Scenes from Scripture with Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

What art thou, Life? The Saint and Sage
Have left it written on this page,
That thou art nothing—dust, a breath,
A glittering bubble burst by death,
A ray upon a rushing stream,
A thought, a vanity, a dream.

Yet, thou art given for mighty things,
To plume the infant Angels' wings,
To bid our waywardness of heart,
Like Mary, choose “the better part;”
To watch, and weep our guilt away,
To-day, “while yet 'tis called to-day.”

If sorrows come, Eternal God!
By Thee the path of thorns was trod;
If death be nigh, shall man repine,
To bear the pangs that once were Thine,
To bleed, where once Thy heart was riven,
And follow from the Cross to Heaven?

THE LAST DAY OF JERUSALEM

“Evenerant prodigia, quæ neque hostiis neque votis piare fas habet gens, superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversa.

“Visæ per cœlum concurrere acies, rutulantia arma, et subito nubium igne collucere Templum. Expassæ repente delubri fores, et audita major humana vox, ‘Excedere Deos.’ Simul ingens motus excedentium.”—

Histor. Liber. v.

Flow on, for Zion—flow, my tears—
Thou sepulchre of sepulchres
Thy glory but a gorgeous dream,
Thy strength, a wasted summer stream;
Thy turban cloven on the ground,
With all its jewels scattered round.
Age upon age, Captivity
Sits brooding on thy leafless tree;
And where its branching glory stood,
Is shame, and agony, and blood.

From morn to eve, Rome's iron tide
Had dashed on Zion's haughty side;
From morn to eve, the arrowy shower
Rained on her ranks from wall and tower.
Now rose the shout of Israel;
Now, like the sea's returning swell,
Rushed up the Mount the Roman charge,
Again beat back by Judah's targe;
Strewing with helm and shield the hill;
All wearied, but th' unconquered will.

'Twas eve, and still was fought the field,
Where none could win, and none would yield;
Beneath the twilight's deepening shade
Echoed the clash of blade on blade.
Still rushing through the living cloud,
Its path the Lion-banner ploughed;
And still the Eagle's fiery wing
Seemed from the living cloud to spring;
Till Rome's retiring trump was blown,
Answered by shouts from Zion's throne.

That day the Roman learned to feel
The biting of the Jewish steel.

'Twas night. The sounds of earth were hushed,
Save where the palace-fountains gushed;
Or from the myrtle-breathing vale,
Sung, to the stars, the nightingale.
Splendid the scene, and sweet the hour!
The moonbeam silvered tent and tower,
Touched into beauty grove and rill,
And crowned with lustre Zion's hill.
All loveliness, but where the gaze
Shrank from the Roman camp-fire's blaze;
All peaceful beauty, but where frowned,
Omen of woe, the Roman Mound!

'Twas midnight; ceased the heavy jar
Of rampart-chain and portal-bar;
That hour of doom, on Zion's wall
No warrior's foot was heard to fall;

No murmur of the mighty camp,
No cohort's tread, no charger's champ,
Gave sign that Earth was living still;
All hushed, as by a mightier Will;
Ev'n wounds that wring, and eyes that weep,
Were bound in one resistless sleep:
Silence of silence, all around;
Hushed as the grave—a death of sound!

What visioned forms, like things of dreams,
Or like the Pole's phosphoric streams,
Or the wan clouds of winter's even,
Now marshal on the fields of Heaven,
There gleam, in clouds of spectral light,
The Camp, the Mound, th'embattled height;
There moves the Legion's brazen line;
Ill-omened Israel, where is thine?
Rolls up the visioned Mount the charge;
But where the turban and the targe?
The cohort climbs the visioned tower,
Yet sweeps its ranks no arrowy shower;

Pale flames from visioned altars rise;
Israel, art thou the sacrifice!

But sudden roars the thunder-peal,
The forests on the mountains reel,
And, like the burst of mountain springs,
Is heard a rush of mighty wings!
And voices sweet of love and woe,
(Love, such as Spirits only know),
Swell from the Temple's cloisters dim,
A mingled chaunt of dirge and hymn;
Like grief, when help and hope have fled,
Like anguish o'er the dying bed;
Like pulses of a breaking heart:
“We must depart, we must depart.”
And grandly o'er Moriah's height,
Encanopied in living light,
Rose to that chaunt of dirge and hymn
The squadrons of the Seraphim.
From Carmel's shore to Hebron's chain,
Shone in that splendour hill and plain;

Still starlike seemed the orb to soar,
Then all was night, and sleep once more.

But whence has come that sudden flash,
And whence the shout, and whence the clash?
The Legions scale the Temple wall!
Its startled warriors fly or fall.
Now swells the carnage, wild and wide;
Now dies the bridegroom by the bride;
Peasant and noble, parent, child,
In heaps of quivering carnage piled;
On golden roof, on cedar floor,
Still flames the torch, still flows the gore;
Hour of consummate agony,
When nations, God-deserted, die!

Yet still the native dirk and knife
Wrung blood for blood, and life for life.
The priest, as to the Veil he clung,
With dying hand the javelin flung;
The peasant on the Roman sprang,
Armed but with panther's foot and fang,

From his strong grasp the falchion tore,
And dyed it in the robber's gore.
That night who fought, that night who fell,
No eye might see, no tongue might tell;
That sanguine record must be read
But when the grave gives up its dead;
Then Judah's heart of pride was tame;
The rest was sorrow, slavery, shame!

—Jerusalem A name!

The Romans surrounded the city with a trench and a mound, which prevented all escape, and formed a characteristic of the siege

SUPPLICATION.

“If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”— Galatians v, 25.

Spirit of God! descend upon my heart;
Wean it from earth, though all its pulses move;
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,
And make me love Thee, as I ought to love.

I ask no dream, no prophet ecstasies,
No sudden rending of the veil of clay;
No angel visitant, no opening skies;—
But take the dimness of the soul away.

Hast Thou not bid us love Thee, God and King?
All, all thine own—soul, heart, and strength, and mind;
I see Thy Cross—there teach my heart to cling:
O, let me seek Thee,—and Oh! let me find!

Teach me to feel, that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear,
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

I know Thee glorious! might and mercy all,
All that commands Thy creatures' boundless praise;
Yet shall my soul from that high vision fall,
Too cold to worship, and too weak to gaze?

Teach me to love Thee, as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The Baptism of the Heaven-descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy Love its flame.

ESTHER

Morn is come, the purple morn,
Yet it looks on shapes forlorn:
On thy glittering roofs, Shushan,
There are mourners wild and wan;
Eyes upturned, dishevelled hair,
Brows unturbaned, bosoms bare;
Hands in restless anguish wrung
By the grief that knows no tongue;
Dust and ashes on the brow.
King of Israel—where art Thou?

Through the livelong winter's night,
Like the harvest in the blight;
Like the reeds, by storms o'erthrown;
Rank on rank, lay Israel strown.
Prostrate on their naked roofs,
Listening to the trampling hoofs,
Listening to the trumpet's clang,
As to horse the riders sprang;
Bearing each the bloody scroll,
Slaying all things but the soul.

Every blast that trumpet gave
Was a summons to the grave;
Every torch that hurried by
Told that myriads were to die!
Myriads, in that midnight sleeping,
Where the Arab balms are weeping;
Where along th' Ionian hill
Night-dews of the rose distil;
By the Scythian mountain-chain;
By the Ethiopian plain;

By the Indian Ocean's roar,
By the farthest fiery shore,
Where the foot of man could tread;
Where the Jew could hide his head;
Where his heart could heave the groan;
On the earth alone, alone!
Son of the Captivity,
Vengeance winged that shaft for thee.
Judah, scattered, “spent and peeled,”
In that hour thy doom was sealed!

Still, the opening palace porch
Showed the troop, with trump and torch,
Thundering through the dusk beneath,
Each a messenger of death;
Like a sanguine meteor rushing,
Light on tower and temple flushing;
Till dispersed, the furious horde,
Like the fragments of a sword,
Like the lightning, scattered forth,
East, and West, and South, and North.

While the son of Israel's gaze
Watched the shooting of that blaze,
As o'er hill and plain it spread;
Like the livid vapours fed,
Where the battle's remnants lie,
Withering to the stormy sky.
King of Israel, hear the prayer
Of Thy people, in despair!

Yet, within thy courts, Shushan,
Stood that morn an ancient man:
On his high phylactery
Wisdom that can never die;
On the motion of his hand,
Propped upon the ivory wand;
On his step, though weak with age,
Stamped the Leader and the Sage.

Hark the shoutings! In his pride,
Sullen-hearted, cruel-eyed,
With the signet of command
Glittering on his haughty hand.

With his barb's caparison
Dazzling as an Indian throne,
Haman comes, of Lords the Lord,
Persia's buckler, Persia's sword!
In his front the timbrels sounding,
Round his steed the dancers bounding,
Roses flung beneath his tread,
Broidered banners o'er his head,
Chiefs, with jewelled shield and spear,
Flashing round the dark Vizier.

But a pang of wrath and shame
Lights his cheek with sudden flame!
One, above the prostrate crowd,
Like a pillar stands unbowed.
Day by day, that silent one,
Stood beside that portal-stone.
Scorning with the slave to stoop,
To the tyrant's vulture-swoop—
Scorning the hypocrisy
Of the captive's bended knee,

Bowing only to the rod
Of his conscience, and his God!

Day by day the tyrant's heart
Felt that scorn, a living dart;
In his breast of pride and ire,
Scorpion sting, and serpent spire!
Till the murderer's oath was sworn,
That the babe of Israel born,
Priest and Levite, matron, maid,
All should in their blood be laid—
All should in their graves atone,
That high glance, thou ancient one.

Now, from his deluded King,
Fraud had won the missive ring;
Now, the seal of death was sent,
To the palace, to the tent—
Far as Persia's banners wave,
Far as Israel finds a grave,
Far as tears of blood are shed,
Was the gory mandate sped.

Now, in his triumphant hour
To the monarch's banquet bower,
In a tyrant's full-blown pride,
Rode the mighty Homicide.

Still, beside the portal-stone
Stood that old, unbending one;
Still, beyond his fierce control,
Strong in majesty of soul.
On the tyrant's heart, his gaze
Fell like a consuming blaze.
Swelled in vain the loud “All hail!”
On his glance the pomp grew pale;
Clashed in vain the shield and spear,
On his glance rose rack and bier.
In that ancient form, unbowed—
As the gathering of the cloud,
As the rushing of the gale,
As the forest's rising wail,
Tells the coming thunderstroke,
Ruin on the Satrap broke!

Though that night his grasp might wring
Asia from his trusting King;
Though the world's first diadem
On his haughty brow might beam;
Yet his spirit's sudden thrill
Told him he was mortal still;
At his feet he saw the tomb:
In that prophet-eye was doom!

Night is on the Royal bower,
Roses on the couches shower;
Soft, as from the opening skies,
Fall delicious harmonies;
Flaming from a thousand urns,
Incense round the banquet burns;
O'er the golden-sculptured roof,
Shooting from the eye aloof,
Till it seems another heaven,
Studded with the stars of even;
Rich as an enchanted dream,
Thousand golden cressets gleam.

Grouped around the mighty hall
Indian dwarf, and Nubian tall,
Jewel-turbaned, tissue-robed,
Stand in dazzling light englobed;
Stand the Syrian sons of song,
Stand the Grecian minstrel-throng.
All is pomp, and feast, and dance,
All is joy's delicious trance;
Empire's pleasure, Empire's power,
Centered in one matchless hour:
Still, there shrinks one eye of fear—
It is thine, thou dark Vizier!

But, what sounds on midnight sail!
Hark! a rush, a shriek, a wail,
Deepening to one death-like cry,
Like a wreck's last agony;
Like the sounds that rend the air
In some city's last despair,
When upon her midnight wall
Rings the stormer's trumpet call!

Through the portals of the bower,
Israel, rush thy virgin flower;
Like a halo round their Queen.
Yet no festal smile is seen;
Yet no tresses, pearl-entwined,
Play on the enamoured wind.
Dust and ashes on the head,
Faces veiled, unsandaled tread,
Breathe their lips a funeral hymn;
All is dark, dishevelled, dim.
But, advancing to the throne,
From their circle moves, alone
Esther, palest of the pale;
On her lip a trembling tale;
In her step a woman's fear,
On her cheek a woman's tear;
But, within her glorious eye
Lustre lighted from the sky;
Like an altar's flame, the sign
Of her hope and help Divine!

Standing by the royal board,
In the cup the wine she poured;

Then with eyes to Heaven upthrown,
Hushed within her heart the groan.
“By thy diadem and ring,
“Pledge thy bride, of kings thou king.”
On the monarch's wondering gaze
Flashed her eye's supernal blaze;
Never, in love's richest hour,
Struck so deep her beauty's power;
Never passion's breathings stole
On his ear such chains of soul.
From her hand he took the wine—
“Empress, be my sceptre thine.”

High to Heaven, with gesture grand,
Raised the Queen the golden wand:
“Who shall smite,” she sternly cried,
“Age and childhood, maid and bride?
“Who shall triumph, whom his ire
“Steeps in blood the son and sire?
“Who shall point the traitor-sword,
“Aspic-like, to sting his Lord?
“Kings' and people's murderer—
“King, behold the traitor—there!”

With the more than mortal sound
Rang the mighty hall around!

Haman, boldest of the bold,
Felt his burning blood run cold;
Smote by Heaven, ambition, pride,
All the tiger in him died;
On his lip one fearful cry,
In his heart one agony.
At the Monarch's footstool flung,
Still to abject life he clung;
But he gnaws the dust in vain,
Earth abjures the living stain!

From the royal footstool torn,
Through the shouting city borne;
Now in fetters dragged to die,
Taunts and curses round him fly.
Now is paid the long arrear:—
Truths 'tis worse than death to hear;

Wrongs, by terror forced to sleep;
Wrongs, 'twas ruin but to weep;
Wrongs, that rankled in the breast,
While the lip in smiles was drest;
Wrongs, that, prostrate at his feet,
Made the hope of vengeance sweet;
Wrongs, that pined to curse his name,
In the shout that fools call Fame.
Griefs, long nursed in shame and gloom,
Things that make the heart a tomb;
Stings of soul, that slaves must hide,
Now find voices wild and wide;
All the buried agonies
Now in living vengeance rise.
Thousands, who had kissed the ground,
At his courser's fiery bound;
Thousands, piled on tower and roof,
Gazing on the scene aloof;
Thousands, rushing where he stands,
Shuddering in the headsman's hands,
Gasp to see the tyrant's fall;
Fury, triumph, vengeance all!

Yet, if there were still a pang!
Haman, through thy breast it sprang,
As the scaffold met thy glare,
Like a spectre in the air;
On that scaffold, huge and high,
Mordecai was doomed to die!
At the glance, the scorpion-thought
Through his frozen bosom shot.
“Yes, before this day was past,
“There he shouldst have looked his last;
“There, on all beneath the sky,
“Should have closed his haughty eye.
“Now the shame, the blood, the groan,
“Madman, murderer, are thine own!”

But, who comes in royal state?
Opes for whom the golden gate?
Round his car, a moving throne,
Persia's royal trumpets blown;
Hailed by Persia's Herald-throng,
Hailed by Israel's holiest song.

In the royal canopy;
Hallowed triumph in his eye,
Persia's Signet of command
Glittering on his ancient hand.
Mordecai! that pomp is thine;
Joy to ransomed Palestine!
Now no more shall Judah lie,
Dreading, or to live, or die!
In that hour was checked the flood,
Where the waves were Israel's blood;
In that hour was broke the chain—
Israel shall be throned again!

SELF-EXAMINATION.

“Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. “Look well, if there be any way of wickedness in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”— Psalm cxxxix, 23—24.

Thou Lord of mercy and of might!
My humbled heart behold;
And give Thy Spirit's living light,
To search its inmost fold.

Against that heart's presumptuous sins
I fly to Faith and Prayer.
But where the Tempter's art begins,
O, save me, save me, there!

Teach me to shun the first dark thought,
The wandering of the Will;
Oh! keep the soul Thy blood has bought,
And let me serve Thee still.

When dreams of folly cloud my mind,
And prompt to sins unknown,
The dream dissolve, the chain unbind,
And make me all Thine own.

THE THIRD TEMPTATION.

“Again the Devil taketh Him up into an exceeding high mountain, and showeth Him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them. “And saith unto Him: ‘All these things will I give Thee, if Thou wilt fall down and worship me.’ “Then saith Jesus unto him: ‘Get thee hence, Satan; for it is written,thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve.’”— Matthew iv, 8.

The mountain is a blaze of light!
Who stands upon its topmost height?
His only robe the lightning,
His burning crown, his tossing wing;
Nor spear, nor sceptre, in his hand,
But, flashing from his eye, command!
There, Tempter, towers the haughty frame,
That not the thunderbolt could tame;

Nor age on age's dreary flight,
Nor dungeons of eternal night:
In pride, in grandeur and despair,
There stands the Princedom of the Air.

Who stands upon the mountain's height?
No form of majesty and might,
No splendours darting from his robe,
To startle, or to blast, the globe;
But patience in his Heavenward eye,
Like one who came to toil, and die.
The Infant of the Virgin's womb—
He comes to make the Earth His tomb;
Beneath the Pagan scourge to bleed,
To bear the sceptre of the reed;
To wear the robe of mockery,
To meet the scorn, the taunt, the lie;
To feel the tortures of the slave;
Victor, yet victim, of the grave!
With more than mortal anguish wan,
Stands, on that height, the Son of Man!

Twice had His holy strength been tried.
Twice had He smote the Tempter's pride;
But now along the desert-sand
Bursts, tempest-like, the wild command:
“Ye kingdoms, in your glory rise.”
Earth hears it from her farthest skies.

From the chill Tartar's boundless plain,
From jewelled India's mountain-chain;
From forest depth, and golden cave,
Beyond the Ocean's western wave;
The visions of the Empires come,
Circling thy central glory, Rome!

The wild command is heard once more!
In panoply Earth's millions pour;
As, borne upon the eagle's wings,
Rise the rich musterings of her kings;
Helm, turban, golden diadem,
Pour onward like a fiery stream,
On horse, on foot, on scythed car;
The living hurricane of war!

As rushed they on the Tempter's gaze
Around him shot a broader blaze;
The flash of triumph in his eye,
His words, the words of Victory;
“Man, wouldst thou wear of crowns the crown,
Worship its Lord; the World's thine own.”

The grandeur of the God awoke!
In sounds of death the Judgment broke:
“Satan avaunt!”—Despair, Despair,
Was in his groan, and shrinking glare;
Prone on his face, the guilt-struck fell!
The panther bounded at his yell.
The viper started from the spring,
The vulture rushed upon the wing.
The jackall cower'd beside the dead,
The hungry lion howled and fled.
The vision and the fiend were gone!
There stood the Conqueror—alone.

But o'er the mountain's pinnacle,
What splendours upon splendours swell,

What more than mortal harmonies,
What clouds of more than incense rise!
The shout of joy, the holy hymn,
Are from your lips, ye Seraphim;
Your shout, your song, “for Man forgiven,”
Your King, Messiah, King of Heaven!

THE VISION OF GOD.

“Now we see through a glass darkly, but then, face to face; now know I but in part, but then shall I know, even as also I am known.”—I Corinthians xiii, 12.

God! when I think upon Thy name,
No doubts before my spirit rise;
I hear all Nature's voice proclaim,
That Thou art great, and good, and wise.
Yet would I, if it were Thy will,
See Thy bright Image, brighter still.

The wandering eyes, the wandering ears,
The ill, “sufficient to the day,”
(Thing of temptation and of tears;
Thine old inheritance of clay!)
On Man's weak spirit fix their chain,
And drag him down to Earth again.

Give me the strong realities;
(I know not how to form the prayer),
Of Angels' thoughts and Angels' eyes!
Or if that be too high to dare,
Oh! mould me to Thy mighty will,
“To commune with Thee, and be still.”

If Israel longed to see Thy face,
While roared the thunders of the Law;
Shall we, who know Thee, God of Grace,
Shrink from Thy countenance in awe?
While Saints below, and Thrones above,
Proclaim Thy mightiest title, Love!

Impress Thy image on my mind;
Let me but see Thee as Thou art;
If mortal eyes at best are blind,
Let me behold Thee with my heart.
In Mercy and in Love be nigh,
Oh! visit Thou, my mental eye!

But rest, thou ever restless soul!
Thy feverish hours are flying fast;
The clouds before thee shall unroll,
The glorious vision shine at last;
And thou, without a shade between,
Shalt see, as thou thyself art seen!

THE SIXTH SEAL.

“And I beheld, when he had opened the Sixth Seal; and lo! there was a great earthquake, and the Sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the Moon became as blood. “And the Kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bondman, and every freeman, hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains. “And said to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb.’”— Apocalypse vi, 12.

The hour is come! The mighty Sun
Darts downward, like a blood-red shield.
Earth, has thy final day begun?
Earth, has thy solid centre reeled?
Why bursts the ocean on its shore?
Howls tempest, tenfold thunders roar!

Like foam along the surges borne;
Like leaves, when gusts of Autumn rise;
From Heaven's eternal Vine are torn
The Stars, the clusters of the skies.
The Moon, like barks by tempests driven,
Wanders her wild, blind way through Heaven.

No Chance has bid you rush, ye Winds!
No Chance has bid those thunders roll!
Whose are those earthquakes? His who binds
The fetter on the struggling soul.
Ye lightnings! yours is not the blaze;
A mightier withers, smites, and slays!

The thunder peals for overthrow;
The ripening of a World of crime.
Thou crimsoned mass of wrong and woe,
Now comes the great, consummate time,
When thou shalt blaze from pole to pole—
Ashes and dust—a burning scroll.

Six thousand wild and weary years
By Truth the sackcloth has been worn;
The prize of Virtue chains and tears,
And Faith a stain, and Zeal a scorn!
And gold and gems have paid the blow
That laid their glorious beauty low.

Earth's scourges—Heaven's avenging ire—
War, famine, pestilence, the chain,
All fruitless—scorned the prophet's fire,
The dungeon, nay, the grave, in vain!
The sole inheritance of Time,
The hardened heart, the deeper crime.

Still, man makes fellow-man a slave;
Still raves the livid Infidel;
Still burthens Earth that more than grave,
Dungeon of soul, the Convent cell;
Still Idols are the gods of Rome.
But vengeance wakes!—the hour is come!

Who rides upon the whirlwind!
Who rushes, slaying and to slay!
His Angels, Woe and Death, behind,
Calling the vultures to their prey!
I hear the desert lion roar,
Snuffing afar the feast of gore!

Whose lifted sceptre smites earth's thrones;
Whose glance eclipses star and sun?
God! shall we worship “stocks and stones!”
Come in Thy might! “Thy will be done!”
And standing upon sea and shore,
Proclaim that “Time shall be no more.”

Ye men of blasphemy and blood,
The sword is out, your reign is o'er;
Fierce caterers of the vulture's food,
Ye now shall gorge them with your gore,
Pay pang for pang, and groan for groan;
Tortures that tear, but not atone!

And ye, the most undone of all,
Who dragged the martyr to the pyre!
Call to the depths of ocean—call,
To quench within your breasts the fire.
Worse than the earthquake or the storm—
The sting of soul, th' undying worm!

Aye, now ye know what 'tis to die!
Howl to the mountains and the caves;
Aye, fix on Heaven the frenzied eye;
Plunge terror-stricken in your graves!
Ye doomed! the time is past for prayer;
Your heart has but one word—despair!

Wail to the skies, thou guilty globe!
Wail, all thy warriors, all thy Kings!
When ruin wraps thee like a robe,
When flame from all thy mountains springs,
And Ocean feels its burning breath,
All death—an Universe of Death!

THE POWER OF PRAYER.

“Unto Thee, I lift up mine eyes, O Thou that dwellest in the Heavens. “Behold, even as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters, and the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, even so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, till He have mercy upon us.”— Psalm cxxiii,1—2.

Hast thou climbed ambition's height,
Man of genius, man of might!
Seeing from thy lofty seat
All life's storms beneath thy feet.
Empire spread before thine eye.
Homage, fear, and flattery;
All the sounds that reach thee there,—
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer.

Hast thou in life's lowliest vale,
Seen thy patient labours fail,
Felt ill-fortune's daily thrill
Waste thine energy of will.
Yet without revenge or hate,
Wouldst thou stand the stroke of fate;
Wouldst thou bear, as Man should bear,—
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer!

Hast thou, Man of intellect!
Seen thy soaring spirit checked;
Struggling in the righteous cause,
Champion of God's slighted laws.
Seen the slave, or the supine,
Win the prize that should be thine;
Wouldst thou scorn, and wouldst thou spare,—
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer.

Hast thou stood beside the bed,
Where the gentle Spirit fled!
Sharer of life's hopes and fears,
Youth's first passion, love of years,

Saint on earth, and Saint above,
Life of life, and love of love.
Wouldst thou shun the last despair,—
Kneel, and seek the power of prayer!

BELSHAZZAR.

“Belshazzar, the King, made a great feast to a thousand of his Lords, and drank wine before the thousand. “Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the House of God, which was in Jerusalem. “They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold and of silver, of brass and of iron, of wood and of stone. “In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaster of the wall of the King's palace. And the King saw the part of the hand that wrote.”—5. “In that night was Belshazzar, the King of the Chaldeans, slain; and Darius, the Median, took the kingdom.”— Daniel v, 30.

On the rushing, mighty River,
On the wide, night-covered plain,
Sounds the rattling of the quiver,
Sounds the trump—then dies again.

There, in numbers without number,
Persia's hordes are pouring on.
Thou hast slept thy final slumber,
God-defying Babylon!

On the city's thousand towers
Blaze a thousand festal fires!
Squandering his hour of hours,
Guilty son of guilty sires,
There Belshazzar, with his lords,
To the timbrel's silvery chime,
Shoutings wild, and clash of swords,
Holds high feast to Baalim.

Tyrant, thou art in thy glory,
Asia's treasures round thee blaze,
Princes proud, and sages hoary,
Like a god upon thee gaze;
Harmonies around thee winging;
Beauty in her brightest bloom
To thy golden footstool clinging.
Yet, that throne shall be thy tomb!

Hark! what sudden burst of thunder
Shakes the hall, and heaves the ground!
All are hushed in fear and wonder;
There is judgment in the sound!
Conscience-struck, the crowned blasphemer,
Wild and wilder quaffs the wine:
“Shall I turn a coward dreamer,
When the living world is mine!

“Bring the golden cups!” he cries,
“Purchased by my father's sword.
“High to Baal fill the prize,
“Spite of Israel and his Lord!”
Still, with mortal anguish saddening,
Pledged he round his nobles all.
Ha! but are his senses maddening?
Clouds have filled the mighty hall!

Tyrant! now is run thy sand!
Tyrant! now is wove thy shroud!
Sees he now a giant hand,
Darting from a fiery cloud;

Through the midnight, murky air,
Flashing ghastly on the throne,
Like a comet's blasting glare,
Mene, Tekel, Perez, shone.

Now is heard his cry of terror:
“Bring the Priest, and bring the Seer!”
Crowding came, with magic mirror,
Cyphered scroll, and mystic sphere,
All the sons of Sorcery!
With the Idol in their van;
Dark Egyptian, wild Chaldee,
Rushing on with shout and ban.

Now the human victims lie,
Embers in the altar's blaze;
Now, the priests of blasphemy,
Whirling, dance in mystic maze.
Vain the dance, the blood, the spell!
Still, upon the burning stone
Glares the fearful oracle,
Still untold, unread, unknown!

“Let the foul impostors die!”
Swells the roar from Prince and slave.
But, before their startled eye,
Like a vision from the grave,
Comes the man of Israel.
Still the fetters round him cling,
Yet his words, like arrows fell—
Woe to people, woe to King!

“Number, number, weight, and measure!
“Thou art numbered, weighed, undone.
“Life and empire, blood and treasure,
“All are lost, and all are won.”
Instant on the dazzling wall
Stooped the cloud's supernal gloom,
Instant on the mighty hall
Sat the darkness of the tomb!

Then the thunder pealed again,
But came, mingled with its roar,
Clang of cymbals, shouts of men.
From Euphrates' hollow shore

Comes the rushing charioteer;
Showers the torch on shrine and throne.
Dark Belshazzar, lie thou there!
Persia tramples Babylon!

MIDNIGHT.

“Yea, the darkness is no darkness with Thee; but the night is as clear as the day. The darkness and light are to Thee both alike.”— Psalm cxxxix, 11.

Gather, ye sullen thunder-clouds;
Your wings, ye lightnings, wave,
Like spirits bursting from their shrouds.

And howl, thou wild and dreary storm,
Like echoes of the grave—
Sounds of the brothers of the worm.

Ay, wilder still, ye thunders, roll;
Ye lightnings, cleave the ground:
Ye cannot shake the Christian soul.

In God's high strength, it sits sublime,
Though Worlds were dust around,
Defying Chance, outliving Time.

MALACHI.

“For, behold, the day cometh that thou shalt burn as an oven: and all the proud, ye and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble. And the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.”—1, 2.“But, unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise, with healing on his wings.“Behold, I will send you Elijah, the Prophet, before the coming of the Great Day of the Lord; and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers.”—Malachi iii, 1, &c.

A sound on the rampart,
A sound at the gate!
I hear the roused lioness
Howl to her mate:

In the thicket, at midnight,
They crouch for the prey,
That shall glut their red jaws,
At the rising of day.
For wrath is descending
On Zion's proud tower;
It shall come like a cloud,
It shall wrap like a shroud,
Till, like Sodom, she sleeps
In a sulphurous shower.

For, behold! the day cometh,
When all shall be flame,
Thy robe shall be sackcloth,
Thy glory be shame.
When thy tree by the lightnings
From Earth shall be riven,
When thy bark o'er the billows
Of death shall be driven;
When the oven, unkindled
By mortal, shall burn,

And, like chaff, thou shalt glow
In that furnace of woe,
And, dust as thou art,
Thou to dust shalt return.

Thou shalt die, and yet know not
The rest of the grave;
Thou shalt live, and yet live
To be only a slave!
Thou shalt die, and yet shrink
At thy conqueror's tread;
Thou shalt live, yet the sword
With thy carnage be fed!
The pilgrim of nations!
Still destined to roam,
On thy neck, on thy brain,
Still feeling the chain,
And, though wandering through Earth,
Never finding a home!

As the surges of war
O'er Earth's diadems roll,
Still, Judah, the iron
Shall enter thy soul;
The Eagle, the Cross,
And the Crescent, shall shine,
But, Earth shall awake
To no banner of thine!
Thy morning in sorrow,
Thy evening in fear.
They shall rise, they shall fall,
Thou the serf of them all!
Thy haunt be the dungeon,
Thy bed be the bier.

'Tis the darkness of darkness,
The midnight of soul!
No moon on the depths
Of that midnight shall roll;
No starlight shall pierce
Through that life-chilling haze

No torch from the roof
Of the Temple shall blaze.
But, when Israel is buried
To final despair,
From a height o'er all height,
God of God, Light of Light,
Her Sun shall arise,
Her Redeemer be there!

Who rushes from Heaven?
The Angel of Wrath!
The whirlwind his wing,
And the lightning his path;
His hand is uplifted,
It carries a sword;
'Tis Elijah! he heralds
The march of his Lord!
Sun! sink in eclipse,
Earth, Earth, shalt thou stand,
When the cherubim wings
Bear the King of all Kings.

Woe, woe to the Ocean,
Woe, woe, to the Land;

Then the sparkles of flame,
From His chariot-wheels hurled,
Shall smite the crowned brow
Of the God of this World;
Then, captive of ages!
The trumpet shall thrill
From the lips of the Seraph,
On Zion's proud hill!
For, vestured in glory,
Thy Monarch shall come,
And from dungeon and cave
Shall ascend the pale slave;
Lost Judah shall rise,
Like the soul from the tomb!

'Tis the day long foretold,
'Tis the judgment begun;
Gird Thy sword, Thou most Mighty,
Thy triumph is won;

The idol shall burn
In his own gory shrine,
Then, daughter of anguish,
Thy dayspring shall shine!
Loved Zion, thy vale
With the vineyard shall bloom,
And the musk-rose distil
Its sweet dews on thy hill;
For Earth is restored—
The Great Kingdom is come!

A DIRGE.

“I will ransom them from the power of the Grave. I will redeem them from Death. O Death! I will be thy plague. O Grave! I will be thy destruction.”— Hosea xiv, 14.

“Earth to earth, and dust to dust!”
Here the evil and the just,
Here the youthful and the old,
Here the fearful and the bold;
Here the matron and the maid
In one silent bed are laid;
Here the warrior and the king,
Side by side, lie withering:
Glory, but a broken bust:
“Earth to earth, and dust to dust!”

Age on age shall roll along
O'er this pale and mighty throng;
Those that wept them, those that weep,
All shall with the sleepers sleep;
Prince and peasant, lord and slave,
Moving onward, wave on wave,
Till they reach the sullen shore,
Where their murmurings are o'er.
Here the spade, and sceptre, rust:
“Earth to earth, and dust to dust!”

But, a day is coming fast,
Earth, thy mightiest and thy last—
All shall see the Judgment-Sign,
On the clouds the Cross shall shine;
Angel-myriads on the wing;
Earth upgazing on its King;
Heaven revealed to mortal sight,
Earth enshrined in living light;
Kingdom of the ransomed Just!
“Earth to earth, and dust to dust!”

Then shall dawn immortal day;
Death and Sin no more have sway;
Then shall in the Desert rise
Fruits of more than Paradise;
Earth by angel feet be trod,
One great Garden of her God.
Earth no more the vale of tears,
Satan chained a thousand years.
Now in hope of Him we trust:
“Earth to earth, and dust to dust!”

BALAK AND BALAAM.

“And it came to pass on the morrow, that Balak took Balaam, and brought him up into the high places of Baal, that he might see the utmost part of the people. “And he returned unto him, and he stood by his burnt sacrifice, he and all the princes of Moab. “Come, curse me, Jacob, and come, defy Israel. “How shall I curse whom God hath blessed, or how shall I defy whom God hath not defied?”—8. “And when he came to him, behold he stood by his burnt offering, and all the princes of Moab with him; and Balak said unto him, ‘What hath the Lord spoken?’”—17. “Then he took up his parable, and said, Balaam the son of Beor hath said: “I shall see him, but not now. There shall come a star out of Jacob, and a sceptre shall rise out of Israel.”— Numbers xxiii.

Upon the hill the Prophet stood,
King Balak, in the rocky vale;
Around him, like a fiery flood,
Flashed to the sun his men of mail.

'Twas Morn—'twas Noon—the Sacrifice
Still rolled its sheeted flame to Heaven,
Still on the Prophet turned their eyes;
Nor yet the fearful Curse was given.

'Twas Eve—the flame was feeble now,
Was dried the victim's burning blood.
The sun was sinking broad and low.
King Balak by the Prophet stood.

“Now, curse, or die!” The echoing roar
Around him, like a tempest came;
Again the altar streamed with gore,
And flushed again the sky with flame.

The Prophet was in prayer; he rose,
His mantle from his face was flung;
He listened, where the mighty foes
To Heaven their evening anthem sung.

He saw their camp, like sunset clouds,
Mixed with the Desert's distant blue;
Saw on the plain their marshalled crowds,
Heard the high strain their trumpets blew.

“Young lion of the Desert sand,”
Burst from his lip the Prophet-cry,
“What strength before thy strength shall stand?
What hunter meet thee, but to fly?

“Come, Heaven-crowned Lord of Palestine,
Lord of her plain, her mountain throne;
Lord of her olive and her vine:
Come, King of Nations, claim thine own.

“Be Israel cursed!” was in his soul,
But on his lip the wild words died;
He paused, till night on Israel stole;
Still was the fearful curse untried.

Now wilder on his startled ear,
From Moab's hills and valleys dim,
Rose the fierce clash of shield and spear,
Rose the mad yells of Baalim.

“How shall I curse, whom God hath blest?
With whom he dwells, with whom shall dwell?”
He clasped his pale hands on his breast;
“Then be thou blest, O, Israel!”

A whirlwind from the Desert rushed,
Deep thunders echoed round the hill.
King, Prophet, multitude, were hushed!
The thunders sank, the blast was still.

Broad on the East, a newborn Star,
On cloud, vale, desert, poured its blaze.
The Prophet knew the Sign afar,
And on it fixed his shuddering gaze.

“I shall behold Him—but not now;
I shall behold Him, but not nigh.—
He comes, beneath the Cross to bow,
To toil, to triumph, and to die.

“All power is in His hand; the World
Is dust beneath His trampling heel.
The thunder from His lips is hurled,
The heavens beneath His presence reel.

“He comes a stranger, to His own;
With the wild bird and fox He lies.
The King, who makes the stars His throne,
A wanderer lives, an outcast dies!

“Lost Isracl! on thy diadem
What blood shall for His blood be poured?
Torn from the earth, thy royal stem,
Victim of famine, chain and sword.”

The Prophet paused, in awe;—the Star
Rose broader on the boundless plain,
Flashing on Balak's marshalled war,
On mighty Israel's farthest vane.

And sweet and solemn echoes flowed,
From harps of more than mortals given,
Till in the central cope it glowed,
Then vanished in the heights of Heaven!

EZEKIEL.

“Moreover, take thou up a lamentation for the princes of Israel. “And say, what is thy mother? a lioness. “And she brought up one of her whelps, a young lion. It devoured men. “And they brought him in chains into the land of Egypt. “Then she took another of her whelps, and he learned to catch the prey, and devoured men. “And he knew their desolate palaces, and he laid waste their cities. “And they put him in ward in chains, and brought him to the King of Babylon.”—Ezekiel xix, 1.

[_]

The lion-whelps were Jehoahaz and Johoiakim, the former of whom was made captive by the King of Egypt, the latter by the King of Babylon.

Israel, was a lioness!
Mother of a lion brood,
Training in her fierce caress,
All her whelps to gorge on blood.
Red the surge of Jordan ran,
For their fearful meal was Man!

One she sent, a forest king,
Rushing over hill and plain,
Rapid as the eagle's wing,
Scorning lance, defying chain;
Hebron's mountains heard his roar,
Heard it Jordan's sedgy shore.

Sharp the talon, fierce the fang,
When his lair the hunter found,
When he on the hunter sprang,
Making all the man a wound.
But her lion-whelp is gone,
Chained to Egypt's tyrant throne!

Then from Israel's lion-den
Rushed another of her brood.
Ambushed in his mountain glen,
Hate his thirst, Revenge his food;
Loving night, and shunning day,
Keen to scent, and strong to slay.

Laying waste the palace hall,
Laying waste the city gate,
Glutting his revenge on all;
Dark as Death, and fixed as Fate.
Slaughter tainted earth and air,
Round that lion's mountain lair!

Tore his fang the serpent's scale?
Chased his foot the flying deer?
No, the monarch in his mail,
No, the biting of the spear,
Only worthy of his spring,
Banqueted the forest king!

But the nations round him rose,
And the iron net was flung
By the noblest of thy foes,
O'er the fiercest of thy young.
Now his fetter is undone;
Death is lord—in Babylon!

THE EVENING STAR

“Canst thou bind the sweet influence of the Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? “Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? “Knowest thou the ordinances of Heaven? Canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth?”— Job xxxviii, 31.

Tell us, thou glorious Star of Eve!
What sees thine eye?
Wherever human hearts can heave,
Man's misery!
Life, but a weary chain,
Manhood, weak, wild, and vain,
Age, but a lingering pain,
Longing to die!

Tell us, thou glorious Star of Eve,
Sees not thine eye
Some spot where hearts no longer heave,
In thine own sky?
Where all life's dreams are o'er,
Where bosoms bleed no more,
Where injured Spirits soar,
Never to die.

JOHN THE BAPTIST.

“In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judæa. “And saying, Repent ye, for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand. “And the same John had his raiment of camels' hair. “Then went out to him Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the region round about Jordan. “But, when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them: O, generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? “But He that cometh after me is mightier than I. “Whose fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly purge His floor.”— Matthew iii, 1.

Why rush the wild thousands
From Salem's proud towers?
Why rush the wild thousands
From Jericho's bowers?
From the vine-covered valley,
The olive-hill's side,
From the cot, from the palace,
Still rushes the tide!
The priest and the warrior,
The lord and the slave;
Still onward they pour
To the willow-wreathed shore,
Where the Wilderness glitters
With Jordan's bright wave.

What seek they? A prince,
In his tunic of gold!
What seek they? A chief,
Like their warriors of old.
When the Maccabee scythe
Mowed the Syrian's mailed hordes,

And Arabia was tame
At the blaze of their swords.
But the Heaven-doomed Roman
Has levelled the throne;
And like dust on the gale,
And like rust on the mail,
The old lion-banner
Is shattered and gone.

Hark! the shouts of the host
As they sweep o'er the plain;
See their gesture of triumph,
Their glance of disdain.
“All hail to the Prophet!
Four hundred long years
Have scourged us with scorpions,
Have steeped us in tears.
But, the kingdom is coming,
Its Herald has come.
Now the Roman shall feel
The tramp of our heel,

And the gods of the Gentile
Shall plunge in the tomb.”

'Tis the Prophet of prophets,
For ages foretold,
Of the race that the thunders
O'er Palestine rolled.
With a voice that now saves,
And a voice that now stings,
Rebuker of people,
Rebuker of kings.
His eye like the flash,
As it darts from the cloud.
The camels'-hair fold
Round his limbs' giant mould,
And a forehead, to all but Jehovah unbowed.

He speaks—all are hushed.
On his lip burns the coal;
The flame from the altar,
The voice of the soul!

“Ho! leaders of Israel,
Blind guides of the blind,
With madness before you,
And vengeance behind;
Repent, for the time
Of Messiah is nigh;
For the firebrand shall glow
O'er your city of woe,
And the axe at the root
Of your grandeur shall lie.

“Why comes the proud Pharisee,
Scorn in his eye?
Why comes the proud Sadducee,
Looking a lie?
Ye sons of the hypocrites,
Howl in despair.
Ye kindred of Spoil,
In its doom ye shall share.
For the harvest is gathered,
The fan in the hand,

Ye bosoms of stone,
Ye infidels, groan;
In the day of His vengeance,
What mortal shall stand?

“He stoops from His throne,
Yet, is mighty to save;
The prisoner of Death,
Yet, the Lord of the Grave!
The King of all Kings
As a slave shall expire,
But his words shall be Spirit,
His Baptism be fire.
Then Judah shall perish
In famine and gore,
Till the trumpet shall sound,
And the dead be unbound,
And Messiah be Monarch,
And Time be no more.”

THE PROPHECY OF JERUSALEM.

'Twas Eve on Jerusalem!
Glorious its glow,
On the vine-covered plain,
On the Mount's marble brow;
On the Temple's broad grandeur,
Enthroned on its height,
Like a golden-domed isle
In an ocean of light;
And the voice of her multitude
Rose on the air,
From the vale deep and dim,
Like a rich evening hymn.
But, whence comes that cry?
'Tis the cry of despair!

Who stands upon Zion?
The Prophet of Woe!
His frame worn with travel,
His locks, living snow.
His hand grasps a trumpet.
Its sound gives a thrill
To each heart of the thousands!

The life-blood runs chill,
At that death-sounding blast!
All fixing their gaze,
Where, like one from the tomb,
The shroud seems to swim
Round the long, spectral limb,
And the ashy lip quivers
With judgment to come.

“Thou'rt lovely, Jerusalem;
Lovely, yet stained;
A Queen among nations,
Yet thou shalt be chained.
Thou'rt magnificent, Zion.
Yet thou shalt be lone.
The Pilgrim of sorrow!
I see thy last stone.

“Hark, hark to the tempest!
What roar fills mine ear?
'Tis the shout of the warrior,
The storm of the spear,

The Eagle and Wolf
On that tempest are rolled,
Twin demons of havoc,
To ravage thy fold.

“They rush through the land,
As through forests the fire;
Woe, woe to the infant,
Woe, woe to the sire.
Rejoice for the warrior
Who sinks to the grave;
But weep for the living,
A ransomless slave!

“But veiled be mine eyeballs,
The red torch is flung,
And the last dying hymn
Of the Temple is sung;
The Altar is vanished,
The glory is gone.
The vial is poured,
The high vengeance is done!

“Again all is silence,
But still the death-pall,
The flag of the Roman,
Is hung from the wall.
But the archers are coming,
Their shafts hide the heaven,
And the Eagle's proud breast
By the Persian is riven.

“Hark! a sound from the South,
'Tis the echo of doom,
It comes from the Desert,
The living Simoom!
As fierce as its sun,
And as wild as its sand;
'Tis Amrou and his Saracens,
Curse of the land!

“Like the swamp-gendered hornets,
They rush on the wing,
By thousands of thousands,
With Death in their sting.

Like vultures, they sweep
O'er Moriah's loved hill,
And the corpse-covered valley
Of Cedron's red rill.

“Like the clouds on the mountains,
Like waves on the shore,
On sweep the swift chargers,
Whose hoof is in gore;
And Israel has fled
To the hill and the cave;
With slavery behind her,
Before her the grave.

“And the clashing of lances
And shaking of reins,
Are the sounds of the morning
On Galilee's plains;
And the Desert tambour,
And the Desert-horn shrill,
Are the sounds of the sunset
On Zion's loved hill.

“Where, where sleeps the thunderbolt?
Heaven! hear the cries
Of the Ishmaelite slave,
To his Prophet of lies;
Hear the howl to his demons,
His frenzy of prayer;
And, hear Israel's lament
Of disdain and despair!

“It has come! in the saddle
The robber has reeled,
And the turbans are floating
In blood on the field.
I see the proud Chiefs
Of the Cross in their mail;
And my soul loves the standard
They spread to the gale.

“Stay, vision of splendour!
On Jordan's broad marge,
They rush to the battle,
Earth shakes with their charge.

Like lightning the blaze
From their panoply springs;
I see the gold helms
And crowned banners of Kings.

“Yet, evil still smites thee,
Thou daughter of tears!
No trophy is thine,
In the shock of the spears.
The stately Crusader,
And Saracen lord,
But give thee the choice
Of the chain, or the sword!

“Again all is silence,
The long grass has grown
Where the Cross-bearer sleeps,
In his rich-sculptured stone;
And the Land trod by Prophet,
And chaunted by Bard,
Is left to the foot
Of the wolf and the pard.

But who ride the whirlwind?
The drinkers of blood.
From the summit of Lebanon
Rushes the flood.
'Tis the Turcoman, hovering
For slaughter and spoil.
O, helpless gazelle!
Thou art now in the toil!

King of Kings! on our neck
Sits the slave of a slave,
As wild as his mountains,
As cold as our grave;
All his sceptre the scourge,
All our freedom his will.
Yet Thy children must tremble,
Must agonise still.

Fly swift, ye dark years!
Still the savage is there;
The tiger of nations
Is couched in his lair.

The field is a thicket,
The City a heap,
And Israel on earth
Can but wander and weep.

King of Kings! shall she die?
Hark! a trumpet afar;
It pierces my soul,
Yet no trumpet of war.
I hear the deep trampling
Of millions of feet,
And the shoutings of millions,
Yet solemn and sweet.

Now the voices of thunders
Are calling on high,
The pomp has begun,
The Redemption is nigh.
I see the crowned Fathers,
The Prophets of fire,
And the Martyrs, whose souls
Shot to Heaven from the pyre.

Who comes in His glory,
Pavilioned in cloud?
Judah, cast off thy shame!
Israel, spring from thy shroud!
Thy King has avenged thee,
He comes to His own;
With earth for His empire,
And Zion His throne.

100

RETRIBUTION.

“And when he had opened the Fifth Seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God; and for the testimony which they held. “And they cried with a loud voice; saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell upon the earth? “And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”— Apocalypse vi, 9.

There are murmurs on the deep,
There are murmurs on the Heaven.
Though the world still sleeps its sleep,
Though no prophet-sign is given,
Earth that final storm shall feel;
'Tis a storm of man and steel.

101

Tribes are in their forests now,
Idly hunting wolf and deer,
Tribes are crouching in their snow,
O'er their wild and wintry cheer;
Destined yet to swell the roar,
When the tempest-rain is gore.

Guilt of old has stained the world,
Carnage pour its purple tide,
But the bolt, in mercy hurled,
Quivered o'er the spot, and died.
When the judgment-fires shall fall,
Woe to each, and woe to all.

Man has shed man's blood for toys,
Love and hatred, fame and gold;
Now, a mightier wrath destroys.
Earth in cureless crime grows old.
Past destruction shall be tame
To the rushing of that flame.

102

When the clouds of vengeance break,
Folly shall be on the wise,
Frenzy shall be on the weak,
Kingdom against kingdom rise.
Earth, one maddened mighty horde,
All, the kingdom of the sword.

Then, the Martyrs' solemn cry,
That a thousand years has rung,
Where their robes of crimson lie,
Round the “Golden Altar” flung.
(Saviour, listen to thine own!)
Shall be answered from the Throne.

Yet shall Rome her conscience lull,
Till the wine is at the brim.
Hark the Storm! her ear is dull;
Gleams the flash, her eye is dim.
Heaven above, and Earth below,
Arm them for the final Woe!

103

Still shall Faith be sternly tried,
Still the dungeon shall be filled,
Dying as their brethren died,
Still God's servants “shall be killed.”
From the chain, the scaffold's floor,
Sons of Glory! ye shall soar.

Then, unhewn by mortal hands,
From the Mount shall roll the Stone;
Then Earth's sceptres shall be wands,
War shall sweep from zone to zone,
Earth shall see, once more, a Flood;
But, its billows shall be—blood!

104

HYMN OF THE UNIVERSE.

[_]

A PARAPHRASE FROM GOETHE.

“Behold, the Heaven, and the Heaven of Heavens, cannot contain Thee.” —1 Kings viii, 27.

Roll on, thou Sun! in glory roll,
Thou Giant, rushing through the Heaven,
Creation's wonder, Nature's soul,
That hast no Morn, and hast no Even;
The Planets die without thy blaze;
The Cherubim, with star-dropt wing,
Float on the ocean of thy rays.
Thou brightest emblem of their King!

105

Roll, lovely Earth, in night and noon,
With Ocean's band of beauty bound,
While one sweet orb, the pearly Moon,
Pursues thee through the blue profound;
And angels, with delighted eyes,
Behold thy plains, and mounts, and streams,
In day's magnificence of dyes,
Swift whirling, like transcendent dreams.

Roll, Planets, on your dazzling road,
For ever sweeping round the Sun.
What eye beheld, when first ye glowed?
What eye shall see your courses done?
Roll, in your solemn majesty,
Ye deathless splendours of the skies,
Ye Altars, from which angels see
The incense of Creation rise.

Roll, Comets, on your flaming cars,
Ye heralds of sublimer skies;
Roll on, ye million-million Stars,
Ye hosts, ye heavens of galaxies!

106

Ye, who the wilds of Nature roam,
Unknown to all but angels' wings,
Tell us, in what more glorious dome,
Rules all your worlds, the King of Kings?

107

THE PROPHECY AGAINST TYRE.

“Son of Man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken up, that was the gates of the people; she is turned unto me;I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste.

108

“Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee. “And they shall destroy the walls of Tyrus, and break down her towers; I will also scrape her dust from her, and make her like the top of a rock. “It shall be a place for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea; for I have spoken it, saith the Lord God, and it shall become a spoil to the nations; and her daughters shall be slain by the sword, and they shall know that I am the Lord.”— Ezekiel xxvi, 2.

'Twas morning. On thy ramparts, Tyre,
Spread to the Sun the standard's fold,
And marched to sounds of trump and lyre,
Thy mitred Priesthood, purple-stoled;
And chieftains mailed, with haughty vane,
Poured to Astarte's blood-stained fane.

And crowding on thy glorious bay,
Far as the dazzled eye could gaze,
Where Tyre's imperial gallies lay,
Rose choral hymns, and altars' blaze.
And surges, bright as molten ore,
Wafted the incense to the shore.

109

Yet in the Pageant clanked the chain,
And mingled there the captive's groan;
And piled upon the ponderous wain,
The golden spoils of Judah shone;
And sharper than the sword or spear,
Struck to the heart the Tyrian's sneer.

Yet all, at once, are hushed as death,
Recoils at once the living wave;
No footstep falls, is breathed no breath,
As, like a comer from the grave,
Ezekiel's lip and eye of fire,
Peals Heaven's high wrath on guilty Tyre.

“Hail! Queen of Glory, slave of shame,
Hail! head of gold, which curses crown,
Panther, thy ravening shall be tame,
The bow is drawn that strikes thee down.
Eagle, thy wing shall lose its plume;
Serpent, thy haunt shall be the tomb.

110

“Thy sword has smote Jerusalem,
And for that smiting thou shalt die;
Thy strength be dust, thy wealth a dream,
Thy power, like summer-clouds pass by;
Thy name, among forgotten things,
Now war thee with the King of Kings.

“The captive's hopeless agony,
The blood that clamours from the ground,
The altar's curse, the dungeon's cry,
At last, at last one throne have found.
Tyrant, thy turban shall be bowed,
That throne is on the thunder-cloud.

“Ride on, in taunt and triumph, ride,
Thy heart shall be the vulture's meal.
Now follows thee a giant stride,
A giant hand shall grasp thy wheel,
Thy sceptre shall be weak as air,
Thy throne shall be a bloody lair.

111

“The plague shall wither up thy heart,
The famine waste thee to the bone;
Through the rent skin the nerve shall start,
Thy veins a flame, thy voice a groan.
Pangs utterless thy soul shall fill,
Yet comes the vengeance, sterner still.

“It comes—I know the distant roar,
The rushing of the routed field.
Hark to the storm, whose rain is gore:
The flood, whose surge is spear and shield;
I see thee in the worse than grave,
I see thee, Asshur's trembling slave.

“Yet, thou shalt live. The feud within
Through weary years thy strength shall drain,
Corruption fill thy cup of sin,
And Falsehood forge and fix the chain;
And Treason in the dark shall slay,
And thus thy strength shall melt away.

112

“Strike, strike, thou Man of Macedon!
Rush on her ramparts, smite her walls.
Now, sets in gore her lingering sun;
Her palaces thy chargers' stalls,
Her wealth, the harvest of thy spear.
Now, Tyre, thou'rt of the things that were!

“The Earth shall see a thousand Kings,
Yet thou shalt still be desolate.
A Sand, where vultures rest their wings,
Where the sea-eagle meets its mate;
A Rock, by time and tempest riven,
Abhorred by man, accursed by Heaven!”

113

THE ATLANTIC.

116

Roll on, thou Ocean, dark and deep,
Thou wilderness of waves!
Where all the tribes of earth might sleep
In boundless graves.

The sunbeams on thy bosom wake,
Yet never pierce thy gloom;
The tempests sweep, yet never shake,
Thy mighty tomb.

Great mystery, unfathomed bier,
Thy secret, who hath told?
Guilt, power, and passion's wild career,
Man, and his gold.

There lie Earth's myriads in the pall,
Secure from sword and storm,
And he, the feaster on them all,
The canker-worm.

117

Bright from Heaven's hand, thy mountain's brow
Once basked in morning's beam;
And loved thy midnight Moon to glow,
On grove and stream.

And stately from thy tree-crowned height,
Looked down the holy fane;
And filled thy valley of delight
The golden grain.

And floated on thy twilight sky,
The dewy fields' perfume,
The vineyard's breath of luxury;
Now all—the tomb!

An ocean shrouds thy glory now;
Where are thy great and brave,
Lords of the sceptre and the bow?
Answer, wild wave!

118

Crime deepened on the recreant land,
Long guilty, long forgiven.
There Power upreared the bloody hand,
Pride scoffed at Heaven!

Then came the word of overthrow!
The judgment-thunders pealed,
The fiery earthquake burst below,
Her doom was sealed!

Now in her halls of ivory,
Lie ocean-weed and serpents' slime;
Buried from man and angel's eye,
The Land of Crime!

119

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

124

“And the fifth Angel sounded, and I saw a star fall from Heaven unto the Earth. “And he opened the bottomless pit, and there arose a smoke out of the pit. “And there came out of the smoke locusts upon the earth. “And it was commanded them that they should not hurt the grass of the Earth, neither any tree, but only those men which have not the seal of God in their foreheads. “And in those days shall men seek death and shall not find it. “And the shapes of the locusts were like horses prepared for battle. And on their heads were, as it were, crowns like gold, and their faces were as the faces of men. “And they had a king over them. “And the four Angels were loosed which were prepared for an hour and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men.”— Apocalypse ix, 1.

I heard a trumpet sound,
Earth shook, the Heavens were dim,
I saw a falling Star,
Like the moon's eclipsing limb.
And a blood-stained haze
Rushed round its blaze;
But that Star still shone
On a kingless throne.

125

I saw from the Abyss,
Shoot up a thousand fires;
I saw a locust-cloud
Rise on their sulphurous spires.
In his noontide, the Sun
Sank, sickening and dun;
And the smoke wrapped the Globe,
Like a funeral robe.

Then, that hell-born locust-host
Rolled onward like a flood;
Yet the harvest-field was safe,
And safe the leafy wood.
Of that plague-cloud wan,
The prey alone was Man;
And the bond and the free
To the locusts bent the knee.

There was torment in the land,
The famine and the chain,
And thousands writhed and groaned,
And gnawed their tongues with pain.

126

And the lovely and brave
Were plunged in the grave;
And in that agony
Thousands prayed to die!

Upon the field of battle,
In exile far and lone,
Men perished for the temple,
Men perished for the throne,
Still the locust-cloud
Was a living shroud;
And the locust sting
Slew the serf and the king.

I saw an idol temple!
But there no idol shone,
No golden censer burned
To gods of wood or stone.
To a mortal bowed
The shouting crowd,
And the nation's cry
Was blasphemy

127

I saw a mighty grave!
But no holy sign was there,
But the corpse of king and slave
Was flung in, without a prayer,
And a pillar stood,
Inscribed in blood,
In that tainted gloom,
“The Eternal Tomb.”

Then, the trumpet rang again,
And the locusts swept the Earth;
But 'twas now as if her womb
Had teemed with human birth.
They wore the helms of Kings,
And the rushing of their wings
Was like rushing chariot-wheels,
Or the tramp of chargers' heels.

Above them blazed the banner—
That fiendish, fallen Star;
Above them winged the Eagle,
Scenting his prey afar.

128

And the clang of their mail
Rang loud on the gale;
And Crown and Tiar
Led their legions to war.

Their chieftain was a King—
A King of fearful name!
'Tis shouted in the central caves
Of misery and flame.
Abaddon, the Lord
Of the Sceptre and Sword,
Resistless by man.
But his Star shall be wan!

Then the storm of battle raged,
And the Earth was drenched with blood;
And the warrior and his steed
Were the wolf and vulture's food.
And the world stood at gaze
At that battle's red blaze,
Like men on the shore
Of an ocean of gore.

129

Once more the trumpet swelled,
But 'twas glorious now and grand;
And a shout of triumph pealed
From the Ocean and the Land.
For on fiery wings
Came the Spirits of kings;
With banners unfurled,
To rescue the World!

130

MAN.

“What is man, that Thou art mindful of him? and the Son of Man that Thou visitest him. Thou madest him lower than the angels, to crown him with glory and worship. “Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of Thy hands, and Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.”— Psalm viii, 4, 6.

“Four things the living world control, The eye, the heart, the mind, the soul.”

The Eye, the glorious eye!
What lie beneath its splendid sweep?
All bright, all deep, all high,
Broad Ocean, Alpine steep,
Night's grandeur, morning's rosy dye,
The hues that on the evening waters sleep;
All beauty, might, and majesty,
Bright orb, all lie within thy splendid sweep.

131

The Heart, the glowing heart!
What lie within its mystic cells?
Visions that shame the painter's art,
Deep thoughts, that only silence tells.
Stings, like the Indian's poisoned dart,
That kill unseen. Delicious spells!
Love fixed, till life itself depart;
Fond thing, all lie within thy mystic cells.

The Mind, the mighty mind!
What lie beneath its sceptre's sway?
The million wills of humankind,
Empire's young strength, and old decay;
The laws that grasp the viewless wind,
The science of the Solar way;
The chains by eloquence entwined;
Sovereign!—all lie beneath thy sceptre's sway.

The Soul, the soaring soul!
What lie beneath thy fiery wing?
Beneath thee burns the starry Pole,
Above thee sits, alone, thy King!

132

Thou, when the final thunders roll,
In glory from the grave shalt spring,
Life, Death, and Heaven—the mighty whole—
Immortal! lie beneath thy fiery wing.

133

ELISHA IN DOTHAN.

“Then the King of Syria warred against Israel. “And the Man of God sent unto the King of Israel, saying, Beware that thou pass not such a place, for thither the Syrians are come down. “Therefore the heart of the King of Syria was troubled for this thing. “And one of his servants said, Elisha the Prophet telleth the King of Israel the words that thou speakest in thy bedchamber. “And it was told him, saying, Behold, he is in Dothan. “Therefore he sent thither horses and chariots, and a great host. “And when the servant of the Man of God was risen early, behold, a host compassed the city. “And Elisha prayed, and the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw, and beheld the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. “And Elisha prayed, ‘Smite this people with blindness.’ And He smote them with blindness. “And the King of Israel said unto Elisha, ‘My father, shall I smite them?’ “And he answered, ‘Thou shalt not smite them.’ “And he sent them away, and they went to their master.” 2 Kings vi, 8.

134

'Tis night! and the tempest
Is rushing through Heaven;
The oaks on the hills
By the lightnings are riven:
The rain in the valleys
Falls heavy and chill;
And the cataract bursts
In the bed of the rill.
Wild home for the Syrian,
On Hermon's white brow!
While the gust bears along
The scoff and the song,
From Israel's proud tents,
In the forest below.

'Tis midnight—deep midnight,
The hour for surprise!
From the storm-shattered ridges,
The warriors arise:
Now the Syrian is marching
Through storm and through snow,

135

On the revel of Israel
To strike the death-blow.
No light guides his march,
But the tempest's red glare;
No ear hears his tramp
In Israel's doomed camp.
The hunters have driven,
The deer to its lair!

Now, wild as the wolf,
When the sheepfold is nigh;
They shout for the charge,
“Let the Israelite die!”
Still, no trumpet has answered,
No lance has been flung,
No torch has been lighted,
No arrow has sprung.
They pour on the rampart—
The tents stand alone!
Through the gust and the haze,
The watch-fires still blaze,

136

But the warriors of Israel
Like shadows are gone!

Then spake the King's sorcerer:
“King, wouldst thou hear,
“How these Israelite slaves,
“Have escaped from thy spear:
“Know, their prophet Elisha,
“Has spells to unbind
“The words on thy lip,
“Nay, the thoughts in thy mind.
“Though the secret were deep
“As the grave, 'twould be known.
“The serpent has stings,
“And the vulture has wings,
“But he's serpent and vulture,
“To thee and thy throne!”

'Tis morning—they speed
Over mountain and plain,
'Tis noon—yet no chieftain,
Has slackened the rein.

137

'Tis eve—and the valleys
Are dropping with wine,
But no chieftain has tasted
The fruit of the vine.
To Dothan the horseman,
And mailed charioteer,
Are speeding like fire;
Their banquet is ire,
For the scorner of Syria,
Elisha is there!

On thy battlements, Dothan!
That evening, was woe;
There fell the fierce hail
Of the lance and the bow.
Yet, still from the towers,
The banners were hung,
And still from the ramparts
The stormers were flung.
But, the fire-shafts are showered
On roof and on wall;

138

And the cry of despair,
Rises wild on the air,
For Dothan, that Eve,
Must be rescued, or fall!

Hark! the ramparts are scaled,
All rush to the gate;
'Tis the moment of terror,
The moment of fate!
And men tore their garments,
And women their hair:
But Elisha came forth
From the chamber of prayer.
Like thunder his voice
O'er the multitude rolled:
“Jehovah, arise!
Pour Thy light on our eyes;
And show Israel the shepherds
Who watch o'er Thy fold.”

The mountain horizon
Was burning with light;

139

On its brow stood the Syrian,
In glory and might;
Proud waved to the sunset
The banner's rich fold:
Proud blazed the gemmed turbans,
And corslets of gold.
And loud rose the taunt
Of the Infidel's tongue:
“Ho! Israelite slaves,
This night sees your graves.
And first, from your walls
Shall Elisha be flung!”

At the word stooped a cloud,
From the crown of the sky!
In its splendours the Sun,
Seemed to vanish and die.
From its depths poured a host
Upon mountain and plain,
There was seen the starred helm,
And the sky-tinetured vane,

140

And the armour of fire,
And the seraph's bright wing—
But no eyeball dared gaze
On the pomp of the blaze,
As their banner unfolded
The name of their King!

But where are the foe!
Like a forest o'erblown,
In their ranks, as they stood,
Their squadrons are strown!
No banner is lifted,
No chariot is wheeled;
On Earth lies the turban,
On Earth lies the shield.
There is terror before them,
And terror behind;
Now, proud homicide,
Thou art smote in thy pride,
The Syrian is captive,
His host are struck blind!

141

There were writhings of agony,
Yells of despair,
And eyeballs turned up,
As if seeking the glare;
And sorcerers howling
To Baal in vain,
The madness of tongue,
And the madness of brain!
And groups of pale chieftains,
Awaiting in gloom,
Till the Israelite sword
In their bosoms was gored;
While the shoutings of Dothan
Seemed shoutings of doom!

But they knew not Elisha,
They knew not his Lord,
Unsubdued by the sword,
They were spared by the sword.
Sad, silent, and slow,
Like a funeral train,
They were led by the hand,
Over mountain and plain.

142

Alone by the might
Of Jehovah o'erthrown;
No drop of their blood
Stained forest or flood,
Till the host o'er the borders
Of Israel were gone!

Those, those were the triumphs
Of Israel of old!
And those were the shepherds
Who guarded the fold.
But the Leopard was loosed
From his thickets again,
And the flock of the Chosen
Were scattered and slain.
But, visions are rising,
Mysterious and grand;
The trumpet shall sound,
And the dead be unbound,
For the night is far spent,
And the day is at hand!

143

HYMN OF THE MARTYRS.

“I water my couch with my tears. “Mine eye is consumed because of grief; it waxeth old, because of mine enemies. “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity, for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping. “The Lord hath heard my supplication. The Lord will receive my prayer.”— Psalm VI,6.

Lord of the Heavens! Earth's King of Kings!
Whose nature and whose name is Love,
Thou, throned upon the Angels' wings,
Saviour, in whom we live and move!
How long shall stream the tear,
That streams to Thee alone?
How long our bosoms bear
Their Cross before Thy throne?
Hear us, and help—Thou Holy One!

144

For not with flesh and blood we war,
But with the mighty Unforgiven!
Their leader, once the Morning Star—
Their legions, once the sons of Heaven.
Even Thou hast felt their power—
Thou of the thorn-crowned brow;
The dark, soul-struggling hour,
The mockery, the blow,
The vast variety of mortal woe.

Yes! thou Eternal Majesty!
With bowed and broken hearts we come,
And humbled glance, and bended knee;
Pale pilgrims of a world of gloom!
Behold our altar-fires,
Behold us on them lay
Earth's dreams and low desires;
And long to rend away
Our robe of sorrow, sin, and clay.

When shall we wear the Angel-crown,
When shall we wave the Angel-wing?

145

When cast our starry chaplets down
In joy before our Saviour-King?
Descend, all glorious One!
Be Satan downward hurled,
Be Earth no more his throne;
Be Death's dark banner furled—
Come, Monarch of Thy ransomed world.

146

THE WORLD.

“The Earth mourneth and fadeth away, the World languisheth and fadeth away. The haughty people of the Earth do languish. “The Earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant.”— Isaiah xxiv, 4.

“But, though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. “For, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. “While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”—2 Corinthians iv, 16.

What is the world? A morn, a noon, an eve:
A scene of lips that smile, and hearts that heave:
A pageant thing of parent, child, and bride,
All, atoms floating down Time's restless tide.

147

Life, but the loss of all we called our own,
Like doves, searce nestled to the heart—and flown!
A Couch, where tears must mingle with our sleep,
Till the last slumber—when we cease to weep.
A phantom—peopled Stage, where all decays,
Even while the soul is quivering with the gaze.
Ashes with glory, splendour mixed with gloom,
Rapture with woe, the bridal with the tomb;
The regal mantle with the funeral pall,
Change, the great Despot, ruling over all!

And is this all the wisdom man can give?
Know, Sceptic, here we but begin to live;
Our trials, but the discipline of soul,
The virtue of Immortals—Self-Controul!
Our sorrows, but the seed of glory sown:
The mercy Heaven's; the errors all our own!
Lord of the heart! howe'er my race be run,
So let it finish, that “Thy will be done.”

148

THE JUDGMENT DAY.

“And he spake a parable unto them, to this end; that men ought always to pray, and never to faint. “And shall not God avenge His own elect, which cry day and night to Him, though He bear long with them? “I tell you, He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man cometh, shall He find faith upon the Earth.”— Luke xviii.

Great God! how long shall man defy
Thy vengeance, but to taunt—and die!
How long his frantic lip blaspheme
Thy glorious Kingdom, as a dream!
How long the Atheist's sullen soul
Disdain the Prophet's burning scroll!
How long before the idol-shrine
Bow the lost hearts, that should be Thine?
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
When comes, Great God! Thy Judgment Day?

149

Great God! how long Thy scattered sheep,
Thy Saints, shall only watch and weep!
Pour Thy high truths on thankless ears,
And cat the bread of toil and tears!
Walk through a scoffing world—alone;
The Serpent on Thy rightful throne!
Ye comets, light our more than gloom;
Ye thunders, burst our more than tomb.
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
When comes, Great God! Thy Judgment Day?

Great God! already fills the wine
The cup of wrath, the final Sign!
The foul and fierce Idolater,
Tyrant at once and tempter here!
Earth stamped with crimes, undared before,
Man, guilt-corrupted to the core,
The world in deepening evil still,
At last one great, consummate Ill!
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
When comes, Great God! Thy Judgment Day?

150

Great God! I see Thy sickle sweep;
The harvest's ripe, 'tis time to reap!
At midnight shall the startled eye
Be fixed upon the flashing sky;
All hearts with sudden fear be wrung,
All knees in sudden prayer be flung:
Now taunt, thou haughty Infidel!
When the last thunders round thee swell.
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
Is this, Great God! Thy Judgment Day?

Great God! then all shall be revealed!
Guilt from all eyes, but Thine, concealed;
The tyrant-wrong, the traitor-art,
The whole dark history of the heart.
Mad avarice, and madder pride,
The hand in midnight murder dyed;
Secrets in stern oblivion flung,
Now trembling on the wretch's tongue.
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
Is this, Great God! Thy Judgment Day?

151

Great God, I hear the trumpet sound!
It rings to Earth's remotest bound,
To Ocean's deepest depths it rings;
Death's sentence to all living things!
Life's summoner to all the dead!
Give up, thou old Unlimited;
Give up, dark Grave, thy countless spoil;
Rise all that ever trod Earth's soil!
Thou sinner's dread—thou sinner's stay,
This is, Great God! Thy Judgment Day!

152

WRATH ON JERUSALEM.

“Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, add ye year to year, kill sacrifices. “Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow. “And I will camp against thee round about, and lay siege against thee. “And thou shalt be brought down, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, as of one that hath a familiar spirit. “Thou shalt be visited by the Lord of Hosts with thunder, and with earthquake, and with storm and tempest. “Stay yourselves and wonder, cry ye out, they stagger, but not with strong drink. “For the Lord hath poured upon you deep sleep, and hath closed your eyes, the prophets and your rulers, the seers hath He covered.”— Isaiah xxix, 1.

Woe to Ariel, woe to Ariel!
Swift shall come her agony,
Though the songs of Zion swell,
Though on Heaven is fixed the eye,

153

Though the daily Sacrifice
Flames to the insulted skies.

Round her walls shall spread a camp!
Yet no warrior's tread be there,
Like the lion's midnight ramp,
Echoing on the sleepless ear.
What are mortal spear and shield,
When Heaven's armies sweep the field?

Mine shall be the chariot-wheel,
Rolling on the harvest-storm;
Mine the crushing thunder-peal,
Mine the locust and the worm;
Famine to the land shall cling,
Plague its livid heart shall wring!

Then, thy rebel multitude
Misery's last dregs shall drain;
Then, thy soul shall be subdued
To the chain, the more than chain.

154

Who the fetter shall unbind,
When its links are in the mind?

Like a viewless, soundless stream,
Year on year shall linger by;
All thy waking, but a dream;
All thy life, a lethargy;
Till thy haughty voice is low,
Like a Spirit's voice of woe!

Memory shall rack thy brain,
With the glories past away;
Day, diversity of pain;
Night, alone a darker day!
Anguish shall her furrows plough
In thy pale and unhelmed brow.

What to Me is prayer or praise,
When the heart no more is given?
What to Me the Altar's blaze,
But the mockery of Heaven?

155

Vain the clouds of incense rise;
All is Heathen, in mine eyes.

Madness! shall the potter's clay
Proudly on the potter turn!
Shall the creature of a day,
Heaven's eternal wisdom spurn!
Shall the hypocrite's disguise,
Baffle Heaven's eternal eyes!

Then shall fail the Prophet's vision,
Then is filled thy cup of woe;
Thou, the Heathen's fierce derision!
Ruin's last and heaviest blow.
Drunken, but not drunk with wine,
All shall see the blow—divine.

Wake, ere waking be too late!
Till the wisdom of the wise
Shall but force thee to thy fate,
Lies be truth, and truth be lies;
Plunged in impotence of soul,
Faction, Frenzy, Death—the Whole!

Ariel, the Lion of God, the prophetic name of Jerusalem.

156

THE WOE UPON ISRAEL.

“My well-beloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill. “And he planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it; and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. “And now go to. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof. “And I will lay it waste: there shall come up briars and thorns. “The harp and the viol and wine are in their feasts, but they regard not the work of the Lord. “Therefore Hell hath opened her mouth, and their glory shall descend into it. “Woe unto those who call evil good, and put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. “Therefore is the anger of the Lord turned against His people. “And He will lift up an ensign to the nations from afar. “None shall be weary nor stumble among them.

157

“Their horses' hoofs shall be like flint, and their wheels like a whirlwind. “Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar and lay hold of the prey, and none shall deliver it.”— Isaiah V,1.

Israel, thou wert once a Vine,
Never clusters dropped such wine;
Round its beauty wreathed a bower,
O'er it watched a guardian tower;
But the dark Idolater,
Son of Sin and Spoil, was there,
And my vineyard was defiled,
All its glorious fruitage—wild!

But, a cloud shall blight thy bower,
But, a blast shall shake thy tower;
Branching stem, and sheltering hedge,
All, shall feel the axe's edge.
Then shall be the Curse fulfilled,
Thou shalt lie a Land untilled;
Anguish-ploughed, and famine-worn,
Buried in the weed and thorn;

158

All thy beauty, swamp and sand—
Of all Lands, the loneliest Land!

Hark! I hear the dancers bound;
Hark! the maddening cups go round.
On the midnight revel swim
Frantic song and Idol-hymn.
Day and night, still sin on sin,
Adding to the weight within,
Scarcely rescued from the chain,
Ripening for its links again!

Hell is longing for thy tread,
Living, yet already dead!
Now it opes its jaws of flame
For the remnant of thy name.
Idly wise, and weakly great,
Hourly tampering with thy fate,
Palace, cottage, temple, wall,
Mean or mighty, thou shalt fall!

159

Israel, where are now thy wise?
Woe to those who live by lies,
Calling (all their souls deceit)
Evil good, and bitter sweet,
Selling justice, pampering crime,
But revenge shall bide its time!
Like the chaff before the gale,
Like the harvest in the hail,
Like the stubble in the blaze,
Like the cluster that decays,
Ere 'tis ripened on the tree—
Israel, thou and thine shall be!
Think'st thou that My wrath shall sleep,
When I see the Orphan weep!
When I see thy revels fed
With the lonely widow's bread!
Now, the shaft is on the string,
That shall strike thy haughty wing.

Listen, where in more than gloom,
Rush the fillers of the tomb;

160

Come from regions fierce and far,
Come with more than mortal war.
Swift as eagles' wings they sweep,
None shall stumble, none shall sleep:
Strange their accents on thine ear;
All before them, flight and fear,
Flint their horses' hoofs, their wheel
Making all thy mountains reel;
Roaring, like the lion's roar,
Till their thirst is gorged with gore!