83 When the princes of Issachar stood by | Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle her side, as when, And the shout of a host in its triumph In love and in meekness, He moved
Our wasted shrines, who weeps for | Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass
Who mourneth for Jerusalem ?
Who turneth from his gains away?
Whose knee with mine is bowed to pray?
Who, leaving feast and purpling cup,
Takes Zion's lamentation up?
A sad and thoughtful youth, I went
With Israel's early banishment;
And where the sullen Chebar crept,
The ritual of my fathers kept.
The water for the trench I drew,
The firstling of the flock I slew,
And, standing at the altar's side,
I shared the Levites' lingering pride,
That still, amidst her mocking foes,
The smoke of Zion's offering rose.
In sudden whirlwind, cloud and flame,
The Spirit of the Highest came !
Before mine eyes a vision passed,
A glory terrible and vast;
With dreadful eyes of living things,
And sounding sweep of angel wings,
With circling light and sapphire throne,
And flame-like form of One thereon,
And voice of that dread Likeness sent
Down from the crystal firmament !
The burden of a prophet's power
Fell on me in that fearful hour;
From off unutterable woes
The curtain of the future rose ;
I saw far down the coming time
The fiery chastisement of crime;
With noise of mingling hosts, and jar
Of falling towers and shouts of war,
I saw the nations rise and fall,
Like fire-gleams on my tent's white
wall.
In dream and trance, I saw the slain
Of Egypt heaped like harvest grain.
I saw the walls of sea-born Tyre
Swept over by the spoiler's fire;
And heard the low, expiring moan
Of Edom on his rocky throne;
And, woe is me! the wild lament
From Zion's desolation sent;
And felt within my heart each blow
Which laid her holy places low.
In bonds and sorrow, day by day,
Before the pictured tile I lay ;
And there, as in a mirror, saw
"oming of Assyria's war,
Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass;
I saw them draw their stormy hem
Of battle round Jerusalem;
And, listening, heard the Hebrew wail
Blend with the victor-trump of Baal!
How stung the Levites' scornful smile,
As o'er my spirit, dark and slow,
The shadow crept of Israel's woe
As if the angel's mournful roll
Had left its record on my soul,
And traced in lines of darkness there
The picture of its great despair!
Yet ever at the hour I feel
My lips in prophecy unseal.
Prince, priest, and Levite gather near,
And Salem's daughters haste to hear,
On Chebar's waste and alien shore,
The harp of Judah swept once more.
They listen, as in Babel's throng
The Chaldeans to the dancer's song,
Or wild sabbeka's nightly play,
As careless and as vain as they.
And thus, O Prophet-bard of old,
Hast thou thy tale of sorrow told!
The same which earth's unwelcome seers
Have felt in all succeeding years.
Sport of the changeful multitude,
Nor calmly heard nor understood,
Their song has seemed a trick of art,
Their warnings but the actor's part.
With bonds, and scorn, and evil will,
The world requites its prophets still.
So was it when the Holy One
The garments of the flesh put on !
Men followed where the Highest led
For common gifts of daily bread,
And gross of ear, of vision dim,
Owned not the godlike power of him.
Vain as a dreamer's words to them
His wail above Jerusalem,
And meaningless the watch he kept
Through which his weak disciples slept.
Yet shrink not thou, whoe'er thou art,
For God's great purpose set apart,
Before whose far-discerning eyes,
The Future as the Present lies!
THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.
Beyond a narrow-bounded age
Stretches thy prophet-heritage,
Through Heaven's dim spaces angel-trod,
Through arches round the throne of
God!
Thy audience, worlds!—all Time to be
The witness of the Truth in thee!
Rank over rank, helm, shield, and spear,
Glittered in noon's hot atmosphere.
I heard their boast, and bitter word,
Their mockery of the Hebrew's Lord,
I saw their hands his ark assail,
Their feet profane his holy veil.
No angel down the blue space spoke,
THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER No thunder from the still sky broke ;
AGAINST the sunset's glowing wall
The city towers rise black and tall,
Where Zorah, on its rocky height,
Stands like an armed man in the light.
Down Eshtaol's vales of ripened grain
Falls like a cloud the night amain,
And up the hillsides climbing slow
The barley reapers homeward go.
But in their midst, in power and awe,
Like God's waked wrath, OUR CHILD I
A child no more! - harsh-browed and
strong,
He towered a giant in the throng,
And down his shoulders, broad and bare,
Swept the black terror of his hair.
He raised his arm; he smote amain
As round the reaper falls the grain,
Look, dearest! how our fair child's head So the dark host around him fell,
The sunset light hath hallowed,
Where at this olive's foot he lies,
Uplooking to the tranquil skies.
O, while beneath the fervent heat
Thy sickle swept the bearded wheat,
I've watched, with mingled joy and
dread,
Our child upon his grassy bed.
Joy, which the mother feels alone
Whose morning hope like mine
flown,
When to her bosom, over-blessed,
A dearer life than hers is pressed.
So sank the foes of Israel !
Again I looked. In sunlight shone
The towers and domes of Askelon.
Priest, warrior, slave, a mighty crowd,
Within her idol temple bowed.
Yet one knelt not; stark, gaunt, and blind,
His arms the massive pillars twined, An eyeless captive, strong with hate, had He stood there like an evil Fate.
The same foreboding awe I felt
When at the altar's side we knelt,
And he, who as a pilgrim came,
Above the shriek, the crash, the groan
Of the fallen pride of Askelon,
Rose, winged and glorious, through the I heard, sheer down the echoing sky,
flame.
A voice as of an angel cry,·
I slept not, though the wild bees made
A dreamlike murmuring in the shade,
And on me the warm-fingered hours
Pressed with the drowsy smell of flowers.
Most freshly from the green wood springs | And, like a young bride crowned with
The light breeze on its scented wings;
And gayly quiver in the sun
The cedar tops of Lebanon !
A few more hours, -a change hath
The sky is dark without a cloud!
The shouts of wrath and joy are dumb,
And proud knees unto earth are
bowed.
A change is on the hill of Death,
The helmed watchers pant for breath,
And turn with wild and maniac eyes
From the dark scene of sacrifice!
That Sacrifice! - the death of Him,
The High and ever Holy One!
Well may the conscious Heaven grow
dim,
And blacken the beholding Sun.
The wonted light hath fled away,
Night settles on the middle day,
And earthquake from his caverned bed
Is waking with a thrill of dread!
The dead are waking underneath!
Their prison door is rent away!
And, ghastly with the seal of death,
They wander in the eye of day!
The temple of the Cherubim,
The House of God is cold and dim ;
A curse is on its trembling walls,
Its mighty veil asunder falls!
Well may the cavern-depths of Earth
Be shaken, and her mountains nod; Well may the sheeted dead come forth To gaze upon a suffering God! Well may the temple-shrine grow dim, And shadows veil the Cherubim, When He, the chosen one of Heaven, A sacrifice for guilt is given! And shall the sinful heart, alone,
Behold unmoved the atoning hour, When Nature trembles on her throne,
And Death resigns his iron power? O, shall the heart whose sinfulness Gave keenness to his sore distress, And added to his tears of blood Refuse its trembling gratitude!
WHERE Time the measure of his hours By changeful bud and blossom keeps,
Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;
Where, to her poet's turban stone,
The Spring her gift of Howers imparts, Less sweet than those his thoughts have
In the warm soil of Persian hearts :
There sat the stranger, where the shade Of scattered date-trees thinly lay, While in the hot clear heaven delayed The long and still and weary day.
Strange trees and fruits above him hung, Strange odors filled the sultry air, Strange birds upon the branches swung, Strange insect voices murmured there.
And strange bright blossoms shone around,
Turned sunward from the shadowy bowers,
As if the Gheber's soul had found
A fitting home in Iran's flowers.
Whate'er he saw, whate'er he heard,
Awakened feelings new and sad,
No Christian garb, nor Christian word,
Nor church with Sabbath-bell chimes
glad,
But Moslem graves, with turban stones, And mosque-spires gleaming white, in view,
And graybeard Mollahs in low tones
Chanting their Koran service through.
The flowers which smiled on either hand,
Like tempting fiends, were such as they
Which once, o'er all that Eastern land, As gifts on demon altars lay.
As if the burning eye of Baal
The servant of his Conqueror knew, From skies which knew no cloudy veil, The Sun's hot glances smote him through.
"Ah me!" the lonely stranger said,
"The hope which led my footsteps on, And light from heaven around them shed,
O'er weary wave and waste, is gone!
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