University of Virginia Library

I.

I read again that wondrous song,
So strongly sweet and sweetly strong,
That ancient poem, whose music shivers
With a chime of rolling rivers
Through the forest of the psalms—
Now it droppeth some golden bead,
Hebrew litany, or creed,
On its rosary of the reed:
Now among the dark-green palms,
And through the harp-hung willows grey,
It yearneth its sweet self away.
And then the stream is fleck'd with froth,
And then the psalm is white with wrath,
And all the sorrow of the verse
Swells out majestic to a curse.
“Blessèd be thou, Psalm!” I said,
“Whether thy deep words be read
Soft and low with bended head;
Or whether chance at vesper-tide
In some minster grand and grey,
By the organ glorified,
Soft the Süper Flumina
Rustles by the wreathen pillar,
While the hush of eve grows stiller,
Till you seem to hear a river,
Willows tremble, harp-strings quiver,
And a beautiful regret
To the heavenly Sion set.”
“And why,” I thought, “must she be still,
The Muse, that with her hallow'd fire
Those chosen shepherds did inspire
Of Bethlehem and of Horeb's hill;
And now, in exile chants again,
Not less divinely, such a strain,
As he the son of Jesse play'd
In Kedron's olive-hoary glade,
The glittering grief upon his brow?
In Christ's own church must she rest now,
Fair, angel-fair, but frozen, like
A marble maid whose death-white fingers
Enclasp a harp, o'er which she lingers
Stone-silent, but may never strike?”

II.

Musing thus a spirit bright
Stood by me that summer night:
“Come where the river rolleth calm
Of that Babylonian psalm;
Thou shalt learn, by me reveal'd,
Why those holy lips are seal'd.”

III.

Then on a great Assyrian quay,
Fast by the town of Nineveh,
At noon of night, methought I stood
Where Tigris went with glimmering flood.
And walls were there all storied round
With old grim kings, enthroned, encrown'd.
Strange-visaged chief, and wingèd bull,
Pine-cone, and lotus wonderful.
Embark'd, I floated fast and far,
For I was bound to Babylon.
I saw the great blue lake of Wan,
And that green island Ahktamar.
I saw above the burning flat
The lone and snow-capp'd Ararat.
But ever spell-bound on I pass,
Sometimes hearing my shallop creep,
With its cool rustle, through the deep
Mesopotamian meadow grass.
And now (as when by moons of old,
Grandly with wrinkling silver roll'd,
It glimmer'd on through grove and lea,
For the starry eyes of Raphael
Journeying to Ecbatane)
The ancient Tigris floweth free,
Through orange-grove, and date-tree dell,
To pearl and rainbow-colour'd shell,
And coral of the Indian sea.
Take down the sail, and strike the mast,
Here is Euphrates old, at last.
Begirt with many a belt of palm,
Round fragrant garden-beds of balm,
(In one whereof old Chelcias' daughter
Went to walk down beside the water,
The lily both in heart and name,
Whose white leaf hath no blot of shame,)
Grandly the king of rivers greets
His Sheshach's hundred-gated streets.
Through the great town the river rolls,
Through it another river fleets,
Whose awful waves are living souls.
High up, the gardens folded fair,
Rainbow'd round many a marble stair,
Hang gorgeous in the starlit air;
And trees droop down o'er spouted fountains,
That once the hunter Mede saw set
Far off upon the purple mountains,
Blossom'd with white and violet.
But o'er the sea of living souls,
And o'er the garden, and the wave,
A muffled bell, methinketh tolls,
“For thee, earth's chief ones stir the grave.”
And rises to the stars a cry
Of triumph and of agony,
Far over all the ancient East—
“How hath the golden city ceased!”
In shadow of his dim blue room,
High overhead in painted gloom,
Like sunset cloud-encompass'd, Bel
Sleeps golden in his oracle.
Falleth a voice of far-off Pæans
Down where the lion banner droops:
“There is a sword on the Chaldeans;
Bel boweth down and Nebo stoops.”
Ah! I hear a sound of woe
By Euphrates come and go,
From the Lebanonian snow.
Rolling wave and sighing breeze
Wash'd through firs and cedar-trees—
And the chesnuts' plumes of white
Tossing in a fierce delight—
And a voice that calls and calls,
Through the algums, set like walls,
Purple round white waterfalls.
Deepening aye the voice increased,
River near, and forest far,
Half like funeral, half like feast,
“Fallen, O thou Morning Star!”
And on by many a basalt column,
Euphrates sang most sad and solemn,
As if the prophet scroll below
His billows touch'd him with a woe;
As if e'en now he felt the beat
Of those predestined Persian feet;
As if through all his sea-like plain,
Through all his moonlit roll he hears
A music of immortal tears—
A sobbing as of gods in pain—
A prophecy of far-off years,
When Babylon should become a heap,
Sleeping a perpetual sleep,
In the Lord's strong indignation,
A wilderness, a desolation:
High gate buried, broad wall broken,
Deed undone, and dree unspoken,
Wise men silent, captains drunken,
Out of her the great voice sunken,
Sea dried up, and fountain shrunken.

IV.

'Tis starlight. In the fiery heat
No longer doth the landscape wink,
And flicker to the water's brink;
It washes by high gates of brass,
Between its mounds like mountain ridges,
And white-stoled forms on fairy bridges,
Like boats on seas that cross and meet
With their sails moon-besilvered, pass.
Gleams from the naphtha cressets fall
By Esarhaddon's sun-bright hall.
The soldier rests him from the wars,
Mylitta's girls their dances weave,
The wise men in the lustrous eve
Watch the great weird Chaldean stars,
Bells in blue Heaven's cathedral chime—
Hands on the silver clock of Time—
“What of the night? what of the night?”
Read, ye astrologers, aright!

V.

Who are these sitting by the billows,
With their harps hung upon the willows?
For some among the captor throngs
Bid them sing one of Sion's songs.

VI.

“Golden hopes are faded like the sunset,
Wan and wither'd like the morning moon,
Golden songs are silent on the mountains,
Golden harps of Judah out of tune.
Ah! we cannot sing those songs divinest,
For, O Sion! we remember Thee,
Ah! our hearts miss sorely in this valley,
The wild beauty of the hill and sea.
If there must be music from the exiles,
Set we words of battle to the harp,
Sweep it as the wild wind sweeps the forest,
Let the curse rise high, and fall down sharp!”

VII.

What time on Judah's hills they trod,
Science of song to them was given,
The harpers on the harps of God,
The poets of the King of Heaven.
Mournful their strains, but through them still
The hope of their return is seen,
Like a sun-silver'd sail between
Dark sea and darkly purple hill.
Strange race! that reads for ever scrolls,
With future glories pictured bright,
As sunsets' golden pencils write
Those slanting sentences of light,
When tree-tops dusk, on dark green boles.
By the broad pulses of this river,
Keeping one even time for ever,
Since Amraphel was King of Shinar,
They long for Jordan's spray and shout,
And linkèd music long drawn out,
Passioning with song diviner,
From waterfall to waterfall.
O, for the line of long green meadows,
Waters whose gleams are silver shadows,
Whose glooms, where wood-hung hills rise higher,
Are darkness dash'd with silver fire,
And glens through which those waters come,
With many a crashing downward call,
With sweeping sound of battle pomp,
With blaring of the battle trump
And double of the battle drum.
And sometimes dawn-blush'd, as with twine
Of rosy flowers of Palestine,
And sometimes touch'd with Paschal moons,
And sometimes yellowing in the noons,
But always gushing like the swell
Of shawms and cymbals raised to Him
Who dwells between the Cherubim,
The Holy One of Israel.

VIII.

I saw the star-lights all depart,
I heard a shiver thro' the leaf,
I heard the river moan and start
As if rememb'ring that old grief
He had in Eden, when the swell
Of Gihon and of Hiddekel
Told him that earth's glory fell.
I saw the white moon fade and fade,
Until her silver flower was laid
Dead on the morning's passionate heart
But ere the city was dislimn'd,
And ere the starlit stream was dimm'd,
And ere the exiles ceased to weep
Beside Euphrates' mighty sweep,
That spirit came to me and said:
“Seest thou, why sacred song is dead?
Faith sets those tunes of sorrow high,
Love gives that longing to each eye,
Hope pledges them the victory.
O exiles from a brighter home!
O weepers by a wilder foam!
O poets to whom God has given
On earth the starry harps of Heaven!
When to the city far off kenn'd
With love like theirs your eye shall bend,
And Heaven look closer through the tear
As hills look nigh when rain is near;
When by life's stream your faith shall sigh,
When ye shall look with hope as high,
For Christ's eternal victory;
God's Church, as in the years of old,
Shall chant, and her sweet voice returning
Shall touch the eyes with happy yearning,
Shall teach the deep heart's harp of gold.”