A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deem'd divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless heathen's wine!
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.
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."
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.
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.
" 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! 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 ΤΟ ΒΕ.
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.
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.
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.
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.
And is she dead?-and did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair :
The sword that sinote 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.
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
FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, oh Sion! when render'd to Rome :
'T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.
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.
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.
And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away :
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
But the gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign;
And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be, f
Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.
BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT.
We sat down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.
While sadly we gazed on the river
Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know !
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!
On the willow the harp is suspended,-
Oh Salem! its sound should be free!
And the hour when thy glories were ended,
But left me that token of thee :
And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!
THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold,
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold;
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea,
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green,
That host with their banners at sunset were seen :
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown,
That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd;
And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of immortality unveil'd;
Deep sleep came down on every eye save mine-
And there it stood, -all formless but divine :
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake :
" Is man more just than God? Is man more pure
Than he who deems even seraphs insecure?
Creatures of clay! vain dwellers in the dust!
The moth survives you, and are ye more just?
Things of a day! you wither ere the night,
Heedless and blind to wisdom's wasted light!"
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