SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS!

SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remember'd well!

So gleams the past, the light of other days,
Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,

Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!

WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU

DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

1.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be,
I need not have wander'd from far Galilee;

It was but abjuring my creed to efface

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

2.

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.

3.

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.

1.

Он, 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, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

2. 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 murder'd love!

And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

3.

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.

1.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, Oh Sion! when render'd 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.

2.

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-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.

3.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the
rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.