Sacred Meditations and Moral Themes In Verse :: :: University of Virginia Library

A tragedy which made the sun expire,
And earth to throb, is ended! and the Night
O'er Palestine her dewy wings unfolds;
On Calvary the solemn moonbeams lie
All chill and lovely, like the trancéd smiles
Which light the features, when the pangs of death
Have ceased to flutter, and the face is still.
The stars are trooping, and the wintry air
Is mellowed with a soft mysterious glow
Caught from their beauty; not a vapour mars
The stainless welkin, where the moon aloft
One blue immensity of sky commands,—
Save where the fringe of some minutest cloud
Hangs like an eyelid on a brilliant orb,
Then withers, in pervading lustre lost.
Few hours have fleeted, and yon trampled hill
Was shaken with a multitude, who foamed
And raged beneath the agonizing God!
But Nature hath her calm resumed; and Night,
As if to spread oblivion o'er the day
And give Creation a Sabbatic rest,

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In balm and beauty on the world descends!
The crowds have vanished like the waves that die
And leave a shore to quietude again.
Some in their dreams, perchance, the day renew
The darkness, earthquake, and that loud Farewell!
But thou! upon a kingly couch reposed,
The Judge of Jesus, could thy soul conceive
That, long as time's recorded truths endure,
Thy name, united to this awful day,
Would live,—when all the Cæsars are forgot!

The hum and murmur of a distant town,
How faintly on the breeze they roll, and die
In soft confusion!—turn thy gaze, and see,
Encircled with a huge Titanian wall,
Where tower and turret, and Herodian piles,
And battlements of dusky gloom, uprear
Their vastness,—there the Holy City stands!
Augustly beautiful, in moonlight bathed,
Jehovah's palace awes the midnight air
Around it; while her mountain Genii, veiled
With dimmer lustre, far and near preside,
Like guardians planted by almighty hands,
To watch the city, where a million breathe,
From plain and desert, isles and regions called,
Wherever son of Abram was,—they throng'd
To worship, and the rite eternal keep:

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And there, in some unnoticed chamber lurk,
The panic-struck Apostles!—when the gloom
Of earthquake on the hill of Calv'ry hung,
That God was coming from the Cross to take
Messiah; or, that Christ himself would free
And shake the universe, to show the God,
Ambition blindly dreamt;—He could not die,
The Lord of Life, and Potentate of worlds!
A veil was on them; though prophetic Christ
His future resurrection oft declared,
'Twas unremembered, while the sudden pangs
Of terror crucified the faith of all!
But, north of Zion, on a mountain-slope,
The garden where the tomb of Jesus lies
Behold; how solemnly, beneath a haze
Of moonlight, the sepulchral rock appears!
Before it, with a frequent play, the flash
Of steely armour, as the Roman watch
Doth move and change in circular array,
Is seen; yet, save the night's uncertain sound,
The wizard motion of a rambling breeze
That stirs the olive, or the tow'ring palm,
And timid murmur of a garden-brook,—
The scene is voiceless; while on high enthroned,
Yon firmamental orbs are fixed and bright,
As though in wonder, that their glory falls
Upon the grave where buried Godhead lies!