And where shall Israel lave her bleeding

VIII. feet? And when shall Sion's songs again seem On! snatch'd away in beanty's bloom,

sweet?

On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; And Judah’s melody once more rejoice

But on thy turf shall roses rear The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly

Their leaves, the earliest of the year; voice?

And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom: Tribes of the wandering foot and weary And oft by yon blue gushing stream

breast,

Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, How shall ye flee away and be at rest!

And feed deep thought with many a dream,
The wild dove hath her nest, the fox his cave,
Mankind their country-Israel but the grave!

And lingering panse and lightly tread:
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd

the dead!
VI.

Away; we know that tears are vain, On Jordan's banks the Arabs' camels stray, will this unteach us to complain?

That death nor heeds nor hears distress: On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray, The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep

Or make one mourner weep the less ? Yet there-even there-Oh God! thy thun- And thon--who tell’st me to forget,

ders sleep:

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.

There— where thy finger scorch'd the tabletstone!

IX. There-where thy shadow to thy people

shone!

My Soul is dark.-Oh! quickly string Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire : Thyself—none living see and not expire! And let thy gentle fingers fling

The harp I yet can brook to hear; Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear! If in this heart a hope be dear,

Its melting murmurs o’er mine ear. Sweep from his shiver'd hand the oppres-- That sound shall charm it forth again;

sors'
spear:

If in these eyes there lurk a tear,
How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod!

'Twill flow, and cease to burn my brain: How long thy temple worshipless, oh God!

But bid the strain be wild and deep,

Nor let thy notes of joy be first :
VII.

I tell thee, Minstrel, I must weep,

Or else this heavy heart will burst; JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER.

For it hath been by sorrow nurst,

And ached in sleepless silence long; Since our country, our God-Oh, my Sire! And now 'tis doom’d to know the worst, Demand that thy Daughter expire;

And break at once- or yield to song.
Since thy triumph was bought by thy vow-
Strike the bosom that's bared for thee now!
And the voice of my mourning is o'er,

X.
And the mountains behold me no more :
If the hand that I love lay me low, I saw thee weep- the big bright tear
There cannot be pain in the blow!

Came o'er that eye of blue;

And then methought it did appear
And of this, oh, my Father! be sure- A violet dropping dew:
That the blood of thy child is as pure I saw thee smile-the sapphire's blaze
As the blessing I beg ere it flow,

Beside thee ceased to shine;
And the last thought that soothes me below. It could not match the living rays

That fill'd that glance of thine.
Though the virgins of Salem lament,
Be the judge and the hero unbent! As clouds from yonder sun receive
I have won the great battle for thee, A deep and mellow die,
And my Father and Country are free! Which scarce the shade of coming eve

Can banish from the sky,
When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd, Those smiles unto the moodiest mind
When the voice that thou lovest is husb’d, Their own pure joy innpart;
Let my memory still be thy pride, Their sunshine leaves a glow behind
And forget not I smiled as I died !

That lightens o'er the heart.

XI.

Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare:

From lips that moved not and unbreathing Tuy Days are done, thy fame begun;

frame, Thy country's strains record

Like cavernd winds, the hollow accents The triumphs of her chosen Son,

came. The slaughters of his sword !

Saul saw, and fell to earth, as falls the oak, The deeds he did, the fields he won, At once, and blasted by the thunder-stroke. The freedom he restored !

“Why is my sleep disquieted ? Though thou art fall'n, while we are free

Who is he that calls the dead > Thou shalt not taste of death!

Is it thou, oh King? Behold, The generous blood that flow'd from thee Bloodless are these limbs, and cold : Disdain'd to sink beneath :

Such arc mine; and such shall be Within our veins its currents be,

Thine, to-morrow, when with me: Thy spirit on our breath!

Ere the coming day is done,

Such shalt thou be, such thy son. Thy name, our charging hosts along,

Fare thee well, but for a day; Shall be the battle-word !

Then we mix our mouldering clay. Thy fall, the theme of choral song

Thou, thy race, lie pale and low, From virgin-voices pour'd!

Pierced by shafts of many a bow: To weep would do thy glory wrong!

And the falchion by thy side
Thou shalt not be deplored.

To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!"

XII.

XIV.
SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST
BATTLE.

“ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE

PREACHER.” WARRIORS and Chiefs! should the shaft or

the sword

Fami, wisdom, love, and power were inine, Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,

And health and youth possess'd me; Heed not the corse, though a king's

, in My goblets blush'd from every vine,

your path : Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath! 1 sann'd my heart in beauty's eyes,

And lovely forms caress'd me; Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, All earth can give, or mortal prize,

And felt my soul grow tender; Should the soldiers of Saul look

away from

Was mine of regal splendour.

the foe, Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!

I strive to number o'er what days Mine be the doom which they dared not

Remembrance can discover, to meet.

Which all that life or earth displays

Would lure me to live over. Farewell to others, but never we part,

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour Heir to my royalty, son of my heart! Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway; And not a trapping deck'd my power

Of pleasure unembitter'd; Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

That galld not while it glitter'd.

The serpent of the field, by art
XIII.

And spells, is won from harming;

But that which coils around the heart, SAUL.

Oh! who hath power of charming ?

It will not list to wisdom's lore,
Thou, whose spell can raise the dead,

Nor music's voice can lure it;
Bid the prophet's form appear.

But there it stings for evermore “Samuel, raise thy buried head!

The soul that must endure it.
King, behold the phantom-scer!”
Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his

XV.
shroud.
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye; When coldness wraps this suffering clay,
His hand was wither'd and his veins were dry; Ah, whither strays the immortal mind?
His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there, It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Chaldea's seers are good, Then, unembodied, doth it trace

But here they have no skill: By steps each planet's heavenly way? And the unknown letters stood Or fill at once the realms of space,

Untold and awful still. A thing of eyes, that all survey?

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore; Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

But now they were not sage,
A thought unseen, but seeing all,

They saw-but kuew no more.
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall it recal:

A captive in the land,
Each fainter trace that memory holds, A stranger and a youth,
So darkly of departed years,

He heard the king's command,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,

He saw that writing's truth. And all, that was, at once appears. The lamps around were bright,

The prophecy in view;
Before Creation peopled earth,

He read it on that night,-
Its eye shall roll through chaos back; The morrow proved it true.
And where the furthest heaven had birth,
The spirit trace ita rising track.

“Belshazzar's grave is made, And where the future mars or makes,

His kingdom pass'd away,

7 Its glance dilate o'er all to be,

He in the balance weighd, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Is light and worthless clay. Fix'd in its own eternity.

The shroud, his robe of state,

His canopy, the stone;
Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, The Mede is at his gate!
It lives all passionless and pure:

The Persian on his throne !"
An age shall fleet like earthly year;
Its years as moments shall endure.

XVII.
Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; Sun of the Sleepless! melancholy star! A nameless and eternal thing,

Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, Forgetting what it was to die.

That show'st the darkness thou canst not

dispel, How like art thou to joy remember'd well! XVI.

80 gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its

powerless rays; VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,

Distinct, but distant-clear-but, ob how The King was on his throne,

cold!
The Satraps throng'd the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone

XVIII.
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

WERB my bosom as false as thou deemst it
In Judah deem'd divine-

to be, Jehovah's vessels hold

I need not have wander'd from far Galilee ; The godless Heathen's wine!

It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou sayst, is the crime In that same hour and hall,

of my race. The fingers of a hand Came forth against the wall,

If the bad never triumph, then God is And wrote as if on gand :

with thee! The fingers of a man ;

If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and A solitary hand

free! Along the letters ran,

If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, And traced them like a wand.

Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die. The monarch saw, and shook,

I have lost for that faith more than thou And bade no more rejoice;

canst bestow, All bloodless wax'd his look

As the God who permits thee to prosper And tremulous his voice.

doth know; “Let the men of lore appear,

In his hand is my heart and my hope- and The wisest of the earth,

in thine And expound the words of fear,

The land and the life which for him I Which mar our royal mirth.”.

resign.

may be,

XIX.

And now
On that mountain I stood on

that day, HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. But I mark'd not the twilight-beam melting

away ; Oh, Mariamne! now for thee

Oh! would that the lightning had glared The heart for which thou bled'st is

in its stead, bleeding;

And the thunderbolt burst on the conquerRevenge is lost in agony,

or's head! And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou ?

But the Gods of the Pagan shall never Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading :

profane Ah, couldst thou—thou wouldst pardon now, The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to Though Heaven were to my prayer un

reign ; heeding.

And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people And is she dead ?—and did they dare

Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee. Obey my phrensy's jealous raving? My wrath but doom'd my own despair: The sword that smote her 's o'er me

XXI. waving. But thou art cold, my murder'd love!

We sat down and wept by the waters And this dark heart is vainly craving Of Babel, and thought of the day For her who soars alone above,

When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters, And leaves my soul unworthy saving. Made Salem's high places his prey ;

And
ye,

oh her desolate Daughters! She's gone, who shared my diadem; Were scatter'd all weeping away.

She sunk, with her my joys entombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem

While sadly we gazed on the river Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; Which rollid on in freedom below, And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,

They demanded the song; but, oh never This bosom's desolation dooming;

That triumph the stranger shall know! And I have earn'd those tortures well,

May this right hand be wither'd for ever, Which unconsumed are still consuming!

Ere it string our high harp for the foe! XX.

On the willow that harp is suspended,

Oh Salem! its sound should be free;
ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION And the hour when thy glories were ended,

But left me that token of thee:
OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended

With the voice of the spoiler by mc ! From the last hill that looks on thy once

holy dome I beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome:

XXII. Twas thy last sun went down, and the

flames of thy fall THB DESTRUCTION OF SENNAFlash'd back on the last glance 1 gavo to

CHERIB.

The Assyrian came down like the wolf I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my

on the fold, home,

And his cohorts were gleaming in purple And forgot for a moment my bondage tocome;

and gold; I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy And the sheen of their spears was like stars fane,

on the sea, And the fast-fetter'd hands that made ven- When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep

Galilee,

thy wall.

geance in vain.

were seen:

On many an eve, the high spot whence 1 Like the leaves of the forest when Summer gazed

is green, Had reflected the last beam of day as it That host with their banners at sunset

blazed ; While I stood on the height, and beheld Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn the decline

hath blown, Of the rays from the mountain that shone That host on the morrow lay wither'd and on thy shrine.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;

on the blast, And the might of the Gentile, unemote by And breathed in the face of the foe as he

the sword, pass'd;

Hath melted like snow in the glance of the And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly

Lord ! and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for

XXI. ever grew still!

FROM JOB. And there lay the steed' with his nostril

all wide,

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld But through it there roll'd not the breath The face of Immortality unveil'd

of his pride: Deep sleep came down on every eye save And the foam of his gasping lay white on

minethe turf,

And there it stood,all formless_but divine: And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;

And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake: And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on "Is man, more just than God? Is man his mail;

more pure And the tents were all silent, the banners Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure?

alone,

Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust! The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown. The moth survives you,and are ye more just?

Things of a day! you wither ere the night, And the widows of Ashur are loud in Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted their wail,

light!"

ODE TO NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.

Expende Annibalem :-quot libras in duce summo

Invenies?"-JUVENAL.
The Emperor Nepos was acknowledged by the Senate, by
the Italians, and by the Provincials of Gaul; his moral virtues,
and military talents were loudly celebrated; and those who
derived any private benefit from his government announced
in prophetic strains the restoration of public ielicity.

By this shameful abdication, he protracted his life a few years,
in a very ambiguous state, between an Emperor and an Exile,
till- GIBBON': Decline and Fall, Chapt. 36.

99

Tis done—but yesterday a King! With might unquestion’d,-power to save

And arm’d with Kings to strive- Thine only gift bath been the grave And now thou art a nameless thing

To those that worshipp'd thee; So abject-yet alive!

Nor, till thy fall, could mortals guess Is this the man of thousand thrones, Ambition's less than littleness! Who strew'd our Earth with hostile

bones?

Thanks for that lesson-it will teach
And can he thus survive ?

To after-warriors more
Since he, miscall’d the Morning-Star, Than high Philosophy can preach,
Nor man nor fiend hath fallen so far. And vainly preach'd before.

That spell upon the minds of men
Ill-minded man ! why scourge thy kind Breaks never to unite again,
Who bow'd so low the knee?

That led them to adore
By gazing on thyself grown blind, Those Pagod-things of sabre-sway,
Thou taught'st the rest to sce.

With fronts of brass, and feet of clay.