ADONIJAH.

Imlah! from the dawn of day

I have been gazing from the walls, and saw
The Persian reining in his fiery squadrons.
Like ostriches they swept the sandy plain,
As though they would outstrip the tardy winds;
And paused and wheel'd, and through the clouds of
dust

That rose around them, as round terrible Angels,
Their scimitars in silver radiance flash'd.
Oh, will it ever be, that once again

The Lord of Hosts will lift the Lion banner
Of Judah, and her sons go forth to war
Like Joshua, or like him whose beardless strength
O'erthrew the giant Philistine!

BENINA.

Ah, me!

And wouldst thou, Adonijah, seek the war, The ruthless, murtherous, and destroying war?

ADONIJAH.

Why, yes! nor would Benina love me less
For bringing home the spoil of God's proud foes,
To hang within his vindicated Temple.

BENINA.

So thou didst bring thyself unharm'd, unchanged, Benina were content.

ADONIJAH.

Heaven's blessing on thee!

IMLAH.

Hear me, young Adonijah; thou dost love
My child: Benina, shall I say, or leave it
To thine own lips or eloquent eyes to tell,
How well thou lovest the noble Adonijah?
But, youth, I seek not to delay thy joy
With the cold envious prudence of old age,
That never felt the boiling blood of youth;
For if I did, there's one would chide me here
For my forgetfulness of hours like these.
But yet I would not have my daughter wed
With the sad dowry of a master's stripes;
I would not, Adonijah, on the eve
Of our deliverance, that the wanton Gentile
Should pass his jest on our cold entertainment,
And all the cheerless joy when captives wed,
To breed a race, whose sole inheritance

Shall be their parents' tasks and heavy bondage.
Our father Jacob served seven tardy years
For beauteous Rachel, but I tax not thee
With such a weary service.

ADONIJAH.

Be they ages, So the life beat within this bounding heart, The love shall never fail!

IMLAH.

Here's one would trust thee, Youth, should my cautious age be slow. Come hither, Thou tender vine, that need'st a noble stem: Thou not repinest because I wed thee not To this fair elm, until the gentle airs Of our own land, and those delicious dews That weep like angels' tears of love, o'er all The hill of Sion, gladden your sweet union, And make you bear your clustering fruits in joy.

So now, enough, thou dost accept the terms; And in the name of him that rules on high, I thus betroth the noble Adonijah

To soft Benina.

Now, to him that hears

The captive's prayer. How long-oh, Lord!-how long
Shall strangers trample down thy beauteous Sion?
How long shall Judah's hymns arise to thee
On foreign winds, and sad Jerusalem
On all her hills be desolate and mute?

God of the Thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of Desolation flow:
Father of Vengeance! that with purple feet,
Like a full wine-press, tread'st the world below.
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till thou the guilty land hast seal'd for woe.
God of the Rainbow! at whose gracious sign

The billows of the proud their rage suppress:
Father of Mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness! And fountains sparkle in the arid sands, And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands, And marble cities crown the laughing lands, And pillar'd temples rise thy name to bless. O'er Judah's land thy thunders broke-oh, Lord! The chariots, rattled o'er her sunken gate, Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword, Even her foes wept to see her fallen state; And heaps her ivory palaces became, Her Princes wore the captive's garb of shame, Her Temple sank amid the smouldering flame, For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate. O'er Judah's land thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam, And the sad City lift her crownless head; And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam, Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the

dead.

The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves;
With fetter'd steps we left our pleasant land,

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves.
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home; He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come. And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear, And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare ; And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer, Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed th' irradiate dome.

The Walls of Babylon.

Yon tribes away, or ere our car approach'd

BARIS, etc.

BELSHAZZAR.

For twice three hours our stately cars have roll'd
Along the broad highway that crowns the walls
Of mine imperial City, nor complete
Our circuit by a long and ample space.

And still our eyes look down on gilded roofs,
And towers and temples, and the spreading tops

Of cedar groves, through which the fountains gleam;
And every where the countless multitudes,
Like summer insects in the noontide sun,
Come forth to bask in our irradiate presence.

Oh, thou vast Babylon! what mighty hand
Created thee, and spread thee o'er the plain
Capacious as a world; and girt thee round

ARJOCH.

They hasted forth, O King!

But Tartan came not back, nor Artamas.

BELSHAZZAR.

Slaves! did they dare fall off from their allegiance !

ARIOCH.

To the dominion they fell off of him

That hath the empire o'er departed souls.

NITOCRIS.

Look down! look down! where, proud of his light conquest,

The Persian rides-it is the youthful Cyrus ;
How skilfully he winds through all the ranks
His steed, in graceful ease, as though he sate
Upon a firm-set throne, yet every motion
Obedient to his slack and gentle rein,

brass;

And taught the indignant river to endure
Thy bridge of cedar and of palm, high hung
Upon its marble piers?-What voice proclaim'd,
Amid the silence of the sands, "Arise!

And be earth's wonder?" Was it not my fathers?
Yea, mine entombed ancestors awake,
Their heads uplift upon their marble pillows;
They claim the glory of thy birth. Thou hunter,
That didst disdain the quarry of the field,
Choosing thee out a nobler game of man,
Nimrod and thou that with unfeminine hand
Didst lash the coursers of thy battle-car
O'er prostrate thrones, and necks of captive kings,
Semiramis! and thou whose kingly breath
Was like the desert wind, before its coming
The people of all earth fell down, and hid
Their humble faces in the dust! that madest
The pastime of a summer day t' o'erthrow
A city, or cast down some ancient throne;
Whose voice each ocean shore obey'd, and all
From sable Ethiopia to the sands

Of the gold-flowing Indian streams;-oh! thou
Lord of the hundred thrones, high Nabonasser!
And thou my father, Merodach! ye crown'd
This City with her diadem of towers-
Wherefore?-but prescient of Belshazzar's birth,
And conscious of your destined son, ye toil'd
To rear a meet abode. Oh, Babylon!
Thou hast him now, for whom through ages rose
Thy sky-exalted towers-for whom yon palace
Rear'd its bright domes, and groves of golden spires;
In whom, secure of immortality

Thou stand'st, and consecrate from time and ruin,
Because thou hast been the dwelling of Belshazzar!

NITOCRIS.

I hear thy words: like thine, thy mother's heart
Swells, oh, my son! to see thy seat of empire.
But will the Lord of Babylon endure,
What in yon plain beneath offends our sight,
The rebel Persian?

BELSHAZZAR.
Gave we not command,
To Tartan and to Artamas, to sweep

Great Queen! it ill beseems The lowest of Chaldea's slaves to oppose The mother of our king with insolent speech; But my bold zeal for him that rules the world Has made me dauntless. Is it not heaven's will, Written in the eternal course of human things, Some kings are born to toil, and some to enjoy ; Some to build up the palace domes of power, That in their glowing shade their sons may sit Transcendent in luxurious ease, as they In conquest? "Tis the privilege of the chosen, The mark'd of fate, and favourites of the Gods, To find submissive earth deck'd out, a fair And summer garden house, for one long age Of toilless pleasure, and luxurious revel.

BELSHAZZAR.

The slave speaks well: and thee, O, queen Nitocris!
This eve will we compel, with gracious violence,
To own our loftier fate. This sacred eve
We'll have an army wide as yon that spreads
Its tents on the hot sands; and they shall feast
Around me, all reclined on ivory couches,
Strew'd with Sidonian purple, and soft webs
Of Egypt; fann'd by bright and glittering plumes
Held in the snowy hands of virgin slaves;
And o'er their turban'd heads shall lightly wave
The silken canopies, that softly tremble
To gales of liquid odour: all the courts
Shall breathe like groves of cassia and of nard.
And every paradise of golden fruits,
The forests and the tributary streams,

In this one banquet shall exhaust their stores
Of delicates; the swans and Phasian birds,
And roes and deer from off a thousand hills,
Served in the spices of the farthest East.
And we will feast to dulcimers and lutes,
And harps and cymbals, and all instruments
Of rapturous sound, till it shall seem the stars
Have stoop'd the nearer to our earth, to crown
Our banquet with their heavenly concert. There,
Our captains and our counsellors, our wives
And bright-eyed concubines, through all the palace
Th' array of splendour shall prolong-while I,
In state supreme, and glory that shall shame
The setting sun amid his purple clouds,
Will on my massy couch of gold recline:
Then shalt thou come, and seeing thy son the orb
And centre of this radiance, even thyself
Shalt wonder at thy impious speech, that dared
To equal aught on earth to great Belshazzar.
And now, lead on!-

The above, BENINA, IMLAH, ADONIJAH, PRIESTS.

Oh! no mercy-noneNot even in thee, thou wear'st a woman's form, But all the cold relentless pride of manMightiest of queens!-would I might add most gra

cious

IMLAH.

God of our fathers! that alone canst save
Look down upon this guileless innocent.
Lo! pale and fainting, like a wounded fawn
She hangs upon their arms-death scarce could throw
A sadder paleness, or more icy torpor,
Over that form, whose loveliness is now
Its bane, and stamps it for the worst of misery.

ADONIJAH.

Oh, for a Median scimitar!

Nought-nought

Upon our walls

ARIOCH.

What said he?

BENINA.

ARIOCH.

The slave forgets that scourges hang

IMLAH.

And we had fondly thought

The bitter dregs of our captivity

What hast thou to tell me? Thou 'rt here without her:-thou and this brave youth Have eyes that burst with tears. She's lost!-she's dead!

Would that she were!

IMLAH.

NAOMI.

Unnatural father! wretch,

Thou hast no touch of human pity in thee,
To tell a mother thou canst wish her child
Where her fond arms can never fold her more!-
Oh, Imlah! Imlah! tell me-tell me all-
Ye cannot tell me more than what I fear.

IMLAH.

They tore her from us, for a paramour For their false Gods

NAOMI.

"T is ever thus:-most bless'd

But to be made most wretched!

IMLAH.

Pardon her,

Oh Lord! oh, we can chide on others' lips, What our own burn to utter!

NAOMI.

All my care,

My jealous, vigilant, and restless care,

To veil her from the eyes of man, to keep her Like a sweet violet, that the airs of heaven Scarcely detect in its secluded shade,

All waste and vain! I was so proud, to think

I had conceal'd our treasure from the knowledge
Of our rude masters-and I thought how envied
I should return among our barren mothers,
To Salem.

IMLAH.

Dearest! she beheld-she felt The arm of Israel's God protecting her. Thou canst not think with what a beauteous scorn Our soft and timorous child o'erawed the spoilerHow nobly she reproved our fears.

NAOMI.

Poor fool!

To be deluded by those tender arts
She ever used-her only arts-to spare
Our bleeding hearts from knowing when she suffer'd.
What! she look'd fearless, did she? She in the arms
Of sinful men, that trembled at heaven's airs,
When they came breathing o'er her blushing cheek.
And ye-thou, Adonijah, that dost know

Her timorous nature, wert deceived?-cold comfort.
Have ye no better?

IMLAH.

Oh, weep! weep, my wife! Look not upon me with those stony eyes! Oh, think-the cup is bitter, but the Lord May change it;-think of him that lost so many, His sons and daughters, at their jocund feast, All at one blow-and said-God gave, and God Hath taken away.*

NAOMI

Had he but one, like ours; One that engross'd his undivided love; One such as ne'er before blest human heart, Would he have said so?

*Job i, 21.