Seatonian Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

As Autumn-clouds, when day is almost done,
Crowd from the West, in gloomy splendour dyed,
And rear a death-pavilion for the sun,
With purpler radiance clothing mountain-side,
And flinging ghastlier hues on ocean's tide;
While the great forest moans, for far and near
The fitful breezes strip her summer pride;
Wilder the sky, the landscape grows more drear,
And Nature stands in awe, and men's hearts fail for fear:

II

So Earth hath reached her evening. Even now
The shadows of her night are closing round;
The dimmed crown trembles on the kingly brow,
Imperial cities totter to the ground,
And all the Powers of Darkness are unbound;
For hearts held truest, rights deemed holiest erst,
Weighed in the balances, are wanting found;
And Faith like chaff before the storm dispersed,
And laws of God are scorned, and human ties are burst.

III

Spirit of Truth, Who knowest all our fears!
Prophetic light amidst the gloom display,
To Whom one day is as a thousand years,
To Whom a thousand years are as one day;
By Whose unerring torch, in far survey,
The future woes Thy holy seers have kenned,
That war, and warlike rumours, and array
Of nation against nation, shall portend:
These things must come to pass, and then shall be the end.

IV

O for a vision of the latter time
Like that which on the Apostate Prophet came!
When, left of God, on Peor's heights sublime
He stood beside the sacrificial flame;
And, bearing each its annals and its name,
The shades of coming empires flitted past;
He marked their waxing and their waning fame,
He saw the sceptres quail, the thrones downcast,
And His dominion rise, which only is to last.

V

But 'tis not ours to turn the future page,
The page concealed from all, save only One;
Enough, 'mid records of historic age,
To read how He hath said, and how 'twas done:
O Queen of many waters, how thy Throne
Was meted with destruction's utmost line,
And that a desert which was Babylon;
How Ninus' towers have felt the doom divine;
How, Edom's sovereign once, imperial Petra, thine!

VI

Never, no nevermore, O Teman's pride,
Amidst thy streets shall sound the voice of glee;
Never the voice of bridegroom and of bride,
Never the tabret and the minstrelsy;
Never the wayfarer at nightfall see
The taper's gleam, the fire-light's friendly show;
The solitary eagle over thee
Poises, in evening splendour all a-glow,
And from his watch-tower marks destruction's realm below.

VII

Never, thou giant of the days of old,
The sons of men shall haunt thy homes again;
Nor shall the shepherd near thee pitch his fold,
Nor shall th' Arabian harbour on thy plain;
But doleful creatures there shall have domain,
The vulture's shriek resound, the jackal's cry;
The adder and the scorpion there shall reign:
Such, in th' eternal record writ on high,
Was Idumea's fate, the doom of Prophecy!

VIII

—That old primæval dwelling! where the sun
Shot dimly down athwart the forest glade,
And the soft breezes, with the eve begun,
Sweet whispering in the palm-tree branches made;
And dark-haired maidens, when the light decayed,
Came with the pitcher to the brimming well,
Lingering, till thro' the brake the fire-flies played,
And o'er Judæa's far hill-country fell
The twilight's crimson haze, and night dissolved the spell.

IX

Meet dwelling for a Patriarch! there each night
To Abraham's God his orisons ascended;
There, in the fragrance of the morning light,
With whispering leaves and wild-wood notes they blended;
There, too, each little knee in reverence bended,
At Isaac's bidding worshipped each twin-boy:
Then in the greenwood, those sweet matins ended,
Or in the sheepfold sought the known employ,
Beneath the hallowed shade of Beer-la-häi-roi.

X

Methinks that in that springtide of the world,
Woods, hills, and valleys glowed more green and bright;
With lustier sap the vine's young tendril curled
Around the wedded elm; the morn was dight
With chains of brighter dewdrops, and the night
Kindled in lovelier tints the glowing West,
And moon and stars shed forth a purer light:
Meantime those two, in life's sweet opening blest,
In Mamre's shade abode, nor sought for other rest.

XI

But oh, how far, from one same mountain pouring,
Twin streams at birth may speed their several way!
One through its rocky bed of torture roaring,
One gliding onward in its gentle play
Thro' sunny vales, and woods that breathe of May:
And those twin forms that in the forest vast
Together strayed, together knelt to pray,
Together sought their couch,—few years be past,—
Whose lot so widely thrown, so parted at the last?

XII

O Sin, mysterious still, as when at first
Our Father stretched his hand, and ate, and fell;
In children and in children's children curst,
And flinging misery as by magic spell
O'er unborn generations!—who may tell
The terrors of that slighted day of grace,
When he, who soon shall know his loss too well,
Can for a late repentance find no place,
And bears the curse himself, and brands it on his race!

XIII

'Tis done, the irrevocable deed!—And now,
Infatuate Esau, thou hast sinned away
Thy Birth-right's virtue! vain to smite the brow—
To wring the hands—to bend the knees—to pray
“Hast thou not yet a blessing?”—But to-day
The promise was thine own: now, vainly wise,
Thou seest thy glory uttermost decay;
For that the grace of God thou didst despise,
The Curse shall haunt thee still with dry and tearless eyes.

XIV

Yes, it is gone, the land with honey flowing,
The goodly land!—it never can be thine;
The Holy City in God's glory glowing,
The Temple, filled with brightness all divine,
The Altar, that shall be Earth's central shrine,
The festal rites of each revolving year,
The glories of the Sacerdotal line:
Thy treasury is the sword, thine empire fear,
Thy desolate abode the mountain-peaks of Seir.

XV

He sowed the seed of Sin; revolving years
Matured it into Death. As when the gale
On its light wings the seedling Upas bears,
And plants it, far from men, in Javan dale;
From earth and air its little leaves inhale
The venom of its race, in every shoot,
Until it loads with death the tainted vale;
So Esau's crime, that one primæval root,
In Edom, age by age, brought forth its bitter fruit.

XVI

A morn of clouds and darkness! Near and nearer
Around God's City draws the dense array;
Chaldean trumpets sounding clear and clearer,
The requiem pour for Sion's fatal day;
Flashes from scimitar the clouded ray;
Echoes from crag and tower the trumpet's peal;
Assyria's cohorts hew their bloody way;
Judæa's chosen warriors faint and reel;
And shout responds to shout, and steel is clashed on steel.

XVII

The Temple glittering in its marble whiteness,
His heritage Whom Heaven can not contain,
That whilome flashed intolerable brightness
From holy Olivet to Ramah's plain,
Vain now its Ark, its dread Shechinah vain;
The Lord of Sabaoth hath forsook His Throne;
Around the brazen steps blood flows like rain;
The shriek of agony, the stifled groan,
Burst from the scattering flock that late He called His own.

XVIII

In flickering guise while yet the fire-wreaths played,
One sunbeam fell upon it,—'twas the last;
And lit up portico and colonnade,
And that fair roof that earthly skill surpassed,
And those twin glorious pillars, dim and vast;
Till gathering flames enwrapped it in their fold,
And from the fretted vaulting groin fell fast
The glittering dewdrops of the molten gold;
And, volumed deep and thick, the smoke-cloud o'er it rolled.

XIX

There, on the marble pavement, where of yore
The vast assembly knelt to keep the Feast;
Close to the Altar, where they laid before
The spoils of India and the further East,
They lie, the mail-clad Prince, the grey-hair'd Priest,
The mother, clasping still her clay-cold child;
And scarcely yet from earthly pangs released,
The maiden-form,—while that last terror wild
Still sits on her pale face, and tresses dust-defiled.

XX

Then Idumæa's mailèd chiefs stood by,
And Teman's warriors ranged their cohorts round;
“Be Sion for a ruin!” was their cry;
“Down with it! Down with it unto the ground!”
And in the cross-ways was the ambush found
To cut off Judah's remnant. Faint they came,
Wounded, and weak, and weary, with the sound
Yet in their ears of shout and rushing flame;
And 'scaped the foe to fall beneath a brother's aim.

XXI

Woe to eternal anger! that can dare
Pursue its victim over land and tide,
That never ceases, never pauses, ne'er
Flags in its ardour, never turns aside,
By no fond prayers, no tears, is pacified,
Forgiveness laughs to scorn; and then gives o'er
When in the heart-blood of its foeman dyed:
Woe to the hate that Teman's people bore
To Salem's chosen towers, the hate for evermore!

XXII

And think'st thou not, proud Kingdom, that her God
Will visit for the wrath that time defies?
The city that was low beneath His rod
Shall once more lift her turrets to the skies;
The glory of the latter house shall rise
Beyond the former; yet on Sion's gate
The nations of the earth shall fix their eyes,
And Kings and Princes enter in with state,
Until the Monarch comes on Whom the world shall wait.

XXIII

But thou, hear thou thy doom. Thus saith the Lord:
“O thou that in the mountain-crags dost rest,
Vain is thy pride of dwelling,—vain the horde
In Seir's tall peaks that fix their eagle's nest;
Others with peace and plenty shall be blest,
In bondage and dishonour shalt thou bow,
By danger harassed, and by want distrest;
If all the Earth rejoice, yet shalt not thou,
Who bear'st for evermore Cain's mark upon thy brow.”

XXIV

—A change is on the vision: far and wide
Idols have fall'n, and shrines are in decay;
From East to West they own the Crucified,
And the glad messengers of heavenly day
Go forth to preach His Name Who lives for aye;
They tell it to Arabia's happy gales,
And where the Dead Sea's sullen waters play;
And Idumea, in her thousand vales,
Reflects that Sun to whom the day-star's radiance pales.

XXV

On Bosrah's heights the evening's glory falls;
The grey rock flushes; from the wilderness
The pilgrim marks the glow of Petra's walls,
Her palms that tower aloft in summer's dress,
Her fortress-crags, her marble terraces;
But chief in matchless splendor catch the eye
The temples, where in God's great Name they bless;
For many a dome, upswelling to the sky,
Speaks to the praise of Him That rules Eternity.

XXVI

Aye, 'twas a glorious scene! what time the Eve
Drew her soft fairy veil athwart those piles;
As if that house of beauty loth to leave,
Departing yet, she decked in loveliest smiles
The fair mosaics, and the long-drawn aisles,
And flowery capitals, and jewels rare,
And ivory, carved in thousand curious wiles;
Where morn and night arose the chanted prayer
And hearts, inspired by Heaven, to Heaven ascended there.

XXVII

Founded they were midst agony and fears,
When Hell call'd all her forces to th' attack,
Midst widows' lamentations, orphans' tears,
Midst the wild beasts, the scaffold, and the rack,
By men the cost that counted, nor looked back,
But through the Cross went onward to the Crown:
Whose courage failed them not, nor love grew slack,
Until, the Tyrant's malice trampled down,
They saw that Lord for Whom on Earth they won renown.

XXVIII

May not their memories plead? and shall not all
The prayers, that like a cloud of incense rise,
The alms that like the dews of evening fall,
Prevail to avert the judgment of the skies?
Is He extreme to mark iniquities
Whose name is Loving-kindness? Shall He yet
Fix on that ancient deed avenging eyes,
And, in His seat of strictest justice set,
Remember Edom's sins, her deeds of love forget?

XXIX

Themselves shall they deliver; and on high
With their great Lord accepted shall they stand;
Shall wear the garments of felicity,
And drink in heavenly joys at His right hand;
Companions now of that victorious band
Who wear the garland after perils sore:
But think not in thy pride, accursèd land,
That thou shalt profit by the toils they bore:
Thy sea of trouble rolls, though they have gained the shore.

XXX

Hark to the savage uproar! where afar
Rome's veteran soldiers, trembling, loose the chain,
And, grating on strong hinges, draw the bar
Of those wild desert-fiends!—With flowing mane,
And blood-shot eyeballs, they that long have lain
In durance, sally with impetuous bound,
And glory in their strength, and scour the plain:
A fence of death to compass Edom round,
Another scourge of God for Seir's unholy ground.

XXXI

—Again the vision changes. For with shout
And atabal and lance and scimitar
The apostate Prophet's hordes have issued out;
And in the swelling surge of Islam's war
Nor mountain-range nor desert-waste can bar
The warriors of the Crescent, as they go
Onward and onward still: till Edom's star,
Majestic Petra, lays her honours low;
At once forsakes her God, at once admits His foe.

XXXII

Yet still at even-tide the camel-bells
Come chiming up across the desert free;
And at the gate the gathering concourse swells
The riches of the entering train to see;
The precious tears of that bright Indian tree,
And coral, torn from deep Philippine bay,
And amethyst, and Candian ivory,
And gems, that in Golconda's mines once lay,
And woven air, that vests the maidens of Cathay.

XXXIII

And riches grow and splendour; and it seems
As all in vain prophetic doom were writ;
And royal Petra, in her golden dreams,
Sees not before her feet the yawning pit;
The Lady of the desert doth she sit,
The arbitress of those twin seas;—the mart
Where all bright things of either world may flit,
All that may touch the eye or win the heart;
And who shall lay her low?—who bid her fame depart?

XXXIV

O hard of heart to yield belief! shall He
On Whom the general powers of nature wait,
Who holds the elements in ministry,
While flame and cloud and tempest form the state
He takes, and billows swell to work the fate
His mouth shall speak, and lightnings speed intent;
Shall He lack means thy pride of heart to abate?
Is He a mortal that He should repent?
Shall He pass by the sin, and check the punishment?

XXXV

—It were a glorious thing, if we might be
Admitted to the Palace of the Air;
It were a glorious sight, if we might see
The treasures hid in dread arrayal there,
Against the day when mercy shall not dare
To check the arm of justice; when on high
All fearful sights and mighty signs declare
The day of utter desolation nigh,
And hope becomes despair, and sorrow agony.

XXXVI

Not such the power the Lord's right arm hath turned
Against thee now; a deadlier curse is thine—
An iron sky, with drought perpetual burned,
A heaven of brass. O land of corn and wine!
Henceforth thy doom is barrenness: the brine
Lies caked upon the desert, thick and hoar,
As early dew when Autumn's sun-beams shine:
Nor seek the cause, too deep for human lore;
He works the wonder now Who prophesied before.

XXXVII

The sun is on the desert day by day,
The fierce Sirocco parches up the night,
The tall palms wither in the scorching ray,
The sand-waves kindle in intenser white:
Where once, the fainting traveller's delight,
The fountain threw its bubbling waters high,
And, scattering dew-gems round it pure and bright,
Went flashing forth beneath the summer's sky,
And reeds that whispered soft, and leaves made sweet reply;

XXXVIII

There is a barren glen whereon the heat
Smites with its fiercest radiance; bare and black
The crags frown o'er it, and when day-hues fleet,
Fling on the night-air dread reflection back:
Woe for the traveller on the desert-track
That hurrying thither, breathes his soul in prayer
One drop to find, his maddening thirst to slack;
What agony of heart, what dim despair,
As down he sinks, to meet his dread foreboding there!

XXXIX

And hope and love and life are fading fast;
The strong man's nerve and pulse avail him not;
And still intenser breathes the fiery blast,
And vultures hover o'er the fated spot;
The lips are drawn; a few tears, thin and hot,
Course down the pallid cheek; the gasping sigh
Comes short and shorter; memory is forgot;
The hands' convulsive catch and glazing eye
Point to the conqueror, Death, and speak his coming nigh.

XL

But still he sees—O vision fond yet sweet!—
The shady dell, the cattle by the pool,
The cold damp foot-falls of the fairies' feet
That print the grass in dewy evening cool:
Anon he dreams the tempest-clouds bear rule,
And the big drops are falling;—O that plash,
As strong desire turns Fancy to its fool!
'Tis now like pattering rain on oak or ash,
And now as when o'er crags dark Foyer's waters crash.

XLI

Such mortal wastes environ Edom round,
Fed by no dews, by no cool breezes fanned;
The wandering Arab flies that fatal ground,
And tells of bones that whiten on the sand
Of them that came from some far Western land;
And many a tale of awe he loves to weave
When tents are pitched, and camels patient stand;
What time the caravan is hushed at eve,
And the last tints of day the western cloud-wreaths leave.

XLII

Yea, and he speaks, night closing darker in,
Of sounds, then heard when shepherds pen their fold,
Like tramp of horse, and battle's mingled din,
That haunt the fields where slaughter was of old;
And wails, that make the very heart's blood cold,
And shouts of victory and trumpets' bray;
And next of low sad voices he hath told,
That from the hill-side call, at close of day,
The traveller by his name, and lure him from his way.

XLIII

Woe for him then, as over crag and sand
The Spirit of the Wilderness leads on;
Ne'er shall he see the watch-fires of his band;
Forward and forward, till all hope is gone,
Chasing the voice mysterious. And anon
Of Pihahiroth's waste the legends tell,
Hard by the sea where Israel's glory shone,
How aye, since there the red-cross warriors fell,
Rings forth, at matin-hour, a ghostly matin-bell.

XLIV

Land of the drought, the famine, and the sword,
Land of unearthly terrors! if it be
That, when thy cup of vengeance is outpoured,
There lacks one drop of perfect misery
To fill the goblet,—not alone on thee
These woes descend, but, like the plague-spot, spread
O'er them that walk thy plains. O Traveller, flee;
They, and they only, have escaped that fled;
And they that will abide, their doom be on their head!

XLV

Come forth in all thy beauty, Star of Night!
Look down upon those ruins! See, at last
For toilsome travel girt, and armed for fight,
The venturous traveller hath the desert past;
On broken frieze and capital are cast
Fitful and death-like shadows, by the gleam
Of Arab chieftain's watch-fire, waning fast;
That chief hath sworn the pilgrim Frank should dream
In Petra's walls, and drink of Wady Mousa's stream.

XLVI

Yes, he has gained his end!—has laughed to scorn
The perils of the desert and the sword;
And those fair piles, of art majestic born,
His pencil's magic power hath safely stored;
For this to Heaven his earnest prayer was poured,
Prayer too successful, if he might but learn
The doom against the high adventure scored
Of them whose hearts for Petra's treasures yearn—
—Through Edom pass who may, he never shall return.

XLVII

For ah! too late, upon the fevered bed,
Tended by stranger hands and stranger hearts,
When round his eyes flit shadowy forms of dread,
And pestilence through every artery darts
Mysterious poison, and the sick man starts
At the dim gulph that he must pass—too late
Shall he remember, ere all memory parts,
How he that enters Idumea's gate
Shall speak his mortal doom, and ratify his fate.

XLVIII

How long, O Lord, how long! And wilt Thou never
Look with Thy tender love on Esau's race?
And shall the whirlwind of destruction ever
Sweep in its wrath o'er Edom's dwelling-place?
Th' immeasurable riches of Thy grace,
Shall they not win their way?—The heavy sin
Hath heavily been punished: shall not place
At last be found that mercy enter in,
And that long-promised line of golden years begin?

XLIX

Yes! far as shore can stretch, or sail has reached,
Midst pagan wisdom and barbaric horde,
The everlasting Gospel must be preached,
And the One Faith acknowledge the One Lord:
Then, when as o'er the deep the waves are poured,
And earth is full of that All-glorious Name,
For Idumea mercy shall be stored,
And Seir's wild mount shall yet His praise proclaim,
And for her grief have joy, and double for her shame.

L

O let that day approach! when now at length
The kingdoms of the world shall own His sway,
The Everlasting! when in matchless strength
The Gospel-Heralds shall have won their way,
Changed hopelessness to hope, turned night to day,
Lightened the blind, taught praises to the dumb,
Yea, raised up life in death. And still we pray,
Our first desire and last, and wishes' sum,
Hasten that glorious time! O God, Thy kingdom come!

Isaiah xxxiv. 10-17.

αρα Ξηροις ακλαυστοις ομμασιν προσιζανει.

Sept. Cont. Theb. 696.

“Neither shouldest thou have stood in the cross-way,” &c. Obad. 14.

“Because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity....I will send a fire upon Teman.” Amos i. II.

Jeremiah xlix. 12—18.

The Chronicon Alexandrinum informs us, that the Emperor Decius transported lions from Africa into Edom, to serve as a barrier against the incursions of the Saracens.

This belief of the Arabs is mentioned repeatedly by Lord Lindsay, Chateaubriand, and other travellers in the East.

The Arab chief who conducted Captains Irby and Mangles swore by the true faith of a Mussulman, that the Franks should drink of Wady Mousa, in spite of the opposition of the Sheikh of that place.

“Thus will I make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out, and him that returneth.” Ezek. xxxv. 7. Keith well observes, that of the four principal travellers who have visited Edom, Irby and Mangles did not pass through it, and they returned home; Seetzen and Burchhardt did pass through it, and they never returned.

Die schwere Schuld ist schwer gebüsst.

Schiller.