But when they knock'd for entrance at the tomb,
Their fathers' bones refused to make them room;
Recoiling Nature from their presence fled,

As though a thunder-bolt had smote them dead;
Their cries pursued her with the thrilling plea,
"Give us a little earth for charity!"

She linger'd, listen'd, all her bosom yearn'd,
Through every vein the mother's pulse return'd ;

Then, as she halted on this hill, she threw

Her mantle wide, and loose her tresses flew :

"Live!" to the slain, she cried, "My children,

live!

This for an heritage to you I give;

Had death consumed you by the common lot,

You, with the multitude had been forgot,
Now through an age of ages shall ye not."

Thus Nature spake, and as her echo, I Take up her parable, and prophesy :

K

Here, as from spring to spring the swallows

pass,

Perennial daisies shall adorn the grass;

Here the shrill sky-lark build her annual nest,

And sing in heaven while you serenely rest:

On trembling dew-drops morn's first glance shall

shine,

Eve's latest beams on this fair bank decline,

And oft the rainbow steal through light and

gloom,

To throw its sudden arch across your tomb;

On you the moon her sweetest influence shower,

And every planet bless you in its hour.

With statelier honours still, in time's slow round,

Shall this sepulchral eminence be crown'd,
Where generations long to come shall hail
The growth of centuries waving in the gale,
A forest land-mark on the mountain's head,
Standing betwixt the living and the dead;

Nor while your language lasts, shall traveller cease
To say, at sight of your memorial," Peace!"
Your voice of silence answering from the sod,
"Whoe'er thou art, prepare to meet thy God!"*

* This anticipation is already in the progress of fulfilment ; for not only is the adjacent plantation growing up round the humble enclosure, where three hundred and thirty-nine bodies are interred, but a lofty monumental cross is in the course of erection, to commemorate their sad removal from life, and their strange insulation in death.

THE TOMBS OF THE FATHERS.

The Jews occasionally hold a "Solemn Assembly in the valley of Jehosaphat, the ancient burial-place of Jerusalem. They are obliged to pay a heavy tax for the privilege of thus mourning, in stillness, at the sepulchres of their an

cestors.

PART I.

IN Babylon they sat and wept,

Down by the river's willowy side;

And when the breeze their harp-strings swept,
The strings of breaking hearts replied:

A deeper sorrow now they hide;

No Cyrus comes to set them free

From ages of captivity.

All lands are Babylons to them,

Exiles and fugitives they roam;

What is their own Jerusalem ?

The place where they are least at home! Yet hither from all climes they come ; And pay their gold, for leave to shed

Tears o'er the generations fled.

Around, the eternal mountains stand,
With Hinnom's darkling vale between ;

Old Jordan wanders through the land,
Blue Carmel's sea-ward crest is seen,
And Lebanon yet sternly green

Throws, when the evening sun declines,
Its cedar-shades, in lengthening lines.

But ah! for ever vanish'd hence,

The temple of the living God, Once Zion's glory and defence!