In youth the cheek was crimsoned with her glow; Her smile was loveliest then; her matin song Was heaven's own music, and the note of woe Was all unheard her sunny bowers among. Life's little world of bliss was newly born; We knew not, cared not, it was born to die, Flushed with the cool breeze and the dews of morn, With dancing heart we gazed on the pure sky, And mocked the passing clouds that dimmed its blue, Like our own sorrows then-as fleeting and as few. And manhood felt her sway too,—on the eye, And though at times might lower the thunder storm, Was balmy with her breath, and her loved form, The rainbow of the heart, was hovering there. "Tis in life's noontide she is nearest seen, Her wreath the summer flower, her robe of summer green. But though less dazzling in her twilight dress, There's more of heaven's pure beam about her now; That angel-smile of tranquil loveliness, Which the heart worships, glowing on her brow; That smile shall brighten the dim evening star That points our destined tomb, nor e'er depart Till the faint light of life is fled afar, And hushed the last deep beating of the heart; The meteor-bearer of our parting breath, A moon-beam in the midnight cloud of death. PSALM CXXXVII. "By the rivers of Babylon." WE sat us down and wept, Where Babel's waters slept, And we thought of home and Zion as a long-gone, happy dream; We hung our harps in air On the willow boughs, which there, Gloomy as round a sepulchre, were drooping o'er the stream. The foes, whose chain we wore, Were with us on that shore, Exulting in our tears that told the bitterness of woe. 66 Sing us," they cried aloud, "Ye, once so high and proud, "The songs ye sang in Zion ere we laid her glory low." And shall the harp of heaven To Judah's monarch given Be touched by captive fingers, or grace a fettered hand? No! sooner be my tongue Mute, powerless, and unstrung, Than its words of holy music make glad a stranger land. May this right hand, whose skill Can wake the harp at will, And bid the listeners' joys or griefs in light or darkness come, Forget its godlike power, If for one brief, dark hour, My heart forgets Jerusalem, fallen city of my home! |