SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE.

I.

WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,

Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

II.

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow,
Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,
Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet!
Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

III.

Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway,

Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER."

I.

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;

My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour,

II.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,

Which all that life or earth displays
Would lure me to live over.

WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay,
Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?

It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind.
Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way?
Or fill at once the realms of space,
A thing of eyes, that all survey?

II.

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall it recall:
Each fainter trace that memory holds
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

III.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back;
And where the furthest heaven had birth,
The spirit trace its rising track.
And where the future mars or makes,
Its glance dilate o'er all to be,
While sun is quench'd or system breaks,
Fix'd in its own eternity.

IV.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear,
It lives all passionless and pure:
An age shall fleet like earthly year;

Its

years as moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing,

O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly, A nameless and eternal thing,

Forgetting what it was to die.

VISION OF BELSHAZZAR.

I.

THE King was on his throne,
The satraps throng'd the hall:
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,

In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold

The godless Heathen's wine!

II.

In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,

And wrote as if on sand:

The fingers of a man;—
A solitary hand

Along the letters ran,

And traced them like a wand.

III.

The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless wax'd his look,
And tremulous his voice.
"Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear,
Which mar our royal mirth."

IV.

Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still.

And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore;

But now they were not sage, They saw-but knew no more.

V.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,—
The morrow proved it true.

VI.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He, in the balance weigh'd,
Is light and worthless clay;

The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;

The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

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.

I.

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.

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.