From Sunset Ridge :: :: University of Virginia Library

Th' o'er-mastered voice of Nature speaks;
Th' o'er-burthened Earth her ransom seeks.
Low cringing at the Despot's stool,
Mankind aspires to higher rule.
The multitudes with bitter cry
Lift their despairing hands on high,
Praying for succor from afar—
The token of an answering star.

“Sure, on the gloom in which we dwell
In ages past, some lustre fell.
Some agency without a name
Touched our rude sense with quickening flame;
Some voice divine, some promise fair
Moved us to worship and to prayer.
But now our oracles are still,
Our altars desolate and chill;
Oh! could that better light return—
That beacon-fire before us burn!
Could some bright message from the sky
The power reveal that rules on high!”

182

THE THREE

From Orient's spicy groves we come;
Beyond the desert lies our home
Where, grand with jewels and with gold,
Our haughty kings their sceptres hold.

We journey far, and not of choice,
In answer to a warning voice:
“Forsake the purple gates of morn,
Westward the world's true King is born.”
Him should our thoughts more fitly deem
Cradled in groves of Academe,
Or where the circling chariots speed
And bards rehearse the victor's meed:
Or nursed at Egypt's awful shrine
Where wells the wondrous flood divine.
But 'mid the stars our guiding light
Hither doth lead—by day and night;
We follow with unwearied feet,
The portent of the fates to greet.

STROPHE FIRST

Give us comfort, Aphrodite, thou art fair,
Lo! the sunbeams light the meshes of thy hair:
And thy car is drawn by doves
To the height of human loves,
While thy perfumes float, like incense, on the air.

183

ANTI-STROPHE FIRST

Nay—the joys I bring are ravishing, but brief,
And my servants shun the lonely house of grief.
All my songs are tuned to pleasure,
To the dancing Lydian measure—
Not of me is born the soul-commanding chief.

STROPHE SECOND

Mother Isis, with the lotus blossom crowned,
Shall Earth's rescue in thy child beloved be found?
Wilt thou loose him from thy arms,
With his amulets and charms,
That the song of our redemption may resound?

ANTI-STROPHE SECOND

Ye unhappy ones, no succor seek from me,
I am pledged to Death's unfruitful majesty.
Ever, in sepulchral state,
Must I mourn my vanished mate,
And my son alone may bear me company.

THE ONE

Then uprose the tender wailing of a child
Which a maiden-mother, merciful and mild,
With a sudden joy caressed,
Shielded soft upon her breast,
Unto Israel's God devoted, undefiled.

184

“What of thee, O mother, born in lowlihood?
Are those veins of thine enriched with royal blood?
Shall this tiny infant hand
Give the law to every land?
Hast thou brought to light the everlasting good?”

As they listen, lo! a wondrous prophecy
Of the glorious deliverance yet to be
With the infant's tones did blend;
And their seeking was at end—
They had found the monarch they were fain to see.

“Whoso struggles for his life mid grief and wrong,
Let him come to me, with all who labor long;
In my heart their woes have place
And my love shall give them grace—
I will comfort them with saying and with song.

“I will bargain their redemption with my blood,
Heirs of Heav'n are we in holy brotherhood.
To the ages I bequeath
But the measure of the breath
That God breathed on me, renewing and renewed.”