THEY hear thee not, O God! nor see;
Beneath thy rod they mock at thee;
The princes of our ancient line
Lie drunken with Assyrian wine;
The priests around thy altar speak
The false words which their hearers seek;
And hymns which Chaldea's wanton
maids

Have sung in Dura's idol-shades

Are with the Levites' chant ascending,
With Zion's holiest anthems blending!

On Israel's bleeding bosom set,
The heathen heel is crushing yet;
The towers upon our holy hill
Echo Chaldean footsteps still.

Our wasted shrines, who weeps for them?

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 flams
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
The coming of Assyria's war, —
Her swarthy lines of spearmen pass
Like locusts through Bethhoron's grass;
I saw them draw their stormy hem
Of battle round Jerusalem;

And, listening, heard the Hebrew wait
Blend with the victor-trump of Baal!

Who trembled at my warning word? Who owned the prophet of the Lord? How mocked the rude, how scoffed

the vile,How stung the Levites' scornful smile

A 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 aaughters 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

Ilave 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!
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 !

109

THE WIFE OF MANOAH TO HER HUSBAND.

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.

Look, dearest ! how our fair child's head
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 his
upon

grassy

bed.

No angel down the blue space spoke, No thunder from the still sky broke; But in their midst, in power and awe, Like God's waked wrath, OUR CHILD I saw !

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,
So the dark host around him fell,
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,
He stood there like an evil Fate.

The red shrines smoked,·
pets pealed:

- the trum

He stooped, · reeled, Reeled tower and fane, sank arch and wall,

the giant columns

And the thick dust-cloud closed o'er all!

And gray old men at evening tell
Of all he wrought for Israel.

"And they who sing and they who hear
Alike shall hold thy memory dear,
And pour their blessings on thy head,
O mother of the mighty dead !"

It ceased; and though a sound I heard
As if great wings the still air stirred,
I only saw the barley sheaves
And hills half hid by olive leaves.

I bowed my face, in awe and fear,
On the dear child who slumbered near.
"With me, as with my only son,

O God," I said, THY WILL Bb DONE!"

THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM.

WHERE Time the measure of his hours By changeful bud and blossom keeps, And, like a young bride crowned with flowers,

Fair Shiraz in her garden sleeps;

Where, to her poet's turban stone,

The Spring her gift of flowers imparts, Less sweet than those his thoughts have

sown

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.

He ceased; for at his very feet

In mild rebuke a floweret smiled, How thrilled his sinking heart to greet The Star-flower of the Virgin's child! Sown by some wandering Frank, it drew

Its life from alien air and earth, And told to Paynim sun and dew The story of the Saviour's birth.

From scorching beams, in kindly mood, The Persian plants its beauty screened, And on its pagan sisterhood,

In love, the Christian floweret leaned. With tears of joy the wanderer felt

The darkness of his long despair Before that hallowed symbol melt, Which God's dear love had nurtured there.

From Nature's face, that simple flower The lines of sin and sadness swept; And Magian pile and Paynim bower In peace like that of Eden slept. Each Moslem tomb, and cypress old, Looked holy through the sunset air, And, angel-like, the Muezzin told From tower and mosque the hour of

prayer