And here's a sight and sound to me more welcome
Than the wild fray of men who slay and die-
Our maidens on their way to the Holy Temple.
I'll mingle with them, and I'll pray with them;
But through a name, by them unknown or scorn'd,
My prayers shall mount to heaven.
Behold them here!
Behold them, how unlike to what they were!
O virgin daughters of Jerusalem!
Ye were a garden once of Hermon's lilies,
That bashfully upon their tremulous stems
Bow to the wooing breath of the sweet spring.
Graceful ye were! there needed not the tone
Of tabret, harp, or lute, to modulate
Your soft harmonious footsteps; your light tread
Fell like a natural music. Ah! how deeply
Hath the cold blight of misery prey'd upon you!
How heavily ye drag your weary footsteps,
Each like a mother mourning her one child!
Ah me! I feel it almost as a sin,
To be so much less sad, less miserable.
King of Kings! and Lord of Lords!
Thus we move, our sad steps timing
To our cymbals' feeblest chiming,
Where thy House its rest accords.
Chased and wounded birds are we,
Through the dark air fled to thee;
To the shadow of thy wings,
Lord of Lords! and King of Kings!
Behold, oh Lord! the Heathen tread (13)
.The branches of thy fruitful vine,
That its luxurious tendrils spread
O'er all the hills of Palestine.
And now the wild boar comes to waste
Even us, the greenest boughs and last,
That, drinking of thy choicest dew,
On Zion's hill in beauty grew.
No! by the marvels of thine hand,
Thou still wilt save thy chosen land!
By all thine ancient mercies shown,
By all our fathers' foes o'erthrown;
By the Egyptian's car-borne host,
Scatter'd on the Red Sea coast;
By that wide and bloodless slaughter
Underneath the drowning water.
Like us in utter helplessness,
In their last and worst distress-
On the sand and sea-weed lying,
Israel pour'd her doleful sighing;
While before the deep sea flow'd
And behind fierce Egypt rode -
To their father's God they pray'd,
To the Lord of Hosts for aid.
On the margin of the flood
With lifted rod the Prophet stood;
And the summon'd east wind blew
And aside it sternly threw
The gather'd waves, that took their stand, Like crystal rocks, on either hand,
Or walls of sea-green marble piled
Round some irregular city wild.
Then the light of morning lay
On the wonder-paved way,
Where the treasures of the deep
In their caves of coral sleep.
The profound abysses, where
Was never sound from upper air,
Rang with Israel's chanted words,
King of Kings! and Lord of Lords!
Then with bow and banner glancing,
On exulting Egypt came,
With her chosen horsemen prancing,
And her ears on wheels of flame,
In a rich and boastful ring
All around her furious king.
But the Lord from out his cloud,
The Lord look'd down upon the proud;
And the host drave heavily
Down the deep bosom of the sea.
With a quick and sudden swell
Prone the liquid ramparts fell;
Over horse, and over car,
Over every man of war,
Over Pharaoh's crown of gold,
The loud thundering billows roll'd.
As the level waters spread,
Down they sank, they sank like lead,
Down without a cry or groan.
And the morning sun, that shone
On myriads of bright-armed men,
Its meridian radiance then
Cast on a wide sea, heaving as of yore,
Against a silent, solitary shore.
Then did Israel's maidens sing,
Then did Israel's timbrels ring,
To him, the King of Kings! that in the sea,
The Lord of Lords! had triumph'd gloriously
And our timbrels' flashing chords,
King of Kings! and Lord of Lords!
Shall they not attuned be
Once again to victory?
Lo! a glorious triumph now!
Lo! against thy people come
A mightier Pharaoh! wilt not thou
Craze the chariot wheels of Rome?
Will not, like the Red Sea wave,
Thy stern anger overthrow?
And from worse than bondage save,
From sadder than Egyptian woe,
Those whose silver cymbals glance,
Those who lead the suppliant dance,
Thy race, the only race that sings
Lord of Lords! and King of Kings!
Streets of Jerusalem-Evening.
Ah me! ungentle Eve, how long thou lingerest! Oh! when it was a grief to me to lose
Yon azure mountains, and the lovely vales
That from our city walls seem wandering on
Under the cedar-tufted precipices;
With what an envious and a hurrying swiftness
Didst thou descend, and pour thy mantling dews
And dew-like silence o'er the face of things;
Shrouding each spot I loved the most with suddenest
And deepest darkness; making mute the groves
Where the birds nestled under the still leaves!
But now, how slowly, heavily thou fallest!
Now, when thou mightest hush the angry din
Of battle, and conceal the murtherous foes
From mutual slaughter, and pour oil and wine
Into the aching hurts of wounded men!
But is it therefore only that I chide thee
With querulous impatience? will the night
Once more, the secret, counsel-keeping night,
Veil the dark path which leads to Siloe's fountain?
Which leads-why should I blush to add-to Javan?
Oh thou, my teacher! I forgot thee not
This morning in the Temple-I forgot not
The name thou taught'st me to adore, nor thee-
But what have I to do with thoughts like these,
While all around the stunning battle roars
Like a gorged lion o'er his mangled prey?
Alas! alas! but the human appetite
For shedding blood,-that is insatiate!
-Time was, that if I heard a sound of arms,
My heart would shudder, and my limbs would fail.
When, to have seen a dying man had been
A dark event, that with its fearful memory
Had haunted many a sad and sleepless night.
But now-now-
Sister! my Salone! Sister!
Why art thou flying with that frantic mien,
Thy veil cast back and streaming with thine hair?
Oh, harbinger of misery! I read
A sad disastrous story in thy face;
'Tis o'er, and God hath given the city of David Unto the stranger.
Our last, our strongest wall, is still unshaken,
Though the fierce engines with their brazen heads
Strike at it sternly and incessantly
Then God preserve the lost! and oh, our father!
All is not lost! for Amariah stands
Amid the rushing sheets of molten fire,
Even like an Angel in the flaming centre
Of the sun's noontide orb-
Now may your native towers rush o'er your heads
With horrible downfall, may the treacherous stones
Start underneath your footing, cast you down,
For the iron wheels of vengeance to rush o'er you—
Flight! flight! still flight!—Oh, infidel renegades!
The above, JOHN, AMARIAH, HIGH-PRIEST, etc.
Now, by the living God of Israel, John!
Your silken slaves, your golden-sandal'd men,—
Your men! I should have said, your girls of Gali
They will not soil their dainty hands with blood.
Their myrrh-dew'd locks are all too smoothly curl'd
To let the riotous and dishevelling airs
Of battle violate their crisped neatness.
Oh! their nice mincing steps are all unfit
To tread the red and slippery paths of war;
Yet they can trip it lightly when they turn
To fly -
Thou lying and injurious Pharisee!
For every man of thine that in the trenches
Hardly hath consented to lay down his life,
Twice ten of mine have leap'd from off the walls,
Grappling a Gentile by the shivering helm,
And proudly died upon his dying foe.
But tell thou me, thou only faithful Simon!
Where are the men of Edom, whom we saw
Stretching their amicable hands in parley,
And quietly mingling with the unharming for?
Where are they? where the traitors meet, where all
The foes of Simon and Jerusalem,
In th' everlasting fire! I slew them, John,-
Thou saw'st my red hand glorious with their blood.
False traitors! in their very treachery false !
They would betray without their lord-In truth,
Treason, like empire, brooks not rivalry.
Now, by the bones of Abraham our father,
I do accuse thee here, false John of Galilee?
Or, if the title please thee, John the Tyrant!
Here, in our arm'd, embattled Sanhedrim,
Thou art our fall's prime cause, and fatal origin!
From thee, as from a foul and poisonous fount,
Pour the black waters of calamity
O'er Judah's land! God hates thee, man of Belial!
And the destroying bolts that fall on thee
From the insulted heavens, blast all around thee
With spacious and unsparing desolation.
Hear me, ye men of Israel! do ye wonder
Hark! hark!—who comes? That all your baffled valour hath recoil'd
"Tis my father's voice! It sounds in wrath, perhaps in blasphemy; Yet 't is my living father's voice-He's here.
From the fierce Gentile onset? that your walls
Are prostrate, and your last hath scarce repell'd
But now the flush'd invader? "Tis from this-
That the Holy City will not be defended
By womanish men, and loose adulterers.
Hear me, I say, this son of Gischala,
This lustful tyrant, hath he not defiled Your daughters, in the open face of day
That grossly do defraud the eternal soul Of its immortal heritage, and doom it
Done deeds of shame, which midnight hath no dark- To rot for ever with its kindred clay
So deep as to conceal? It is his pride
T'offend high heaven with crimes before unknown-
Hath he not mock'd the austere and solemn fasts,
And sabbaths of our Law, by revellings
And most heaven-tainting wantonness? Yea, more,
Hath he not made God's festivals a false
And fraudful pretext for his deeds of guilt?
Yea, on the day of the Unleavened Bread,
Even in the garb and with the speech of worship,
Went he not up into the very Temple? (14)
And there before the Veil, even in the presence
Of th' Holy of Holies, did he not break forth
With armed and infuriate violence?
Then did the pavement, which was never red
But with the guiltless blood of sacrifice,
Reek with the indelible and thrice-foulest stain
Of human carnage. Yea, with impious steel
He slew the brethren that were kneeling with him
At the same altar, uttering the same prayers.
(Speak, Eleazar, was 't not so?-thou darest not
Affirm, nor canst deny thine own betrayal.)
And since that cursed hour of guilty triumph
There hath he held the palace of his lusts, (15)
Turning God's Temple to a grove of Belial:
Even till men wonder that the pillars start not
From their fix'd sockets; that the offended roof
Fall not at once, and crush in his own shame
The blasphemous invader. Yea, not yet,
I have not fathom'd yet his depth of sin.
His common banquet is the Bread of Offering,
The vessels of the altar are the cups
From which he drains his riotous drunkenness.
The incense, that was wont to rise to heaven
Pure as an infant's breath, now foully stagnates
Within the pestilent haunts of his lasciviousness.
Can these things be, and yet our favour'd arms
Be clad with victory? Can the Lord of Israel
For us, the scanty remnant of his worshippers,
Neglect to vindicate his tainted shrine,
His sanctuary profaned, his outraged Laws?
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In the grave's deep unbroken prison-house?
Yea, they dispeople with their infidel creed
Heaven of its holy Angels; laugh to scorn
That secret band of ministering Spirits;
That therefore, in their indignation, stand
Aloof, and gaze upon our gathering ruin
With a contemptuous and pitiless scorn.
They that were wont to range around our towers
Their sunlight-wing'd battalia, and to war
Upon our part with adamantine arms.
Oh! impotent and miserable arguer!
Will he that values not the stake as boldly
Confront the peril as the man that feels
His all upon the hazard? Men of Galilee,
The cup of Life hath sparkled to our lips,
And we have drain'd its tide of love and joy,
Till our veins almost burst with o'erwrought rapture;
And well we know, that generous cup, once dash'd,
Shall never mantle more to the cold lips
Of the earth-bound dead. And therefore do we fight
For life as for a mistress, that being lost,
Is lost for ever. To be what we are
Is all we hope or pray for; think ye, then,
That we shall tamely yield the contest up,
And calmly acquiesce in our extinction?
We know that there stands yawning at our feet
The gulf, where dark Annihilation dwells
With Solitude, her sister; and we fix
Our steadfast footing on the perilous verge,
And grapple to the last with the fierce foe
That seeks to plunge us down; and where's the
That can subdue despair?-For the other charge,
We look not, Simon, to the sky, nor pray
For sightless and impalpable messengers
To spare us the proud peril of the war:
Ourselves are our own Angels! we implore not
Or supernatural or spiritual aid;
We have our own good arms, that God hath given us,
And valiant hearts to wield those mighty arms.
Oh heavens! oh heavens, ye hear it, and endure it!
Outwearied by the all-frequent blasphemy
To an indignant patience: and the just
Still, still must suffer the enforced alliance
Of men whose fellowship is death and ruin.
Why, thou acknowledged Prince of Murderers!
Captain Assassin! Lord and Chief of Massacre!
That pourest blood like water, yet dost deem
That thou canst wash the foul and scarlet stain
From thy polluted soul, as easily
As from thy dainty ever-dabbling hands,
Thou wouldst appease with rite and ordinance,
And festival, and slavish ceremony,
And prayers that weary even the stones thou kneel'st on,
The God whose image hourly thou effacest
With mangling and remorseless steel! "Tis well
That graves are silent, and that dead men's souls
This morn, as wont, our maidens had gone up
To chant their suppliant hymn; and they had raised
The song that Israel on the Red Sea shore
Took up triumphant; and they closed the strain,
That, like th' Egyptian and his car-borne host,
The billows of Heaven's wrath might overwhelm
The Gentile foe, and so preserve Jerusalem;
When at the close and fall a single voice
Linger'd upon the note, with, "Be it done
Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son."
My spirit shrank within me; horror-struck,
I listen'd; all was silence! Then again
I look d upon the veiled damsels, all
With one accord took up the swelling strain
To him that triumph'd gloriously. I turn'd
To the Ark and Mercy Seat, and then again
I heard that single, soft, melodious voice,
"Lord of Mercies, be it done,
Through Jesus Christ, thine only Son."
Here, then, assembled Lords of Israel,
Whoever be the victim, I demand her;
Your wisdom must detect, your justice wreak
Fit punishment upon the accursed sacrilege.
SALONE (apart.)
Miriam! Miriam! Ha!-She's fled.-Guilt! Guilt
Prophetic of the damning accusation
It doth deserve! Apostate! 't were a sin
Against Jerusalem and Heaven to spare thee!
I do commend you, brethren, for your silence! I see the abhorrence labouring in your hearts, Too deep and too infuriate for words.
Now, if it were my child, my Sarah's child,
The child that she died blessing, I'd not sleep
Till the stones crush her. Yea, thus, thus I'd grasp,
And hurl destruction on her guilty head.
Here, John, I pledge mine hand to thee, till vengeance
Seize on the false and insolent blasphemer.
(SALONE, half unveiled, rushing forward, stops irresolutely.)
Their eyes oppress me-my heart chokes my voice-
And my lips cling together-Oh! my mother,
Upon thy death-bed didst thou not beseech us
To love each other!
Brave Amariah, son of John! Salone,
Daughter of Simon! thus I join their hands;
And thus I bless the wedded and the beautiful!
And thus I bind the Captains of Jerusalem
In the strong bonds of unity and peace.—
And where is now the wine for the bridegroom's rosy cup? (16)
And the tabret and the harp for the chamber of the bride?
Lo! bright as burnish'd gold the lamps are sparkling up, And the odours of the incense are breathing far and wide;
And the maidens' feet are glancing in the virgins' wedding train;
And the sad streets of Salem are alive with joy again!
Long live Salone! Long live Amariah!
Am I awake?-how came I here unveil'd Among the bold and glaring eyes of men?
Long live Salone! Long live Amariah!
Prophet! what shall dye The robe of purple with so bright a grain As Roman blood? Before our gates are met The lords of empire, and our walls may laugh Their siege to scorn, even till the BRANCH be grown That's not yet planted-Yea, the wrested sceptre Of earth, the sole dominion-Back, Abiram, To thy prophetic cave-kneel, pray, fast, weep; And thou shalt bless us with far nobler tidings, And we will kiss thy feet, thou Harbinger Of Judah's glory—
Now lead on the Bridal.
Blow trumpets! shout, exulting Israel!
Shout Amariah! shout again Salone!
Shout louder yet, the Bridegroom and the Bride!
Rejoice, O Zion, now on all thy hills;
He speaks from Heaven-accept'st thou, John of City of David, through thy streets rejoice!
From earth or heaven, I care not
What says the maid? Oh! raven-hair'd Salone,
Why dost thou crowd thy jealous veil around thee?
Look on me freely; beauteous in thy freedom;
As when this morn I saw thee, on our walls,
Thy hair cast back, and bare thy marble brow
To the bright wooing of the enamour'd sun:
They were my banner, Beauty, those dark locks;
And in the battle 't was my pride, my strength,
To think that eyes like thine were gazing on me.
Oh no, thou saw'st me not!-Oh, Amariah!
What Prophets speak must be fulfill'd. "T were vain
T' oppose at once the will of Heaven-and thee.
Now, if there be enough of generous food, A cup of wine in all the wasted city, We'll have a jocund revel.
I have a question for thy secret ear.
Fountain of Siloe-Night—An approaching Storm.
He is not here! and yet he might have known
That the cold gloom of the tempestuous skies
Could never change a faithful heart like mine.
He might have known me not a maid to love
Under the melting moonlight, and soft stars,
And to fall off in darkness and in storm.
Ah! seal'd for ever be my slanderous lips!
Alas! it is the bitterest pang of misery
That it will force from us unworthy doubts
Of the most tried and true. Oh, Javan, Javan!
It was but now that with presumptuous heart
I did repine against the all-gracious heavens,
That wrapt me round in charitable darkness,
Because my erring feet had well-nigh miss'd
Their known familiar path.
A white and spirit-like gleaming-It must be!
I see her not, yet feel that it is Miriam,
By the indistinct and dimly visible grace
That haunts her motions; by her tread, that falls
Trembling and soft like moonlight on the earth.
Thou man, whose eyes are purged from earthly film, What dost thou here? now-now? where every mo
Seest thou no further down the tide of time? Beyond this bridal nothing?-Answer me !
For it should seem this designated union
Of two so noble, this conspiring blood
The soldiers prowl, and meeting sentinels Challenge each other? I have watch'd for thee As prisoners for the hour of their deliverance;
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