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XI.

THY Days are done, thy fame begun;
Thy country's strains record
The triumphs of her chosen Son,
The slaughters of his sword!
The deeds he did, the fields he won,
The freedom he restored!

Though thou art fall'n, while we are free-
Thou shalt not taste of death!

The generous blood that flow'd from thee.
Disdain'd to sink beneath :
Within our veins its currents be,

Thy spirit on our breath!

Thy name, our charging hosts along,
Shall be the battle-word!
Thy fall, the theme of choral song
From virgin-voices pour'd!
To weep would do thy glory wrong!
Thou shalt not be deplored.

XII.

SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST
BATTLE.

WARRIORS and Chiefs! should the shaft or
the sword

Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord,
Heed not the corse, though a king's, in
your path:
Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath!

Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe,

Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet.

Farewell to others, but never we part,
Heir to my royalty, son of my heart!
Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway;
Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day!

XIII.
SAUL.

THOU, whose spell can raise the dead,
Bid the prophet's form appear.
"Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom-seer!"
Earth yawn'd; he stood the centre of a cloud:
Light changed its hue, retiring from his
shroud.

Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare: From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,

Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents

Saul saw,
At once,

came.

and fell to earth, as falls the oak, and blasted by the thunder-stroke.

"Why is my sleep disquieted?
Who is he that calls the dead?
Is it thou, oh King? Behold,
Bloodless are these limbs, and cold:
Such are mine; and such shall be
Thine, to-morrow, when with me:
Ere the coming day is done,
Such shalt thou be, such thy son.
Fare thee well, but for a day;
Then we mix our mouldering clay.
Thou, thy race, lie pale and low,
Pierced by shafts of many a bow:
And the falchion by thy side
To thy heart thy hand shall guide:
Crownless, breathless, headless fall,
Son and sire, the house of Saul!"

XIV.

"ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER."

FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine,
And health and youth possess'd me;
My goblets blush'd from every vine,
And lovely forms caress'd me;
I sunn'd my heart in beauty's eyes,
And felt my soul grow tender;
All earth can give, or mortal prize,
Was mine of regal splendour.

I strive to number o'er what days
Remembrance can discover,
Which all that life or earth displays

Would lure me to live over.

There rose no day, there roll'd no hour
Of pleasure unembitter'd;
And not a trapping deck'd my power
That gall'd not while it glitter'd.

The serpent of the field, by art

And spells, is won from harming;
But that which coils around the heart,
Oh! who hath power of charming?
It will not list to wisdom's lore,

Nor music's voice can lure it;
But there it stings for evermore
The soul that must endure it.

XV.

Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye; WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, His hand was wither'd and his veins were dry; Ah, whither strays the immortal mind? His foot, in bony whiteness, glitter'd there, | It cannot die, it cannot stay,

But leaves its darken'd dust behind. Then, unembodied, doth it trace

By steps each planet's heavenly way? Or fill at once the realms of space,

A thing of eyes, that all survey?

Eternal, boundless, undecay'd,

A thought unseen, but seeing all,
All, all in earth, or skies display'd,
Shall it survey, shall it recal:
Each fainter trace that memory holds,
So darkly of departed years,
In one broad glance the soul beholds,
And all, that was, at once appears.

Before Creation peopled earth,

Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes,

Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, Fix'd in its own eternity.

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Chaldea's seers are good,

But here they have no skill: And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age

Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw-but knew no more.

A captive in the land,

A stranger and a youth, He heard the king's command, He saw that writing's truth. The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night,The morrow proved it true.

"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom pass'd away,
He in the balance weigh'd,

Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud, his robe of state,
His canopy, the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!

The Persian on his throne!"

XVII.

SUN of the Sleepless! melancholy star! Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel, How like art thou to joy remember'd well! So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;

A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold, Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!

XVIII.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deemst it to be,

I need not have wander'd from far Galilee; It was but abjuring my creed to efface The curse which, thou sayst, is the crime of my race.

If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!

If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know;

In his hand is my heart and my hope-and

in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

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on that mountain I stood on that day,

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. But I mark'd not the twilight-beam melting

Он, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;

Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading : Ah, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

And is she dead?—and did they dare
Obey my phrensy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair:
The sword that smote her 's o'er me
waving.-

But thou art cold, my murder'd love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving
For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earn'd those tortures well, Which unconsumed are still consuming!

XX.

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome

I beheld thee, oh SION! when render'd to Rome: 'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,

And forgot for a moment my bondage tocome; I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane, And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I

gazed

Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed; While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

away; Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,

And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!

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For the Angel of Death spread his wings | And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; on the blast, And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by

And breathed in the face of the foe as he

pass'd;

And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill,

And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!

And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,

But through it there roll'd not the breath of his pride:

And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,

And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.

And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;

And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,

The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.

And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,

the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!

XXIII.

FROM JOB.

A SPIRIT pass'd before me: I beheld
The face of Immortality unveil❜d—
Deep sleep came down on every eye save
mine-

And there it stood,-all formless but divine
Along my bones the creeping flesh did quake;
And as my damp hair stiffen'd, thus it spake:

"Is man more just than God? Is mas more pure

Than he who deems even Seraphs insecure? Creatures of clay-vain dwellers in the dust! The moth survives you,and are ye more just? Things of a day! you wither ere the night, Heedless and blind to Wisdom's wasted light!"

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The triumph, and the vanity,

The rapture of the strife-
The earthquake-shout of Victory,

To thee the breath of life;

The sword, the sceptre, and that sway
Which man seem'd made but to obey,
Wherewith renown was rife-

All quell'd!- Dark Spirit! what must be
The madness of thy memory!

The Desolator desolate!

The Victor overthrown!
The Arbiter of others' fate
A Suppliant for his own!
Is it some yet imperial hope

That with such change can calmly scope?
Or dread of death alone?

To die a prince—or live a slave—
Thy choice is most ignobly brave!

He who of old would rend the oak,
Dream'd not of the rebound;
Chain'd by the trunk he vainly broke,
Alone-how look'd he round? -
Thou, in the sternness of thy strength
An equal deed hast done at length,

And darker fate hast found:
He fell, the forest-prowlers' prey;
But thou must eat thy heart away!

The Roman, when his burning heart
Was slaked with blood of Rome,
Threw down the dagger-dared depart,
In savage grandeur, home.
He dared depart, in utter scorn
Of men that such a yoke had borne,
Yet left him such a doom!
His only glory was that hour
Of self-upheld abandon'd power.

The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;

A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot's shrine, nor despot's throne.

But thou-from thy reluctant hand

The thunderbolt is wrung

Too late thou leav'st the high command
To which thy weakness clung;
All Evil Spirit as thou art,

It is enough to grieve the heart,

To see thine own unstrung;

To think that God's fair world hath been The footstool of a thing so mean;

And Earth hath spilt her blood for him,
Who thus can hoard his own!
And Monarchs bow'd the trembling limb,
And thank'd him for a throne!

Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear,
When thus thy mightiest foes their fear

In humblest guise have shown.
Oh! ne'er may tyrant leave behind
A brighter name to lure mankind!
Thine evil deeds are writ in gore,

Nor written thus in vain -
Thy triumphs tell of fame no more,
Ör deepen every stain.

If thou hadst died as honour dies,
Some new Napoleon might arise,
To shame the world again-
But who would soar the solar height,
To set in such a starless night?

Weigh'd in the balance, hero-dust
Is vile as vulgar clay;
Thy scales, Mortality! are just
To all that pass away;

But yet methought the living great
Some higher sparks should animate,
To dazzle and dismay;

Nor deem'd contempt could thus make mirth
Of these, the Conquerors of the earth!

And She, proud Austria's mournful flower,
Thy still imperial bride;

How bears her breast the torturing hour?
Still clings she to thy side?
Must she too bend, must she too share
Thy late repentance, long despair,

Thou throneless Homicide?

If still she loves thee, hoard that gem,
'Tis worth thy vanish'd diadem!

Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle,
And gaze upon the sea;
That element may meet thy smile,
It ne'er was ruled by thee!
Or trace with thine all idle hand,
In loitering mood, upon the sand,
That Earth is now as free!
That Corinth's pedagogue hath now
Transferr'd his by-word to thy brow.

Thou Timour! in his captive's cage

What thoughts will there be thine,
While brooding in thy prison'd rage?
But one "The world was mine:"
Unless, like he of Babylon,
All sense is with thy sceptre gone,
Life will not long confine
That spirit pour'd so widely forth-
So long obey'd-so little worth!

Or like the thief of fire from heaven,
Wilt thou withstand the shock?
And share with him, the unforgiven,
His vulture and his rock!
Foredoom'd by God-by man accurst,
And that last act, though not thy worst,
The very Fiend's arch mock;
He in his fall preserved his pride,
And, if a mortal, had as proudly died!

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