WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU

DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

I.

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT

TO BE,

I need not have wandered from far Galilee ;

It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

II.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

III.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.

I.

OH, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;

Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:
Ah, could'st thou-thou would'st pardon now,
Though heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

II.

And is she dead?-and did they dare
Obey my phrensy's jealous raving?

My wrath but doom'd my own despair :
The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.-

But thou art cold, my murdered love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving

For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

III.

She's gone, who shared my diadem ;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;

I swept that flower from Judah's stem
Whose leaves for me alone were blooming.
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;
And I have earn'd those tortures well,

Which unconsumed are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

I.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome

I beheld thee, Oh SION! when rendered to Rome: 'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

II.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;

I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fettered hands that made vengeance in vain.