Oh! fair and favour'd city, where of old
The balmy airs were rich with melody,
That led her pomp beneath the cloudless sky
In vestments flaming with the orient gold;
Her gold is dim, and mute her music's voice;
The Heathen o'er her perish'd pomp rejoice.
How stately then was every palm-deck'd street,
Down which the maidens danced with tinkling feet!
How proud the elders in the lofty gate!
How crowded all her nation's solemn feasts
With white-robed Levites and high-mitred Priests!
How gorgeous all her Temple's sacred state!
Her streets are razed, her maidens sold for slaves,
Her gates thrown down, her elders in their graves;
Her feasts are holden 'mid the Gentile's scorn,
By stealth her priesthood's holy garments worn;
And where her Temple crown'd the glittering rock,
The wandering shepherd folds his evening flock.
When shall the work, the work of death begin?
When come the avengers of proud Judah's sin?
Aceldama! accursed and guilty ground,
Gird all the city in thy dismal bound;
Her price is paid, and she is sold like thou;
Let every ancient monument and tomb
Enlarge the border of its vaulted gloom,
Their spacious chambers all are wanted now.
But never more shall yon lost city need
Those secret places for her future dead;
Of all her children, when this night is pass'd,
Devoted Salem's darkest, and her last,
Of all her children none is left to her,
Save those whose house is in the sepulchre.
Yet, guilty city, who shall mourn for thee?
Shall Christian voices wail thy devastation?
Look down! look down, avenged Calvary,
Upon thy late yet dreadful expiation.
Oh! long foretold, though slow accomplish'd fate, "Her house is left unto her desolate;"
Proud Cæsar's ploughshare o'er her ruins driven,
Fulfils at length the tardy doom of heaven;
The wrathful vial's drops at length are pour'd
On the rebellious race that crucified their Lord!
From The Fall of Jerusalem.
For thou wert born of woman! thou didst come,
Oh Holiest! to this world of sin and gloom,
Not in thy dread omnipotent array;
And not by thunders strew'd
Was thy tempestuous road;
Nor indignation burnt before thee on thy way.
But thee, a soft and naked child,
Thy mother undefiled,
In the rude manger laid to rest
From off her virgin breast.
The heavens were not commanded to prepare
A gorgeous canopy of golden air;
Nor stoop'd their lamps th' enthroned fires on high:
A single silent star
Came wandering from afar,
Gliding uncheck'd and calm along the liquid sky;
The Eastern Sages leading on
As at a kingly throne,
To lay their gold and odours sweet
Before thy infant feet.
The earth and ocean were not hush'd to hear
Bright harmony from every starry sphere;
Nor at thy presence brake the voice of song
From all the cherub choirs,
And seraphs' burning lyres
Pour'd through the host of heaven the charmed clouds
One angel troop the strain began,
Of all the race of man
By simple shepherds heard alone,
That soft Hosanna's tone.
And when thou didst depart, no car of flame
To bear thee hence in lambent radiance came;
Nor visible angels mourn'd with drooping plumes:
Nor didst thou mount on high
With all thine own redeem'd outbursting from their tombs. For thou didst bear away from earth
But one of human birth,
The dying felon by thy side, to be
In Paradise with thee.
Nor o'er thy cross the clouds of vengeance brake;
A little while the conscious earth did shake
At that foul deed by her fierce children done;
A few dim hours of day
The world in darkness lay;
Then bask'd in bright repose beneath the cloudless sun: While thou didst sleep beneath the tomb,
Consenting to thy doom;
Ere yet the white-robed Angel shone
Upon the sealed stone.
And when thou didst arise, thou didst not stand
With devastation in thy red right hand,
Plaguing the guilty city's murtherous crew;
But thou didst haste to meet
Thy mother's coming feet,
And bear the words of peace unto the faithful few.
Then calmly, slowly didst thou rise.
Into thy native skies,
Thy human form dissolved on high
In its own radiancy.
That yellow wretch, that looks as he were stain'd
With watching his own gold; every one knows him,
Enough to loathe him. Not a friend hath he,
Nor kindred, nor familiar; not a slave,
Not a lean serving wench: nothing e'er enter'd
But his spare self within his jealous doors,
Except a wand'ring rat; and that, they say,
Was famine-struck, and died there.-
Yet he, Bianca, he is of our rich ones.
There's not a galliot on the sea, but bears
A venture of Bartolo's; not an acre,
Nay, not a villa of our proudest princes,
But he hath cramp'd it with a mortgage; he,
He only stocks our prisons with his debtors.
I saw him creeping home last night; he shudder'd
As he unlock'd his door, and look'd around,
As if he thought that every breath of wind
Were some keen thief; and when he lock'd him in,
I heard the grating key turn twenty times,
To try if all were safe. I look'd again
From our high window by mere chance, and saw
The motion of his scanty moping lantern;
And, where his wind-rent lattice was ill stuff'd
With tatter'd remnants of a money-bag,
Through cobwebs and thick dust I spied his face,
Like some dry wither-boned anatomy,
Through a huge chest-lid, jealously and scantily
Uplifted, peering upon coin and jewels,
Ingots and wedges, and broad bars of gold,
Upon whose lustre the wan light shone muddily,
As though the New World had outrun the Spaniard,
And emptied all its mines in that coarse hovel.
His ferret eyes gloated as wanton o'er them,
As a gross satyr on a sleeping nymph;
And then, as he heard something like a sound,
He clapp'd the lid to, and blew out the lantern;
But I, Bianca, hurried to thy arms,
And thank'd my God that I had braver riches.
MERLIN'S CONGRATULATION AT THE MARRIAGE PROCESSION OF VORTIGERN AND ROWENA.
Came it from earth or air, yon savage shape
His garb, if garb it be, of shaggy hair
Close folding o'er his dusky limbs, his locks
And waving matted beard like cypress boughs
On bleak heath swaying to the midnight storm?
Came he from yon deep wood? On the light spray
No leaf is stirring. On the winged winds
Rode he? No breeze awakes the noontide air.
Mid that arm'd throng, dismaying, undismay'd,
With a strange eye dilated, as unused
To common sights of earth, and voice that seem'd
Rarely to hold discourse with human ears,
'Joy," and again, and thrice he utter'd "Joy."
Cower'd Horsa on his palsied steed; aghast,
As toiling to despise the thing he fear'd,
Sate Hengist. "Joy to Bridegroom and to Bride!
Why should not man rejoice, and earth be glad?
Beyond the sphere of man, the round of earth,
There's loud rejoicing; 'tis not in the heavens!
And many ministrant angels shake their wings
In gladness, wings that are not plumed with light.
The dead are jocund, not the dead in bliss.
Your couch is blest-by all whose blessings blast,
All things unlovely gratulate your love.
I see the nuptial pomp, the nuptial song
I hear, and full the pomp, for Hate, and Fear,
And excellent Dishonour, and bright Shame,
And rose-cheek'd Grief, and jovial Discontent,
And that majestic herald, Infamy,
And that high noble, Servitude, are there,
A blithesome troop, a gay and festive crew.
And the land's curses are the bridal hymn;
Sweetly and shrilly doth th' accordant isle
Imprecate the glad hymenean song.
So joy, again, I say, to Britain's King,
That taketh to his bosom Britain's fate,
Her beautiful destruction to his bed.
And joy to Britain's Queen, who bears her Lord
So bright a dowry and profuse, long years
Of war and havoc, and fair streams of blood,
And plenteous ruin, loss of crown and fame,
And full perdition of the immortal soul;
So thrice again I utter, Joy, joy, joy!''
Then upsprung spear to strike, and bicker'd bow:
Ere spear could strike, or shaft could fly, the path
Was bare and vacant; shape nor sound remain'd;
Only the voice of Vortigern moan'd out,
"Merlin," and on the long procession pass'd.
From Samor, Lord of the Bright City.
Man of this world, thou know'st not those who tread
The steps of great Ignatius, those that bear
The name of Jesus and his Cross. I've sunk
For ever title, rank, wealth-even my being;
And self-annihilated, boast myself
|