The works of Lord Byron A new, revised and enlarged edition, with illustrations. Edited by Ernest Hartley Coleridge and R. E. Prothero |
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| HEBREW MELODIES. |
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 | The works of Lord Byron |  |
381
HEBREW MELODIES.
SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY.
I
She walks in Beauty, like the nightOf cloudless climes and starry skies;
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
II
One shade the more, one ray the less,Had half impaired the nameless grace
382
Or softly lightens o'er her face;
Where thoughts serenely sweet express,
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
III
And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!
June 12, 1814.
THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL SWEPT.
I
The Harp the Monarch Minstrel swept,The King of men, the loved of Heaven!
Which Music hallowed while she wept
O'er tones her heart of hearts had given—
Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven!
It softened men of iron mould,
It gave them virtues not their own;
No ear so dull, no soul so cold,
That felt not—fired not to the tone,
Till David's Lyre grew mightier than his Throne!
383
II
It told the triumphs of our King,It wafted glory to our God;
It made our gladdened valleys ring,
The cedars bow, the mountains nod;
Its sound aspired to Heaven and there abode!
Since then, though heard on earth no more,
Devotion and her daughter Love
Still bid the bursting spirit soar
To sounds that seem as from above,
In dreams that day's broad light can not remove.
IF THAT HIGH WORLD.
I
If that high world, which lies beyondOur own, surviving Love endears;
384
The eye the same, except in tears—
How welcome those untrodden spheres!
How sweet this very hour to die!
To soar from earth and find all fears
Lost in thy light—Eternity!
II
It must be so: 'tis not for selfThat we so tremble on the brink;
And striving to o'erleap the gulf,
Yet cling to Being's severing link.
Oh! in that future let us think
To hold each heart the heart that shares,
With them the immortal waters drink,
And soul in soul grow deathless theirs!
THE WILD GAZELLE.
I
The wild gazelle on Judah's hillsExulting yet may bound,
And drink from all the living rills
That gush on holy ground;
Its airy step and glorious eye
May glance in tameless transport by:—
385
II
A step as fleet, an eye more bright,Hath Judah witnessed there;
And o'er her scenes of lost delight
Inhabitants more fair.
The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah's statelier maids are gone!
III
More blest each palm that shades those plainsThan Israel's scattered race;
For, taking root, it there remains
In solitary grace:
It cannot quit its place of birth,
It will not live in other earth.
IV
But we must wander witheringly,In other lands to die;
And where our fathers' ashes be,
Our own may never lie:
Our temple hath not left a stone,
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne.
OH! WEEP FOR THOSE.
I
Oh! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream,Whose shrines are desolate, whose land a dream;
Weep for the harp of Judah's broken shell;
Mourn—where their God hath dwelt the godless dwell!
386
II
And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet?And when shall Zion's songs again seem sweet?
And Judah's melody once more rejoice
The hearts that leaped before its heavenly voice?
III
Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast,How shall ye flee away and be at rest!
The wild-dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country—Israel but the grave!
ON JORDAN'S BANKS.
I
On Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray,On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray,
The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep—
Yet there—even there—Oh God! thy thunders sleep:
II
There—where thy finger scorched the tablet stone!There—where thy shadow to thy people shone!
Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire:
Thyself—none living see and not expire!
III
Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear;Sweep from his shivered hand the oppressor's spear!
How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod?
How long thy temple worshipless, Oh God?
387
JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.
I
Since our Country, our God—Oh, my Sire!Demand that thy Daughter expire;
Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow—
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!
II
And the voice of my mourning is o'er,And the mountains behold me no more:
If the hand that I love lay me low,
There cannot be pain in the blow!
III
And of this, oh, my Father! be sure—That the blood of thy child is as pure
As the blessing I beg ere it flow,
And the last thought that soothes me below.
IV
Though the virgins of Salem lament,Be the judge and the hero unbent!
I have won the great battle for thee,
And my Father and Country are free!
388
V
When this blood of thy giving hath gushed,When the voice that thou lovest is hushed,
Let my memory still be thy pride,
And forget not I smiled as I died!
OH! SNATCHED AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM.
I.
Oh! snatched away in beauty's bloom,On thee shall press no ponderous tomb;
But on thy turf shall roses rear
Their leaves, the earliest of the year;
And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom:
II.
And oft by yon blue gushing streamShall Sorrow lean her drooping head,
And feed deep thought with many a dream,
And lingering pause and lightly tread;
Fond wretch! as if her step disturbed the dead!
389
III.
Away! we know that tears are vain,That Death nor heeds nor hears distress:
Will this unteach us to complain?
Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou—who tell'st me to forget,
Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.
MY SOUL IS DARK.
I
My soul is dark—Oh! quickly stringThe harp I yet can brook to hear;
And let thy gentle fingers fling
Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear.
If in this heart a hope be dear,
That sound shall charm it forth again:
390
'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain.
II
But bid the strain be wild and deep,Nor let thy notes of joy be first:
I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep,
Or else this heavy heart will burst;
For it hath been by sorrow nursed,
And ached in sleepless silence long;
And now 'tis doomed to know the worst,
And break at once—or yield to song.
I SAW THEE WEEP.
I
I saw thee weep—the big bright tearCame o'er that eye of blue;
And then methought it did appear
A violet dropping dew:
I saw thee smile—the sapphire's blaze
Beside thee ceased to shine;
It could not match the living rays
That filled that glance of thine.
391
II
As clouds from yonder sun receiveA deep and mellow dye,
Which scarce the shade of coming eve
Can banish from the sky,
Those smiles unto the moodiest mind
Their own pure joy impart;
Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
That lightens o'er the heart.
THY DAYS ARE DONE.
I
Thy days are done, thy fame begun;Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughters of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!
II
Though thou art fall'n, while we are freeThou shalt not taste of death!
The generous blood that flowed from thee
Disdained to sink beneath:
Within our veins its currents be,
Thy spirit on our breath!
III
Thy name, our charging hosts along,Shall be the battle-word!
392
From virgin voices poured!
To weep would do thy glory wrong:
Thou shalt not be deplored.
SAUL.
I.
Thou whose spell can raise the dead,Bid the Prophet's form appear.
“Samuel, raise thy buried head!
King, behold the phantom Seer!”
Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixéd eye;
His hand was withered, and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glittered there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare;
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like caverned winds, the hollow accents came.
Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak,
At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.
II.
“Why is my sleep disquieted?Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, O King? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
393
Thine to-morrow, when with me:
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be—such thy Son.
Fare thee well, but for a day,
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou—thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow;
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless—breathless—headless fall,
Son and Sire—the house of Saul!”
Seaham, Feb., 1815.
SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE.
I
Warriors and chiefs! should the shaft or the swordPierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a King's, in your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!
II
Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
394
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.
III
Farewell to others, but never we part,Heir to my Royalty—Son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!
Seaham, 1815.
“ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER.”
I
Fame, Wisdom, Love, and Power were mine,And Health and Youth possessed me;
My goblets blushed from every vine,
And lovely forms caressed me;
I sunned my heart in Beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All Earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.
II
I strive to number o'er what daysRemembrance can discover,
Which all that Life or Earth displays
Would lure me to live over.
395
Of pleasure unembittered;
And not a trapping decked my Power
That galled not while it glittered.
III
The serpent of the field, by artAnd spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to Wisdom's lore,
Nor Music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.
Seaham, 1815.
WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY.
I
When coldness wraps this suffering clay,Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?
It cannot die, it cannot stay,
But leaves its darkened dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace
By steps each planet's heavenly way?
396
A thing of eyes, that all survey?
II
Eternal—boundless,—undecayed,A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies displayed,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that Memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the Soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.
III
Before Creation peopled earth,Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the farthest heaven had birth,
The Spirit trace its rising track.
And where the future mars or makes,
Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While Sun is quenched—or System breaks,
Fixed in its own Eternity.
IV
Above or Love—Hope—Hate—or Fear,It lives all passionless and pure:
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years as moments shall endure.
Away—away—without a wing,
O'er all—through all—its thought shall fly,
A nameless and eternal thing,
Forgetting what it was to die.
Seaham, 1815.
397
VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.
I
The King was on his throne,The Satraps thronged the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine—
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless Heathen's wine!
II
In that same hour and hall,The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man;—
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.
III
The monarch saw, and shook,And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
“Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
398
Which mar our royal mirth.”
IV
Chaldea's seers are good,But here they have no skill;
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age
Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw—but knew no more.
V
A captive in the land,A stranger and a youth,
He heard the King's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.
VI
“Belshazzar's grave is made,His kingdom passed away,
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne!”
399
SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!
Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to Joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays:
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant—clear—but, oh how cold!
WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE.
I
Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,I need not have wandered from far Galilee;
It was but abjuring my creed to efface
The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.
II
If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!If the slave only sin—thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith—but in mine I will die.
III
I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow,As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;
In his hand is my heart and my hope—and in thine
The land and the life which for him I resign.
Seaham, 1815.
400
HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.
I
Oh, Mariamne! now for theeThe heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;
Revenge is lost in Agony
And wild Remorse to rage succeeding.
Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?
Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah! could'st thou—thou would'st pardon now,
Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.
II
And is she dead?—and did they dareObey my Frenzy's jealous raving?
My Wrath but doomed my own despair:
The sword that smote her's o'er me waving.—
But thou art cold, my murdered Love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving
401
And leaves my soul unworthy saving.
III
She's gone, who shared my diadem;She sunk, with her my joys entombing;
I swept that flower from Judah's stem,
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earned those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!
Jan. 15, 1815.
ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.
I
From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome,I beheld thee, oh Sion! when rendered to Rome:
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flashed back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.
II
I looked for thy temple—I looked for my home,And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fettered hands that made vengeance in vain.
402
III
On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazedHad reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.
IV
And now on that mountain I stood on that day,But I marked not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the Conqueror's head!
V
But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profaneThe shrine where Jehovah disdained not to reign;
And scattered and scorned as thy people may be,
Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.
1815.
BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT.
I
We sate down and wept by the watersOf Babel, and thought of the day
403
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And Ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scattered all weeping away.
II
While sadly we gazed on the riverWhich rolled on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the Stranger shall know!
May this right hand be withered for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
III
On the willow that harp is suspended,Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee:
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the Spoiler by me!
Jan. 15, 1813.
404
“BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.”
I
In the valley of waters we wept on the dayWhen the host of the Stranger made Salem his prey;
And our heads on our bosoms all droopingly lay,
And our hearts were so full of the land far away!
II
The song they demanded in vain—it lay stillIn our souls as the wind that hath died on the hill—
They called for the harp—but our blood they shall spill
Ere our right hands shall teach them one tone of their skill.
III
All stringlessly hung in the willow's sad tree,As dead as her dead-leaf, those mute harps must be:
Our hands may be fettered—our tears still are free
For our God—and our Glory—and Sion, Oh Thee!
1815.
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
I
The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
II
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green,That host with their banners at sunset were seen:
405
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
III
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved—and for ever grew still!
IV
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
V
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail:
And the tents were all silent—the banners alone—
The lances unlifted—the trumpet unblown.
VI
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
Seaham, Feb. 17, 1815.
406
A SPIRIT PASSED BEFORE ME.
FROM JOB.
I
A spirit passed before me: I beheldThe face of Immortality unveiled—
Deep Sleep came down on every eye save mine—
And there it stood,—all formless—but divine:
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffened, thus it spake:
II
“Is man more just than God? Is man more pureThan he who deems even Seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay—vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!”
| The works of Lord Byron | |