Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

In guileless youth, with infant glee,
When rosy smiles and love were blending,
Thou climb'st thy father's lulling knee,
And blessings were ascending;
Thou wert my solace and my joy
From blushing morn to ev'ning dun,
But ah! they slew my smiling boy—
O Absalom, my son, my son!

With glowing eye, and swelling breast,
Thou didst transport thy royal sire,
Who gaz'd upon thee, and was blest,
And sweetly struck his sacred lyre;
Thy voice was music to my ear,
Thy flashing eye the orient sun,
But murky tempests discord bear
O'er thee, Absalom, my son, my son!

When, pillowed on thy mother's bosom,
In slumbers lay the sinless child,
Fond fancy saw the cion blossom,
And at the blissful image smiled;

And blest love mus'd if death in gloom
Should shroud the flower, that zephyr won,
Beauty should deck thy princely tomb—
O Absalom, my son, my son!

But desert rocks are thy cold pillow,
And dreary is the unhaunted wild,
The sighing cypress, nor the willow
Chant a sad dirge o'er my lone child;
From the drear sunless wood is gleaming
No proud tomb of beauty gone,
But the raven bird is screaming
O'er thee, Absalom my son, my son!

The graceless rebels shrink away,
And leave their scoffed lord mansionless,
Minions! they bask in summer's ray,
But to grief's voice are motionless;
Ay—but veiled Zion wakes my wail,—
By plaudits was the prince undone,
And earth shall quake to hear the tale
Of Absalom, my son, my son!

When wreathing incense rolled on high,
And the sin-girt victim bled,
Devotion glistened in thine eye,
And heavenly hope was in thy tread;
Yet, guile beset thy bright path blooming
With the fair flowers of Lebanon,
And all thy glory now is looming,
O Absalom, my son, my son!

O had I died for thee, my child,
For my foot trod the downward vale,
And thou wast young, and wast beguiled
And led along the gore-paved dale!
Forgive him heaven! he sought to rise
On wings plumed for him—but he's gone;
O may sweet peace in yon bright skies
Crown Absalom, my son, my son!

II.
THE DESOLATE FANE.

The mitre's fallen from the brow
Of Judah's holy hierarch,
The fires of heaven no longer glow,
And cincture glory's sacred ark;
The olive circled cherubim
With halcyon mercy no more reign,
Nor Moriah's turrets gleam
O'er heaven-girt Palestine's domain.

Here Desolation builds his dome,
And bitterns shriek his vigil song,
And pelicans mid ruins roam,
And willows moan the dales along;
Amidst the rich and columned halls
The noiseless spider weaves his woof,
And brambles wave along the walls,
And vipers throng the vaulted roof.

The heaven-descended Shiloh came,
Not in the warrior's sheeny car,
Nor 'mid the glory-circling flame,
With wrath his herald through the war;
Nor jewelled crown of bright dominion
Glowed on his brow irradiate!
He rode not on the eagle's pinion,
Lord of battle and of fate.

But, a virgin bore the smiling child,
And his palace was a manger,
His airy walks the desert wild,
And, on earth, he was a stranger;
His aulic throne, the storm-lashed mountain,
His royal banquet nature's store,
His glowing nectar the lone fountain,
And his tomb the voiceless shore.

He came .... and bowed his crownless head,
That wore, ere time to being sprang,
The diadem, whose radiance shed
Glory, and heaven illumed, when rang
The golden wires of countless choirs,
And uncreated piles of light
Were the abode of Calvary's God,
And angels, veiled, beheld the sight.

Again, round Salem glory beams,
From heaven descends her hierarch,
And ev'ry mausoleum gleams,
And a halo lingers round the ark;—

O haunted, holy, Palestine,
All—all thy scenes are consecrate,—
Thy King, thy God, thy Priest divine
Thy towerless fane will renovate.

[III. The Monarch walked his battlement]

The Monarch walked his battlement,
And o'er the sheeny turrets bent,
His harp was strung, and in the breeze was sighing.
And Kedron, in meandering flow,
Was chiming, 'mid the solar glow,
And to their lairs the wild's inmates were hieing.

Below, the curling water played,
And, beneath the myrtle shade,
A diamond eye from raven lids is glancing;
The coral lip, the glossy brow,
The ivory neck, where tresses flow,
Array the form, round which bright love is dancing.

And when the crystal mirrored lymph,
In undulations, saw the nymph
In veilless beauty, as carnation blushing,
It flung a sparkling beam above,
And haloed the sheen path of love,
And through the veins the ardent flood was rushing.

The monarch saw—and felt the glow,
The vivid flame of passion grow,

Like balmy breezes rich ratafia breathing;
The royal mandate flew—and soon
The spotless nymph in the gay saloon
Idallia stood, and soft perfume was wreathing.

And now, amid the battle-shock,
With death in ev'ry falchion's stroke,
The doomed Uriah, like a hero's, warring;
Alas! he crowns the gory slain,
The breathless mountain of the plain,—
The wanton grasp no mortal dread's debarring.

The purple vestments veil the deed,
And rapture wears the trophied meed,
And blithesome reveries joyous hope are beaming;
But the sabre cleaves the cion,
And blackness shrouds celestial Zion,
And quenchless fires around the scene are gleaming.

[IV. Salem! heaven's terrestial daughter]

Salem! heaven's terrestial daughter!
Veil thy glowing mien in blackness,
For thy banner's bathed in slaughter,
And thy glory bright is trackless;
The mighty fall—the shield is cloven,
And the bow is conquerless,
The mantle's rent, in which was woven
The image calm of holiness.

The fell, and painim horde are shouting
O'er the crestless son of glory,
And their Dagon now is routing
Israel on the mountain gory;
Gath! O! echo not the tale,
And hush thy breezes, Askalon,—
The mighty fall—and nature's wail
Is heard along the desert lone.

The lion, when his eye was glowing,
In the battle's fiery van,
And his crimson plume was flowing,
And his foe was wild and wan,
Closed his red balls in stygian gloom;
And by his sire the son is sleeping,
Without a shroud, without a tomb,
And no fond tear the field is steeping.

O! they fought in fame together,
And where the fires of death were flashing,
And they did fadeless laurels gather
Where the floods of flame were dashing;
As they warred, and as they gloried,
As they lived, and as they died,
Where they sleep, with deeds unstoried,
Fall light, ye dews, upon their pride.