condition, has the following fine passage: “The silence “will be disturbed by sounds, that are no longer heard; and the “solitude peopled by the brilliant forms, that shall no longer glide “over its polished floors.”
—“I understand that in this island of Great Britain, at the time “I am now writing, Birth is the first virtue and Money the “second: Some indeed may dispute the precedence; but all will “allow that one or both are sine quâ nons, without which virtue is “not.” Hermsprong, II. p. 205.
The novel whence this description of female interestedness is taken, exhibiting Man as he is not, proceeds from the same pen which about four years ago produced Man as he is: They are both works of extraordinary merit. In this character even their “twenty thousand fair readers” (notwithstanding the above extract) will, I doubt not, feel themselves disposed by the innocent bribery of a more conciliating quotation to concur very cordially:
—“We are, like unhallowed satirists, involving in one promiscuous “censure all the fair daughters of men. Let us be more just. They “are our equals in understanding, our superiors in virtue: They “have foibles, where men have faults; and faults, where men have “crimes: In the gaiety of conversation it may be allowed (and— “the author might have added—in the fervour of poetry, of which “Synecdoche is a principal figure) at least it will be assumed, to put “the whole for a part, perhaps a small part; but it would be wise in “man, when he makes the errors of woman his contemplation, not “to forget his own.” II.p.175.
For the subjoined sonnet on The Corruption of Manners, which seems not inapposite to this place, I am indebted to the friendship of C. Marsh, Esq. of the Temple.
TYRANT of pomp, and pride! Chill'd by whose swayYouth's blossoms fade; and all that fancy wrought—
The towering fabric of exalted thought;
And human mind, that cleaves to heaven its way:
Thou smil'st, that Britain's nervous race decay;
Tho' once in virtue's brightest fields they fought,
Tho' once their blood a nation's blessings bought:
Now, the frail insects of a summer day,
They fly regardless of the coming storms;
Those storms shall come! Nurs'd in yon lurid sky
Soon shall they sweep away the sickly forms,
That now dissolv'd in perfum'd slumbers lie:
Heedless alas! that, while the sun-beam warms,
The blast that chills their little lives is nigh.
| Poems | |