XI. THY Days are done, thy fame begun; Though thou art fall'n, while we are free- The generous blood that flow'd from thee. Thy spirit on our breath! Thy name, our charging hosts along, XII. SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST WARRIORS and Chiefs! should the shaft or Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, 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, XIII. THOU, whose spell can raise the dead, King, behold the phantom-seer!" Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare: From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame, Like cavern'd winds, the hollow accents Saul saw, came. and fell to earth, as falls the oak, and blasted by the thunder-stroke. "Why is my sleep disquieted? XIV. "ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER." FAME, wisdom, love, and power were mine, I strive to number o'er what days Would lure me to live over. There rose no day, there roll'd no hour The serpent of the field, by art And spells, is won from harming; Nor music's voice can lure 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, 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. 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, Is light and worthless clay. 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. 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 But thou art cold, my murder'd love! 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! 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 And there it stood,-all formless but divine "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!" The triumph, and the vanity, The rapture of the strife- To thee the breath of life; The sword, the sceptre, and that sway All quell'd!- Dark Spirit! what must be The Desolator desolate! The Victor overthrown! That with such change can calmly scope? To die a prince—or live a slave— He who of old would rend the oak, And darker fate hast found: The Roman, when his burning heart The Spaniard, when the lust of sway A strict accountant of his beads, But thou-from thy reluctant hand The thunderbolt is wrung Too late thou leav'st the high command 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, Fair Freedom! we may hold thee dear, In humblest guise have shown. Nor written thus in vain - If thou hadst died as honour dies, Weigh'd in the balance, hero-dust But yet methought the living great Nor deem'd contempt could thus make mirth And She, proud Austria's mournful flower, How bears her breast the torturing hour? Thou throneless Homicide? If still she loves thee, hoard that gem, Then haste thee to thy sullen Isle, Thou Timour! in his captive's cage What thoughts will there be thine, Or like the thief of fire from heaven, |