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 EGYPT. 
 
 % Btnionmx "Bxm 'Bomx. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN MASON NEALE, M.A. 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINTTy COLLEGE, 
 
 DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 
 T. J. PALMER, EAST GRINSTED. 
 J. MASTERS, LONDON. 
 
 M.DCCC.LVITI.
 
 Cumbvlbge ; 
 
 PRINTED BY J. PAI.MEE, SIDNEY STREET.
 
 
 ADYERTISEMENT. 
 
 "The Rev. Thojias Seaton, M.A., late Fello^y of Clare Hall, be- 
 queathed to the University (in 1738) the rents of his Kislingbuiy estate, 
 now producing clear £40. per annum, to be given yearly to that Master of 
 Arts who shall write the best English Poem on a sacred siibject. The 
 Vice-Chancellor, the Master of Clare HaU, and the Greek Professor (who 
 are the disposers of this premium), determine the subject, which is de- 
 livered out in Januaiy, and the Poem is to be sent to the Vice-Chancellor 
 on or before the 29th of September following. The Poem is to be printed, 
 and the expense deducted out of the product of the estate : the remainder 
 is given as a reward to the composer." 
 
 Cambridge, November 2nd, 1858. 
 
 The above PEEiiircrM was this year awarded to the Reverend 
 John Mason JSTeale, IT.A., of Trinity College. 
 
 HENRY PHILPOTT, Vice-Chancellor. 
 EDWARD ATKINSON, Master of Clare College. 
 W. HEP WORTH THOMPSON, Greek Professor.
 
 EGYPT. 
 1. 
 
 A MIDNIGHT, such as ne'er before 
 
 Was writ on history's page; 
 To be proclaimed from shore to shore, 
 
 And sung from age to age ! 
 Along each dim historic line 
 Of giant statues, half divine. 
 That lead toward the midmost shrine 
 
 Of Egypt's sleeping kings, 
 A fierce, wild gleam is on the air; 
 The tramp of gathering hosts is there ; 10 
 
 The torch glows out with mm-ky glare. 
 And over many a forming square 
 
 Unearthly radiance flings. 
 For not with banner, not with shout, 
 
 No warrior's pomp nor pride, 
 At midnight did the LORD go out, 
 
 And Egypt's first-born died ! 
 
 O past the power of human speech, 
 
 Past utterance of the song to teach, — 
 
 How those granitic temples rise 20 
 
 And gloom athwart the quiet skies; 
 
 The moon, a pale and sickly disk,
 
 EC4YPT. 
 
 Looks down upon each obelisk, 
 
 And throws a shadow, gaunt and dun, 
 
 O'er lines of kingly Anakim : 
 
 O'er human pomp and human pride, 
 
 And human passions deified : 
 
 All so unearthly, all so vast, 
 
 All breathing of the mighty past. 
 
 Here is the chieftain's latest bed 30 
 
 Of old heroic story ; 
 The monarch, midst the monarch-dead, 
 
 Reposes in his glory. 
 
 3. 
 
 But not with warrior's pomp and boast 
 
 They marshal now, the midnight host: 
 
 Far as the plots of verdure smile 
 
 Down the green valley of the Nile, 
 
 No cot, but on tlie midnight gale 
 
 Pours out its grief, lifts up its wail; 40 
 
 None, where the hot tear is not shed 
 
 Upon the loved and first-born dead. 
 
 In vain, poor mother, dost thou strive 
 
 To keep that little spark alive : 
 
 The Lord of Life, the Lord of Death 
 
 Claims, for no fault of thine, his breath. 
 
 It is that Egypt may be bent 
 
 Before the King omnipotent: 
 
 It is that Pharaoh's chiefs may own 
 
 Jehovah GoD, and Him alone. 
 
 In vain to strive, in vain to flee 50 
 
 Thy king's resistless Foe: 
 * I reck not of the Lord,' said he, 
 
 ' And Israel shall not go :'
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 The nation quails before tlie stroke 
 The monarch's madness dared provoke. 
 
 Oh vainly warned! when Nile's great flood 
 
 Rolled, — miracle of fear ! — with hlood : 
 
 When league past league, on either shore, 
 
 Came ripples, thick with clotted gore. 
 
 As if in vengeance on their foes 60 
 
 The murdered innocents arose. 
 
 Oh who may paint that fearful sky 
 
 When clouds grew dark, and winds grew high, 
 
 The day when threatened judgment came 
 
 In sheets of mingled hail and flame ! 
 
 Upon the tender crop it drove. 
 
 That sleet of solid ice; 
 It shattered, in the idol-grove, 
 
 The gods of man's device : 
 All through the cavern's dim profound 70 
 
 Echoed that thunder's mighty sound ; 
 And pealed and pealed again its roar 
 Through sepulchre and corridor. 
 Oh fearful judgment from on high 
 
 With unresisted sway! 
 The LOED is fighting from on high 
 
 Against the sons of clay. 
 
 Day comes again : but such a morn 
 
 From Eastern clouds was never horn, 
 
 As when, from Afric's torrid sand, 80 
 
 The desert-swarms, a monster hand. 
 
 Came pouring o'er that cursed land,
 
 8 EGYPT. 
 
 That miserable race:' 
 With eyes that sparkled living fire, 
 Monsters unknown and portents dire, 
 
 Came hmiying on apace. 
 Such visions, in the dead of night, 
 Crowd o'er the sick man's aching sight, 
 And, as he longs for morning light. 
 
 In feverish dreams have place. 90 
 
 God, Whom all things serve alike, 
 How many ways hast Thou to strike ! 
 How many means to overthrow 
 And gi-ind to dust Thy strongest foe! 
 
 6. 
 
 On Goshen's land the morning broke 
 
 In light, and life, and beauty; 
 And blithely Goshen's sons awoke 
 
 To toil in that day's duty : 
 Upon the ripples of the Nile 
 
 The Eastern sunbeams twinkled; 100 
 
 And from the pasture-land the while 
 
 The merry sheep-bells tinkled; 
 In all its glory flowed along 
 
 The old majestic river; 
 And thanks arose in prayer and song. 
 
 To that day's Lord and Giver : 
 The voice of children at the tank, — 
 
 The shout of honest labour, — 
 The feet that turned the water-crank 
 
 * Eeference is made to tlie tradition of the Jews, corroborated by the Book 
 of Wisdom, (xvi. 3) that the stvarms of Exod. viii. 20 were swarms of beasts, 
 not oi Jlics.
 
 EGYPT. 9 
 
 Cheered up by pipe and tabor: 110 
 
 The work goes on, the sport proceeds 
 
 So gaily and so brightly; 
 No insect skims, o'er water-weeds, 
 
 ]\Iore merrily and lightly. 
 
 7. 
 
 Anguish, terror, woe and eiTor, 
 
 Over Zoan's people shed: 
 Desolation fills the nation, 
 
 'Tis a city of the dead; 
 All is fearful, all is lonely; 
 
 Darkness, utter darkness only ! 120 
 
 Darkness, ink-like, pitchy darkness, 
 
 Darkness making hearts to melt; 
 Awful darkness, outer darkness, 
 
 Darkness such as may be felt. 
 
 Nature's self seems past and o'er, 
 
 Darkness, darkness evermore. 
 
 10. 
 
 O hardened heart, that still provokes 
 
 The Great Avenger's ceaseless strokes ! 
 
 The terror of nine plagues is past : 
 
 And yet remains the worst and last. 130 
 
 One fate on palace and on hall. 
 
 On cottage and on shed: 
 The firstborn stay and hope of all 
 
 In one great night lies dead ! 
 Such night as never was before, 
 Such night as never shall be more. 
 Now Israel's ransomed tribes may go. 
 Themselves thrust out in Egypt's woe:
 
 10 EGYPT. 
 
 God bids : the miglity East wind blows 
 
 The Red sea wave to sever; 140 
 
 — This morn may ye bchokl your foes, — 
 But not again for ever! 
 
 11. 
 
 I tell not now the glorious niglit 
 
 That saw Jeshurun's victor-flight : 
 
 How on each side the sea stood high 
 
 A rampart, azm-e as the sky : 
 
 Above, — the light waves rippling hoary, — 
 
 Beneath, — that wall's crystalline glory. 
 
 Six hundred thousand chosen men 150 
 
 Entered, at eve, that horrid glen : 
 
 The cloudy pillar went before, 
 
 The Lord's sure guide from shore to shore: 
 
 While frenzied now, but unsubdued. 
 
 All Egypt, man and horse, pursued. 
 
 Nor tell I how, as on they wind, 
 
 At midnight came the cloud behind, 
 
 And cast unutterable woe 
 
 Of terror on the advancing foe : 
 
 And poured a radiance calm and bright 160 
 
 O'er Israel, as on festal night. 
 
 The monarch's heart with terror reels. 
 
 Shrink back in awe the brave : 
 The Lord struck off their chariot wheels 
 
 That heavily they drave; 
 Then, echoed by the stone-like sea. 
 Rose the wild outcry, — 'Let us flee!' 
 Too late! too late! O man of God, 
 Stretch out once more the mystic rod! 
 In vain they bend their backward way, 170
 
 EGYPT. 11 
 
 In vain retreat endeavour ; 
 Them Israel may behold to-day, 
 But not again for ever. 
 
 12. 
 
 The battle hath been fought and won ; 
 
 The Lord hath dealt the blow : 
 And gladly towards the rising sun 
 
 The ransomed people go : 
 And many a year and many an age 
 Sweeps over Zoan's heritage, 
 
 And many a chief of fame is hid 180 
 
 Within the awful pyramid ; 
 But still, through circling times, the priests 
 Serve ancient gods with ancient feasts ; 
 And worship still with honour due 
 Osiris and his demon crew. 
 Meanwhile Juda3a's prophet-lays 
 Foretel their fall in coming days ; 
 And Mede and Persian from afar 
 Cry on the chace and urge the war 
 With battle-axe and scymetar 190 
 
 'Gainst Egypt's rites divine : 
 Down with the giant forms of old, 
 Monarch and god together rolled : 
 Nor spoil of gems, nor bribe of gold. 
 
 Can save each idol-shrine. 
 Morning may rise with purple wings ; 
 
 But never more shall float 
 The sound which sun-touched Mcmnon flings, 
 
 That sweet mysterious note : 
 For shrine and temple are defaced 200 
 
 In undistinguishable waste.
 
 12 EGYPT. 
 
 13. 
 
 Let those who list it, rather sing 
 
 The pride of Egypt's second spring : 
 
 When buried learning rose again, 
 
 And poets struck the venal strain ; 
 
 And girt with many a princely quay 
 
 Fair Alexandria ruled the sea ; 
 
 Until her merchant flag was furled 
 
 Before the Empress of the world : 
 
 And Egypt felt the destined fate 210 
 
 A patriarch's voice had spoke; 
 And stooping from her princely state 
 
 Received a victor's yoke : 
 Long had that doom been writ above, 
 When all the world was lost for love. 
 
 14. 
 
 T rather turn from scenes like this 
 
 To Him Whose woe hath wrought om* bliss: 
 
 Who left that high eternal throne 
 
 To share our mortal lot : 
 And when He came amidst His own 220 
 
 His own received Him not. 
 For not alone in Canaan's land 
 
 His blessed Footsteps trod : 
 But Egypt's old benighted strand 
 
 Received the coming God. 
 No herald hastened to proclaim 
 And blaze abroad His mighty name; 
 No gathering crowds did honour meet, 
 And bowed them down before His Feet; 
 An Infant snatched from blood and strife 230 
 
 Seeks for the exile's wretched life:
 
 EGYPT. 13 
 
 But never yet did nation bring 
 
 Such welcome to a victor king:.^ 
 
 He passed the boundary of the Land — 
 
 She knew her Sovereign well : 
 In every shrine from strand to strand 
 
 The idol reel'd and fell: 
 Their reign is o'er, their work is done : 
 * From Egypt have I called My Son ! ' 
 
 15. 
 
 Arm of the Lord that wast mighty of yore, 240 
 
 What! is the day of thy victories o'er? 
 
 Egypt and Egypt's innnmerous force, 
 
 Monarch and warrior, rider and horse, 
 
 Dared in the steps of Thy people to tread, — 
 
 Sank in the mighty abysses as lead ! 
 
 Fiercer than Pharaoh the monarch that now 
 
 Bids to his idols Thine Israel bow : 
 
 Come to their succour, Gou, as of old!^ 
 
 Wilt Thou not fight for the sheep of Thy fold? 
 
 Let not him, counting our gain to be loss, 250 
 
 Spurn at the Monarch Who died on the Cross : 
 
 God of all victory! rise and lay low 
 
 As in the days of past ages, tlic foe I 
 
 16. 
 
 He wills not, as in other days, 
 Such trophies of His might to raise : 
 Anotlier war must now be tried, 
 
 I Allusion is made to the legend that, when our Lord entered the land of 
 Egypt, every idol fcU prostrate in its temple. 
 
 - The following lines refer to the Tenth Persecution, which raged, perhaps, 
 with greater fury in Egypt, than in any other part of the world.
 
 14 EGYPT. 
 
 O follower of the Crucified! 
 
 This is the triunipli thou must win, 
 
 To suffer, rather than to sin. 
 
 All pangs to bear, all woes to dare, 260 
 
 To yield thy lingering breath, 
 And with the Son of God to sliare 
 
 The liighcst victory. Death ! 
 
 17. 
 
 Thou canst not, impotent of heart, 
 Tax as thou wilt thy demon-art, 
 So much inflict, as, be thou sure, 
 A Christian Martyr will endure. 
 Go ! bid the theatre be dcck'd 
 
 As for a festal day, — 
 And try thou, if the Lord's elect 270 
 
 Thy mandate will obey : 
 Go ! toummon round the Caesar's Throne 
 
 Thy chosen ones to bend; 
 The God of Hosts is with His own, 
 
 And will be to the end. 
 Command each cursed engine near, — • 
 A woman shews no woman's fear; 
 The child a sea of pain may stem 
 For that eternal diadem : 
 
 They well may shame and woe despise 280 
 
 Who have a mansion in the skies. 
 
 18. 
 
 The legend was told in the days of old. 
 
 How the fifty wise men met; 
 And in strength divine, Saint Katherine 
 
 Was before the tribunal set.
 
 EGYPT. 15 
 
 And she spake of the gods, (if gods they "be, 
 
 Whom we neither may love nor fear,) 
 That have eyes indeed, but cannot see, 
 
 That have ears but cannot hear: 
 And their power and their hate we may well contemn 
 
 Who can neither do good nor ill; 291 
 
 And they that make them are like to them, 
 
 In spite of their boasted skill : 
 How the Ccesar raged at his own defeat, 
 
 And called for the flame and the steel; 
 And bade them bind her hands and feet 
 
 Upon the tormenting wheel ; 
 But the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled. 
 
 By the God of judgment sent, 
 And the fire descended, as once of old, 300 
 
 And the wheel in pieces rent; 
 And beautiful angels came down from on high, 
 
 As in death she calmly lay, 
 And bare her corpse to Mount Sinai 
 
 In Arabia far away : 
 And they laid her within the rock-hewn cave. 
 
 For the days of her strife were o'er: 
 And the church that arose above that grave 
 
 Shall be famous evermore ! 
 
 19. 
 
 Thus saith the legend that we deem 310 
 
 A lovely and a pious dream ; 
 
 But this I doubt not — Angels' love 
 
 Conveys them from the realm above, 
 
 To succour those who nobly die 
 
 A sacrifice to God on high : 
 
 And doubly glorious, doubly blest 
 
 Are they who take tlie martyr's rest.
 
 16 EGYPT. 
 
 20. 
 
 Yes : and Avitli many a martyr's fate 
 
 Was Egypt's country dedicate.* 
 
 They fled to many a cave and den, 320 
 
 To many a waste and wild ; 
 They trod in many an unknown glen, 
 
 — The mother and her child : 
 And then they laid them down to sleep 
 
 The sleep that hath no ending; 
 And there were none to wail and weep 
 
 Beside their bed attending: 
 The lip of infants vainly pressed 
 And marvelled at the clay-cold breast, 
 Until the soul, so free from stain, 330 
 
 So loving and so tender. 
 That dear, dear mother joined again 
 
 In heaven's eternal splendour. 
 
 21. 
 
 O day of woe ! O fearful loss 
 
 When to the Crescent bowed the Cross! 
 
 When Islam's swarms spread far and wide 
 
 Where Athanasius toiled and died ; 
 
 And bade the foul impostor teach 
 
 Where Cyril's lips were wont to preach. 
 
 From Europe pour'd, in endless tide, 340 
 
 The followers of the Crucified, 
 
 And three times battling, three times foiled, 
 
 At length for Zoan's land they toiled. 
 
 ' For the multitude of those who fled into the desert from the Egyi^tian 
 persecution, and there perished, see Emebius, H. E. viii. 13.
 
 EGYPT. 17 
 
 Thej marshall 'neath the saintly king 
 
 Who rules his happy France;^ 
 It is a glorious gathering 
 
 Of pennon and of lance : 
 So brave and loving is that soul, 
 So noble in its self-control, 
 
 So snowy pure, that it may be 350 
 
 Well emblemed by its fleur-de-lys. 
 And Islam's sons are gathering fast. 
 And Islam's shout is on the blast; 
 And Almoadan's royal brow 
 With fear and woe is furrowed now : 
 And either chief his battle sets 
 In front of Cairo's minarets. 
 
 22. 
 
 The long, long day went wearily; 
 
 The long, long night went drearily : 
 
 Upon each tent, from the hot sky sent, 360 
 
 The sunbeams fell intensely : 
 Above the camp the evening damp 
 
 And fever-fog rose densely : 
 With the stagnant wave the canal was foul 
 
 That the Christian army bounded ; 
 And at night the screech of the sad screech-owl 
 
 O'er the Christian army sounded : 
 When the sun went down o'er the waste of brown, 
 
 In mingled sand and cloud. 
 There were forms, men said, of woe and dread, 370 
 
 Of coffin and hearse and shroud : 
 
 ' Reference is made to the Crusade of S. Louis, and its admirable description 
 by the Sieur dc Joinville. 
 
 c
 
 18 EGYPT. 
 
 Then stalked the plague from tent to tent 
 Throughout the Christian armament : 
 A plague by fetid marshes sown, 
 A phague by human skill unknown, 
 A plague that sapped, by slow deeay, 
 Each power of life and soul away : 
 And bred, where'er its anguish ran, 
 Corruption in the living man. 
 
 23. 
 
 O king! The King of kings denies 380 
 
 That Cairo's towers shall be thy prize : 
 Tliis be tliy triinnph, — to endure 
 
 Unmoved, thy tribulations ; 
 This be thy victory, — to ensure 
 
 God's own blest crown of patience : 
 Unsway'd by proffered rope or sword, 
 Unless the Prophet be adored ; 
 By threat of torture vainly tried 
 Except thou spurn the Crucified. 
 Think not the foe can e'er prevail, 390 
 
 Albeit as victor greeted; 
 Think not, although thy battles fail, 
 
 That thou canst be defeated! 
 
 24. 
 
 In westering clouds the sun is hid ; 
 
 Eve gathers round the pyramid : 
 
 The twilight flings a parting smile 
 
 Upon the broad and glorious Nile : 
 
 The sunset breezes rise, and shed 
 
 Soft music from the palm-tree's head ; 
 
 And one light boat with sail and oar 400 
 
 Hath crossed the stream and gained the shore.
 
 EGYPT. 19 
 
 — Yes : nowhere else can evening cast 
 
 Such great reflections of the past, 
 
 As where she glimmered round the path 
 
 Of Joseph and of Asenath ; 
 
 Bade Israel's children cease from toil, 
 
 Or saw them rich with Pharaoh's spoil. 
 
 — 'Tis gone and o'er. I would the strain 
 
 That hath call'd up the past again, 
 
 And told of that Almighty Hand 410 
 
 So oft stretched out on Zoan's strand, 
 
 And tried, too boldly, to relate 
 
 Each change and chance of human fate, 
 
 Were worthier, land of GoD ! to be 
 
 A record of the past and thee!
 
 A further Prize of Twenty Founds ivas adjudged to tlie 
 following Poem hy the same ivriter.
 
 EGYPT. 
 
 MoNAECH of ages, the First and the Last, Whose measureless vision 
 
 Joining the Past and the Futiu-e in one, (where as infinite rivers. 
 
 Here, in a moment of time, theu' two eternities mingle,) 
 
 This by Thy Saints hast writ, and that by Thy Prophets foretellest ; 
 
 Oh what a moment of time, what a brief-told span of existence 
 
 Thou hast appointed for man ! Though he mete out the path of the comet. 
 
 Measure the depths of the sea, and number the stars of the heaven, 
 
 Triumph o'er time, and annihilate space ! If his years Thou hast shortened 
 
 Since their duration at fii'st, 'twas not harshly, God, nor severely ; — 
 
 "WTio in the passage to Life, (for what is this life but a passage 
 
 Out of the storm into calm, to our own dear Country from exile. 
 
 Into the region of joy from the kingdom of sorrow,) would linger? 
 
 There is the goal of our race, the reward and the end of our contest ; 
 
 There is the happy array of the souls made perfect through suffering : 
 
 There is the realm where tempests are not, — where Paradise blossoms. 
 
 Where God's Noon is eternal, and God's own Spring everlasting. 
 
 Oh how they beckon us on, — those former and earthly companions 
 
 Who have put off the corruptible now, and assumed the eternal, — 
 
 Oh how they call us away from this earth's poor lures and enticements. 
 
 Perishing when at the brightest, no sooner enjoyed than departed ! 
 
 This is the voice of their love, as they point to the infinite futiu-e, 
 
 — " Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the First Eesurrection !"
 
 24 EGYPT. 
 
 Yet "would I ftiin, — (for autumnal repose and the glory of sunset 
 Call back tlie years that arc gone in thoughts not gloomy but solemn,) 
 No"sv that, a monarch iu death, the great sun draws to his setting, 
 Decking the earth with his beauty and kindling the sky with his splendour, 
 Fain would I turn to the realm of the past ; that marvellous kingdom 
 Where, when the midnight shall come, this day, now dying in beauty. 
 Shall, in the grave of years, be written for ever and ever. — 
 What is the line of monarchs that, far as can history venture. 
 Looms on th' horizon, a band so ghost-like and shadowy — monarchs 
 Passing in godlike array athwart the shadows that cradle 
 Time in his awful departure from out of eternity's bosom ? 
 Mighty indeed that race, and mighty its memories, rising 
 In the green vale of the Nile, the dead midst the living around them : 
 Temples august in their granite, and calm great obelisks, soaring 
 Up from the earth and its din, and statues, huge and majestic. 
 Statues of deified monarchs, or king-like gods, may I name them ? 
 There is his last long sleep, the Chief and the Priest and the Father, 
 Heart of the shrine and its worship : himself in cornice and passage. 
 Trampling the proud in his wrath, or raising the meek in his mercy : 
 There in the pillar sublime, the lawgiver seated in judgment 
 Executes justice for all : there lastly, as earth is departing. 
 Gently received by the gods as a god, was his earthly entombment. 
 Spring should come down on the fields, and summer should fade into autumn, 
 Thousand fold thousands of times, (so intended the skill of the builder,) 
 While, in the midst of the shrine, undisturbed, untended, decayless, 
 Sleeping the infinite sleep, the monarch reposed in his glory. 
 None should behold those walls, none gaze on the wUd decorations. 
 Sacred to silence and night, till the king should awake from his slumbers, 
 Then, when the earth and sky should be mingled together in ruin. 
 Who hath o'erthrown those temples ? Who scattered in measureless fragments
 
 EGYPT. 25 
 
 Idol, and pillar and sphinx, into heaps of eternal confusion, 
 
 Dashing the statues of kings into grinning deformity, mingling 
 
 Granite, and marble, and clay "with the fierce wild sweep of a whirlwind ? 
 
 Tremble, ye idols of Egypt ! The mighty avenger approaches : 
 
 Tremble, ye priests of the stock and the stone ; let them rise, let them save yon. 
 
 If they have ears for yoiu- prayers, if victims and hymns be availing ! 
 
 Where are the soldiers of yore ? Let the long, long lines of the archers 
 
 Stand in the front of the war; let them shoot, as they shot at Mcgiddo,' 
 
 "^Mien to the grave of his youth they hurried the ruler of Sion, 
 
 Him that was faithful alone in a faithless and ill generation. 
 
 Yainly they marshal for battle : the shout of the Mede and the Persian 
 
 Daunting each spirit, and chilling each sense, grows louder and louder : 
 
 Bel boweth dovm to his fate, and Nebo stoopeth to ruin. 
 
 Laden with gold and with jewels the camels are treading the desert. 
 
 Weary with those vast loads of capital, cornice and pillar, 
 
 Destined to serve in the victor's abode. Hence, ruin on ruin ; 
 
 Hence, when the sun sinks low, and the purple and African desert 
 
 Glows as the steel on the anvil, — the long slant rays of the sunbeam, 
 
 ^Mom-nftiUy gilding the ruin, makes sadder the sad desolation. 
 
 Music is hushed in those halls ; the voice of the bride and the bridegroom 
 
 Never shall echo again ; no light of a candle shall glimmer ; 
 
 Ecasts of the desert are there, and owls in their desolate places. 
 
 Marvellous still is the scene, though its youth and its strength have departed : 
 
 Man may pass by and his works, but the flow of the stream is eternal :^ 
 
 Cradled in silence, and lapped in obscurity, ouAvard and onward 
 
 Winding or forcing its way through dim and impassable mountains, 
 
 ' 2 Chron. xxxv. 22, 23. 
 
 2 immota labascunt ; 
 
 Et quae pcrpetuo sunt agitata, manent. 
 
 Janus Vitalis.
 
 26 EGYPT. 
 
 Peaks unknown and unti'oddcn, mysterious Croplii tind Mophi/ 
 
 Then, in convulsion and jar, witli writhing and feverish waters, 
 
 Struggling and panting along, where the catai'act, wonderful portal, 
 
 Opens its beautiful way through the fair green valley of Egypt. 
 
 Egypt, unchanged and unchangeable land ! since the days of thy glory 
 
 Oil what mutation of earth, what rise and extinction of nations ! 
 
 There where the forest primeval was stretched, with the gnarl of its branches 
 
 Shadowing acre on acre, a deep green ocean of verdure, 
 
 Commerce hath wedded together the flame and the water, combining 
 
 City and city in one ; and with more than the speed of the lightning 
 
 Darting, o'er mountain and vale, the thought and the word and the action. 
 
 There, by the deep sea-shore, where was nought but the wearisome ripple. 
 
 Hour after hour, of the wave, and the lonesome scream of the sea-gull, 
 
 Now is the clang of the dock, the voice of the mallet and hammer. 
 
 Clamping and clenching the planks that shall ride the queen of the ocean. 
 
 Thou wast the same, land of the past ! thy obelisks pointed 
 
 Up to the noontide sun, — thy sphinxes, in terrible beauty. 
 
 Guarded the shrine and its gate, when Ishmael's merchantmen entered 
 
 Bearing their spices and myrrh, and leading the captive and bondman, 
 
 Him that was sold from the pit in the distant valley of Dothan. 
 
 Sti'ong in the strength of thy Gon, be faithful amidst the unfaithful ; 
 
 Bear yet awhile that dungeon ! A mightier captive than thou art, 
 
 Sufi^ers in type with thee ; He is taken from prison and judgment, 
 
 Yet in the end to the throne, the eternal throne is exalted ! 
 
 — Beautiful season of old, when down and valley and hillside 
 Yielded a place for his flocks, while the great oak, stretching her branches 
 Over the greensward round, was the Patriarch's home for a season. 
 
 ' Herodotus, II. 28. fiera^v 2v7]vr)s ts TrdXtos Kiifxeva ttjs ©rj^d'i^os, Sv6 ovpett, koX 
 'E\e</)aj'TiV7js- ovvofiara Se ehai roicn ovjieai, tgS (.Ckv, Kpaxpi, t(c S4, Mitxpi.
 
 EGYPT. 27 
 
 Here was the light tent pitch' d, the earth gave treasure of -water : 
 
 Here was the altar erected to God : while pastoral princes 
 
 Came with their proffer of peace, and knelt at the shrine of El-Bethel.^ 
 
 Now for awhile farewell to the plain of beautiful Canaan : 
 
 God hath commanded, Advance ! O'er the earth the famine is raging ; 
 
 Only in Zoan is food : and with visions of peace and of plenty 
 
 Happier tidings arrive, — too happy at first for reception, 
 
 ' Joseph is yet alive ; is alive, and is Lord over Egypt ! ' 
 
 Bravely the brave old man goes forth with the tribes of the future : 
 
 Casting his all upon God, Whose word is his light and his waymark 
 
 Now, as in years long past : ' for certainly I will be with Thee ; 
 
 ' I will go down with thy steps, and again will bring thee to Canaan.' 
 
 Thus, when an evening of calm, succeeding the day of the tempest, 
 
 Pours through the rifts of the clouds the marvellous glory of sunset, 
 
 Gilding each hard dark edge, and melting the mist into silver, 
 
 Then earth sends to the sky her great oblation of incense ; 
 
 Sparkles the tree and the flower; the birds chant gladly their Yespcrs; 
 
 Greener the green mead glows, more azure the blue of the aether : — 
 
 Thus is the calm fair end of a life so chequered with chances. 
 
 Now o'er the waste of the sand he beholds the pyramids gleaming; 
 
 Now is enwrapped in those dear, dear arms : now Goshen the happy, 
 
 Goshen the best of the land, the home of the future, is round him. 
 
 Tear after year rolls on ; the little ones bloom into youthhood, 
 
 Youth into man's ripe strength, and the full ripe vigour of manhood 
 
 Melts into eld : while still, the Prince and the Priest of his people, 
 
 Jacob awaits his call ; and expects the repose of the righteous. 
 
 "When shall the time draw nigh, — the season of promise ? What chieftain 
 Bursting the dungeon and loosing the chain, shall deliver Jeshiu'un ? 
 
 ' Gen. XXXV. 7.
 
 28 EGYPT, 
 
 Ann of the Lord ! it is time to awake : the bondage is bitter, 
 Heavy and sore is the yoke wherewith they burden Thy people ! 
 Is not Thine own word pledged, that years four hundred and thirty 
 Rolling away, shall redeem thy flock ? remember Thy promise ; 
 Think of the Saints of the past : of the Saints, God of the living, 
 Dwelling with Thee in the peace of Thy home, and deliver their children ! 
 
 Oh what a night was that, what a night to be ever recorded, 
 "When from the seat of the Loud went forth the Mandate of Judgment ! 
 "Wlien the eternal "Word,^ as a warrior armed for the slaughter. 
 Leapt from his throne and stood on the earth, but reached to the heaven ! 
 Death in the courts of the palace, and death in the hut of the bondman : 
 Everywhere, everywhere, death. The sad low wail of the firstborn 
 Hangs on the midnight air, while the pitiless angel of sorrow 
 Stays not and knows not to spare. No avail in the skUl of physician ; 
 Yain is the prayer of devotion, and vain the voice of aff'ection. 
 But, in the Lord's own land, with the Lord's own people, is gladness, 
 Where the mysterious blood is sprinkled on lintel and doorpost. 
 Warding the stroke of death. They eat the mystical supper, 
 Standing, and sandalled, and hasty of mien, and girt for departure. 
 (So, when the world and its deeds shall be o'er, when the angel of judgment 
 Summons the quick and the dead, woe ! woe ! where the Paschal oblation 
 Hath not besprinkled each soul, — thence writ with the reprobate people !) 
 — Now there is forming of lines, and the blast of the trumpet at midnight ; 
 Torches glare out in the streets ; they marshal by tribes and by houses : 
 Borrow ye jewels of gold, saith the Lord, and jewels of silver; 
 As she hath spoil' d, so let her be spoil' d : oppress the oppressor : 
 Gather the double of all, in the hour of her just retribution. 
 Hurriedly sweeps the array, where the voice of the ruler directs it, 
 
 ^ Wisdom sviii. 15, 16.
 
 EGYPT. 29 
 
 Billow on billow, instinct with life : still onward and onward 
 
 Take they the desolate way of the wild, by Succoth and Etham. 
 
 ^Tio shall protect them noAv ? The chariots and horses of Egypt 
 
 Thunder behind, and the deep is before, and the wail of the trumpet, 
 
 Prancing of steeds, and shout of the foe, wax loiider and louder. 
 
 Then from the thi-one of God, that Throne, where the weary have refuge, 
 
 Where in the midst of distress there is calm, the mandate was uttered. 
 
 Mandate not uttered alone that day for the exiles of Judah, 
 
 But to all ages addressed, and to all generations. Go forward ! 
 
 Forward, when all seems lost, when the cause looks utterly hopeless ; 
 
 Forward, when brave hearts faU, and to yield is the rede of the coward ; 
 
 Forward, when friends fall off, and enemies gather around thee ; 
 
 Thou, though alone with thy God, though alone in thy courage, go forward ! 
 
 Nothing it is with Him to redeem by few or by many : 
 
 Help, though deferred, shall arrive ; ere morn the night is at darkest. 
 
 Oh what a wonderful sight, as the wild sea, hither and thither 
 PUed itself up, and was raised in a heap ! A horror of gladness 
 Thrilled through the host, as on this side and that the obedient water 
 Stood like an adamant wall, with a dark, deep valley below it : 
 Valley, where coralline trees stretched out their branches of beauty. 
 But on each face of the wall, so glassy and golden together, 
 Xow (for it drew to the eve) were the westeriag sunbeams reflected. 
 Tea, in what marvellous tints, through the very abyss of the ocean, 
 Struck they and pierced they and Ungered ! What hues of crimson and jasper 
 Shaded away, or commingling, led onward and onward the vision 
 Into the far sea depth ! what soft and violet pulses 
 Quivered away through the mass, instinct with glory and splendour ! 
 Marvels unknown and unpraised till then : for never had Nature . 
 Opened the sea-nymph's hall, and revealed the palace of ocean. 
 Tribes of the Loed, advance ! the pillar of cloud is before you !
 
 30 EGYPT. 
 
 Go, where yom- God shall lead ! 
 
 And night hath come down in her blacloiess. 
 Only the deep ti-amp, ti'amp of the hosts, and the shout of the captains, 
 Neighing of steeds, and thunder of car. Now woman and childhood 
 "Wearily, wearily drag their steps ; while fiercer and gladder, 
 Deeming the prey in thcii' clutch, press on the thousands of Egypt. 
 Woe for the faint and the few ! Wlien lo ! the pillary vapour, 
 Just as the midnight divides the departing day from the morrow, 
 Hitherto leading the van, now fearfully swoops to the rearward. 
 Eight betwixt host and host. On Zoan ineffable terror 
 Poui'ed fi'om that horrible cloud, as its congregate masses of blacloiess 
 Swirl' d through the labouring air : but gladness and glory on Judah, 
 Such as the Presence of God streams down on the seats of the Blessed. 
 Glowed in its radiance the host : glowed banner and armour and buckler. 
 Squadron and line of advance glowed out : on the watery bulwark 
 Flickered and trembled the broken array and fragments of splendour. 
 Who can describe the Form that looked on the army of Egypt 
 Forth from the pillar of cloud, to distract and to madden and frenzy ? 
 Then fell terror on hearts that till then never had trembled : 
 Then blanched lips that had never grown pale : the chariots of Mcinphis 
 Heavily, heavily drave : their wheels were smitten and shattered ; 
 Blended were horse and foot. * Let us flee ! let us flee !' was the outcrj- : 
 'Back, for the Loed is wdth them and battles against the Egyptian !' 
 "Woe, for the word Too late ! Ah, bitterly, bitterly uttered, 
 Then when the harvest is past, and the summer is ended for ever ! 
 One little moment of time, one brief imperceptible second, 
 Closes the portal of hope : Here, none but the desperate enter ! 
 Back on the wreck of the host rush down the mighty abysses ; 
 Back on the king and the prince ; back, back on the horse and the rider : 
 One Mdld shriek of despair ; and then came silence for ever.
 
 EGYPT. 31 
 
 Oil for the vision that once came down by the river of Chebar,i 
 Teaching the Son of Man of past and present and future ! 
 Then with a pencil of light might I picture the course of the ages 
 Such as the pyramids saw ! 
 
 By the mouth of the River of Egypt 
 Rises the merchant queen, that had sway o'er the sea of the inland : 
 Over the tideless waves went forth those vessels of commerce, 
 Yisiting island and port, as far as the Pillars of Atlas ; 
 Yea, with undaunted prow stemming boldly against the Atlantic, 
 Coasting the shores of the West, till they entered the Bay of Ulysses : - 
 Or, more adventurous stOl, their carved beak turned to the southward, 
 Anchor' d they under Madeira, the sweetest Isle of the Ocean. 
 Learning awakes from her sleep when the Ptolemy wieldeth the sceptre ; 
 Echo again some few faint strains of the poets of Hellas ; 
 Though the sweet source of the song be dried up, still harmony lingers, 
 Oh how poor, how faint, how weak, ere dying for ever ! 
 Now o'er the land of the Nile is the Western Eagle triumphant, 
 Now is the mart of the earth, and the world's great granary, Roman; 
 Marvellous change ! But a change more marvellous time in its fulness 
 Hurries along ; when the Cross shall o'erthrow the altars of Egypt ; 
 When to the Name and the fame of the Crucified dedicate, temples 
 Shall in the city lift up their head ; in the desolate places 
 Hallow the soil that was once the domain and abode of Osiris. 
 Oh what a fight to the death ! What glorious conflict of martyrs ! 
 Oh what a struggle of Satan ! What rage and despair of the fiend-gods ! 
 When to the rack men went, as the victor might go to a triumph, 
 Hugging each engine of j)ain as a bride ; iu the theatre stood they 
 Waiting the rush and the roar of the beast, that terrible passage 
 Up to the Vision and glory of God, the Sight Beatific. 
 
 1 Ezck. i. 3. 2 Ulyssipolis, that is, Lisbon.
 
 32 EGYPT. 
 
 Tier upon tier rose high with the pitiless miiltitnde crowded : 
 
 Praefect and Consulars sat where the silken and delicate awnin"- 
 
 Shielded the noon-day sun ; beneath, in the very arena 
 
 He That is Martyr of martyrs again was cro\\Ticd in His servant. 
 
 Nor with the steel and the torture alone was the battle decided : 
 
 Into the wilds they fled, to the desert and cavern and mountaia, 
 
 Dj-ing of hunger and thirst, the babe and the mother together, 
 
 Leaving their bones to whiten, a prey to the vulture and jackal, 
 
 Till in the day, when the Lord shall descend in His terror to judgment, 
 
 They shall obey His voice and be glorious for ever and ever. 
 
 This is the way that they fought, those heroes of Christ and His Kingdom ; 
 
 This is the way that they conquered, by toil and by patient endurance : 
 
 Therefore they now are before His Seat, where the river of pleasure 
 
 "Wells from the Throne of the Lamb That was slain, as glassy as crystal ; 
 
 Where there is no more curse, but on either side of the river 
 
 Groweth the Tree of Life with her twelve fruits, each in their season ; 
 
 Where they shall see His Face, and His Name shall be in their foreheads. 
 
 Now is the battle-array that shall crush or the Cross or the demon ; 
 
 Where in the great sea-square of the merchant city of princes, 
 
 Rises the idol on high, that ancient idol, Serapis,^ 
 
 Doomed to be struck to the earth, — so saith the command of the Ca3sar. 
 
 Who hath the courage to deal that blow ? Por the prophets of Egypt. 
 
 Tell, when that image shall fall, how the sky and the ocean shall mingle, 
 
 Darkness shall cover the world, and nature return into chaos. 
 
 " Give me an axe," saith a fii-m brave voice. And the mixltitude cower, 
 
 Trembling and shiinking together, and deem that the end is approaching. 
 
 " Strike in the Name of the Lord ! " And the idol trembles and totters : 
 
 Down with it, down to the ground ! It falls, but a marvellous thunder 
 
 ' See the story in Socrates, H. E. V. 16.
 
 EGYPT. 33 
 
 Echoes -svithiii that frame. Great terror is over the jDeople ; 
 
 Till from their ancient abode, in myriad, myriad numbers, 
 
 Pours forth a cohort of rats. Then peals of measureless laughter ; 
 
 ' These be thy gods, Egypt ! ' 
 
 The landscape of histoiy darkens : 
 Forth from the tents of the East pour the hordes of the Prophet of Mecca : 
 Glows in the fi-ont of theii- van a land like the garden of Eden : 
 Blackens behind their rear a howling and terrible desert. 
 Now is the land of the Nile yet again the servant of servants, 
 Mighty in thoughts of the past alone : while the fabrics of ages 
 Sadly and dimly look down on the hopes and the schemes of the future. 
 Relics of Pharaoh's renown, how strangely they blend and they mingle 
 Into the present, the great highways of peace and of commerce, 
 Wliere fr'om om- country are sent her commands to the world of the sunrise, 
 And from the sea to the sea go forth the telegraph flashes ! 
 
 Lord of the past and the future, "Wliom history preaches and blesses, 
 Who by Thy wisdom uphold' st Thine own through the perils of this world ! 
 Still, when a Pharaoh attacks, raise up for Thy people a Moses, 
 Still let the Eed Sea wave be a path of escape for Thy ransomed ; 
 Still through the desert lead on, still sever the waters of Jordan, 
 Till they obtain, at the last, theu' promised inheritance, Canaan ! 
 
 PniNTED BY JONATHAN PALMEU, CAMEIUDOK,
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 % ^mionmx W^m B^^w. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN MASON NEALE, M.A., 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 
 T. J. PALMEE, EAST GRINSTED. 
 J. MASTERS, LONDON. 
 
 M.DCCC.LIX.
 
 Cambrtbge : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. PALMER, SIDNEY STREET.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 "The Rev. Thomas Seaton, M.A., late Fellow of Clare Hall, be- 
 queatlied to the University (in 1738) the rents of his Kislingbmy estate, 
 now producing clear £40. per annum, to be given yearly to that Master of 
 Arts who shall write the best English Poem on a sacred subject. The 
 Yice-ChanceUor, the Master of Clare Hall, and the Greek Professor (who 
 are the disposers of this premium), determine the subject, which is de- 
 livered out in Januaiy, and the Poem is to be sent to the Yice-ChanceUor 
 on or before the 29th of September following. The Poem is to be printed, 
 and the expense deducted out of the product of the estate : the remainder 
 is given as a reward to the composer." 
 
 Cambridge, October 29th, 1859. 
 
 The above Pkemiuji was this year awarded to the Reverend 
 Jonx Masox Neale, M.A., of Trinity College. 
 
 WILLIAM HENRY BATESON, Viee- Chancellor. 
 EDWARD ATKINSON, Master of Clare College. 
 W. HEPWORTH THOMPSON, Greek Professor.
 
 Mors et Vita conflixere; 
 Eesurrexit Christus verc ; 
 Et cum Christo surrexere 
 
 Multi testes glorioe : 
 Mane novum, mane Isetum, 
 Vespertinum tergat fletum; 
 Quia Vita vicit letum, 
 
 Tempus eat laetitiae. 
 
 Adam. Victorin.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 Why from the western clouds walks Evening forth 
 
 In such transcendent hues? Why sinks the Sun 
 
 Behind Judaea's hills, in such array 
 
 Of golden majesty, that never yet 
 
 Eneglaim's^ fisher saw that sullen lake 
 
 Clad in such living purple as to-day? 
 
 That Bethlehem's shepherd — (as he shades his eyes, 
 
 And marks how Light and Beauty interweave 
 
 Their delicate threads of opal in the West 
 
 Round those strong bars of crimson, while yon haze 10 
 
 Of tenderest pink but seems the screen that hides 
 
 The land where Angels walk) — lifts up his heart 
 
 And blesses GoD Who made the world so fair? 
 
 — O Nature, curs'd of old for man's offence! 
 
 God's Creation, once so beautiful, 
 
 So perfect in thy beauty, — since defil'd 
 
 By man's defiler ! — well thou may'st to-day 
 
 Gird thee with festal splendour, tire thy brow 
 
 With living light, and pour thy beauty forth : 
 
 Now the first time, the very first of all, 20 
 
 The great sun sets upon a ransom'd earth : 
 
 Sees man redeem'd, and God victorious : sees 
 
 Captivity led captive. Death by death 
 
 O'erwhelm'd, and Life out-bursting from the Grave. 
 
 * Ezekiel xlvii. 10. "The fislicrs shall stand upon it" — the Dead Sea — 
 "from Engedi even unto Eneglaim."
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 There is one spot, a spot the Angels know, 
 — O touch it gently, thou red messenger 
 Of beauty from the West ! with softest kiss 
 Salute eaeh hallow'd blade! It now is clad 
 AVitli evening's gems, but three days since was decked 
 With that tremendous dew of Blood, which spake 30 
 The death-throes of an agonising God: 
 'Twas there the strife began: there face to face 
 He stood. Whose purer eyes abhor all guilt. 
 With heap'd-up centuries of transgression, crime 
 Of untold generations, stretching back 
 To that first sin that lost us Paradise 
 And brought in death, — and forwards, length'ning out 
 In vista, hideous and more hideous yet. 
 To the last deed of violence that shall be 
 Before the Archangel's Trumpet! And He knelt 40 
 With Head bow'd down on that most holiest spot, 
 That anchorage of every soul, — and said, 
 If it he possible, — oh prayer thrice breath' d 
 In Agony that only GoD can know! — 
 Let tins cup pass aioay : yet not My Will 
 But Thine, he done. — And where were mortals then? 
 Where were the Victor's glory? where the Name 
 Exalted o'er all names of things in Heav'n, 
 And things on earth, and things beneath the earth : . 
 The One, the Only Name wherein is life 50 
 
 And strength and love and comfort? 
 
 Aye! exult. 
 Exult, O Sun, and leap for joy, O Earth ! 
 Oh how transfigured now, since, three days erst. 
 Sweet light extinct at high noon, dim eclipse 
 Dragged on, o'er mountain range and desert sand. 
 And labom-ing ox, and bright spring beds of flowers.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMiMAUS. 5 
 
 And young green woods, the funeral pall of God: 
 
 What time the Athenian sage/ amidst the band 
 
 Of pale disciples, shiv'ring in their fear, 
 
 "Or this -world's GOD is suffering, or the frame 60 
 
 " Of this world's self," he said, '' is breaking up !" 
 
 AYhat time — for some believe the marvellous tale,''^ — 
 
 His vessel bounding o'er the wine-dark sea. 
 
 The pilot Tamois heard that voice, — "Whene'er 
 
 " Thy galley nears Phalacrum's stormy cape, 
 
 "Proclaim thou from the prow, — 'Great Pan is dead!'" 
 
 Nay! speed the vessel! spread all canvas! woo 
 
 Each favouring breeze, and fly the dangerous coast ! 
 
 — Vain human forethought! vain the seaman's art! 
 
 Soon as the white cliff beetles o'er the deep, 70 
 
 Fails the fair breeze: the sails droop idly down: 
 
 And Tamois, now a bowshot from the coast, 
 
 Afraid to disobey, yet loth to speak, 
 
 Makes proclamation that Great Pan is dead. 
 
 At once, ten thousand thousand hideous cries 
 
 And doleful lamentations, — whispered bans 
 
 Of unseen things that flap their spirit-wings 
 
 And gibber through the air, and make it sad 
 
 AVith woe and wailing. These infernal Powers 
 
 Have learnt the enigmatic lore, and know 80 
 
 Their human empire fall'n. — The breeze springs up; 
 
 The vessel onward flies: and queenly Eome 
 
 Hath heard, nor understood, the wondrous talc. 
 
 1 Allusion is made to the -well-known tale that S. Dionysius the Areopagite 
 biirst forth into such an exclamation when observing the mii-aculous eclipse at 
 our Blessed Lord's Crucifixion. 
 
 2 The story of Tamois is related by Plutarch in his work on the Cessation of 
 Oracles : and Tiberius is by that author said to have enquired into the truth of 
 the talc from the lips of Tamois himself
 
 6 THE DISCirLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 Oh pleasant pilgrimage, where arching boughs 
 Talk to each other, and the breeze, — of spring 
 With all its soft young beauty! There the fig 
 Puts forth its milky leaves — the cactus there 
 Bristles with oar-like petals ; while the copse 
 Echoes the bulbul's full delicious notes. 
 And all is vernal joy. — But who are these, 90 
 
 Twain pilgrims, as it seems, that, slow and sad, 
 Leaving the Holy City, and the pile 
 Of snowy glory, tow'ring o'er the abyss 
 On this side and on that, majestic shrine 
 Of prayer for nations, where the Paschal Feast 
 As yet invites to Avorship, wend their way 
 To fair Emmaus ? — Hark ! their talk, the while. 
 Is of a King, esteemed the Son of God, 
 Who yet hath yielded to the Law of Man : 
 Is of a great Deliverer, That could save 100 
 
 Others, it seems, but could not save Himself: 
 Is of a mighty Prophet, That could stay 
 Diseases by a word, could bid the sea 
 Boiling in maddest fury, to be still, 
 Command the fiends that torture human frames 
 Back to their place of torment, yea, restore 
 Lord of the gates of hell, the dead to life : 
 Their guide, their friend, their ruler. Where are now 
 His promises of Love? Where now their hopes 
 Of many mansions in His Father's House? 110 
 
 Their Head is gone, — their visions fled, — for He, 
 By most unrighteous judgment doom'd, hath died 
 That shameful death, the malefactor's Cross, 
 Accounted with transgressors : yea, to-day 
 Is the third day since all these things were done. 
 What is to them the splendour of the sky.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 7 
 
 The loveliness of spring? — The sun that sets 
 
 So glorious now, shall rise more glorious still; 
 
 The flowers that died in autumn, have assumed 
 
 Their newer life, and every tinted leaf 120 
 
 Opes its young channel to the verdurous sap. . 
 
 For Him is no awak'ning, till the hour 
 
 Of Heavenly right, reversing earthly wrong; 
 
 The Resurrection of the latter day. 
 
 Oh happy hours of converse, when He spake 
 
 As man spake never! Oh dear fields and paths 
 
 Trod by those blessed feet, thenceafter nail'd 
 
 Fast to the bitter Cross! Oh pleasant skies 
 
 Of blue Gennesaret! obedient waves 
 
 Whose midnight surges into peace He trod! 130 
 
 Him by what name must they remember now, 
 
 Or Son of God, or Son of Man? If this, 
 
 AVoe to those hopes whose aim is based on clay ! 
 
 If that, — can He, the Immortal, taste of death, 
 
 The impassible, of suffering? He that holds 
 
 The Heav'n of Heav'ns in that Almighty grasp 
 
 Be held within the grave? — 
 
 Methought that now 
 In this spring landscape there were pilgrims twain : 
 And lo ! a third is with them ; Who draws near 
 With salutation sweet yet grave, and asks 140 
 
 The cause that hath set sadness on their brow. 
 "Hast thou not heard, — or hast thou stood aloof 
 From all the Paschal pilgrims, — of the things 
 That these last days have brought to every ear?" 
 " What things ?" that Stranger asks. And straight the tide 
 Of mingled hope and fear and love, breaks forth : 
 How they had hoped that He Who fed the crowds, 
 Who heal'd the sick, Who still'd the waves, Who held
 
 8 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 The keys of hell and death, had been the King, 
 
 Jeshiivun's promis'd Monarch : He Whose Throne 150 
 
 Should stretch its sceptred sway from shore to shore, 
 
 Yea from the river to the world's confine : 
 
 To Whom all kings should bow, AVliom every power 
 
 Should own supreme, we trusted it was He! 
 
 We trusted, — till our hopes were nail'd to that. 
 
 The self-same Cross whereon our Master hung. 
 
 Yea certain of our company, who bare 
 
 No woman's heart with more than woman's love. 
 
 Were early at the tomb, whereat they saw 
 
 A vision of the Seraphs ; and they ask'd, 160 
 
 Why seek ye thus the Living midst the dead? 
 
 The Angels they beheld, and we, who went 
 
 Wing'd with their tale, beheld them too : but Him, 
 
 The Angels' Monarch, saw we not. 
 
 "O fools 
 And slow of heart," that Stranger said, " who thus 
 Reject the teaching of prophetic lore ! 
 And ought not He, the Anointed, to have trod 
 The path of suffering first, ere He assum'd 
 The exceeding glorious and eternal Crown? 
 Ought He not first to breast the howling waves 170 
 Amidst the night of this world, ere at length 
 The morn now come,^ He stands upon the shore? 
 What other lesson taught they, since of old, 
 Ere yet the cherubim with fiery sword 
 Had guarded Eden's entrance, God's great love 
 Promised the Woman's Seed That was to reign, 
 But not before He suffered, — He shall bruise 
 
 ^ Compare S. John xxi. 4. " But when the morning was now come, Jesus 
 stood on the shore :" which is usually applied by the Fathers to the shore of 
 Heavenly rest, and the morning of the ResuiTCction.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 9 
 
 The serpent's head, but tliou shalt bruise His heel? 
 
 Why else were all their labours, who were made 
 
 Types of the Promis'd Ruler, but for this? 180 
 
 Why trod he wearily the three days' march. 
 
 The long-sought offspring, " Isaac, whom thou lov'st," 
 
 And bare the fire, and bare the wood, but not 
 
 The lamb for the burnt-offering: lie that lamb 
 
 Bound on the Altar, while above his son 
 
 That glorious father bared the trembling knife? 
 
 Why else the thousand victims, pouring out 
 
 Their meek and patient lives, and offering up 
 
 Their innocence for offences not their own. 
 
 While o'er their death rang trumpet peal and shawm, 190 
 
 The psaltery and the cymbal? Oh vast roof 
 
 Radiant with gems and gold! oh dim-seen forms 
 
 Of Angels brooding o'er the Mercy Seat ! 
 
 Why on that dreadest hour, that fast of fasts. 
 
 The Day of Great Atonement, went the Priest 
 
 Into the Holy of the Holies, where 
 
 In its unutterable majesty 
 
 God's own Shechinah burn'd? Why else the tale 
 
 Of Israel's champions, victors by defeat; 
 
 Through bondage and through exile and contempt, 200 
 
 And midnight march, and flight of peril, raised. 
 
 The good fight fought, to Salem's peaceful throne?" 
 
 — Oil how He spake, that Stranger! how His words 
 Iloll'd off the darkness from the byegone times^ 
 
 1 S. Luke xxiv. 27. "He expounded unto tlieni, in all the Scriptures, the 
 things conceraing Ilimself." Hence, in the present poem, some of the types are 
 described at length, on which oui- Blessed Lokd may be supposed more par- 
 ticularly to have dwelt.
 
 10 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 And toucli'd them with prophetic light! 
 
 He shewed 
 The plain beneath Mount Carmel/ where the glow 
 Of thousand thousand watchfircs lighted up 
 The stilly midnight, while the warrior sons 
 Of Edora and of ]\Iidian slept the sleep 
 Of glutted insolence, and drcam'd of spoil 210 
 
 Won from a morrow richer than to-day. 
 But what the arms of God's elected chief 
 And of his brave three hundred? Not the sword 
 And spear and shield, the warrior's earthly guard; 
 But pitchers, moulded by the potter's art, 
 And lamps within the pitchers : " What I do, 
 That see that ye do also," Then the cry, 
 "The sword of Gideon and of God!" the crash 
 Of shattered pitchers, and the glare that burst 
 Upon the midnight host; while round and round, 220 
 Now herCj now there, that shout's great thunder rose, 
 ^' The sword of GoD and Gideon!" — Even thus. 
 Almighty Conqueror, didst Thou seek the foe 
 Amidst the night of this world : even thus, 
 The mortal vessel shattered gloriously, 
 Flash' d forth the Godhead ! Yea, and they that bear 
 Thy Name, must do Thy deeds: must freely yield 
 This mortal frame to anguish and to death, 
 If this Thy call, and fear not them that kill. 
 And after that have nought that they can do : 230 
 
 Oh glorious lot of Martyrs! — Yet not less 
 They tread His footsteps, who for Him endure 
 A life-long death ; who spend and who are spent 
 In labour, mocked at by the world, — in strife 
 Both with the ill within them and without: 
 
 1 Gideon, a type of Christ. Judges vii. 16 — 21.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 11 
 
 In self-denial that, by slow degrees, 
 Wearing the mortal vessel out, at length 
 Shall unimprison the internal light. 
 
 Anon He led them in His god-like talk 
 To Dagon's temple,^ where the shouting crowd 240 
 
 Bade the imprison'd warrior make them sport; 
 Captive, and blind, and fetter'd, there he stands, 
 A spectacle of woe; yet none the less 
 Retains the unconquerable will, to die 
 Himself, and by his death destroy the foe. 
 On those twain pillars of the house he leans. 
 And makes his prayer; "Remember me, O GoD, 
 This once, O God, and strengthen me this once. 
 Only this once, that I may be avenged. 
 And with the dying Philistines may die." 250 
 
 One lengthened hideous tug, and down they come. 
 The pillars of the temple, crashing in 
 On those besotted thousands. So the dead 
 His death, were more than those his life, destroy'd. 
 — Not less, O glorious Captive, didst Thou hang 
 A spectacle to angels, on that Cross, 
 The watch-tower of the world, the whilst Thy hands, 
 Nail'd to its bitter wood, for us burst through 
 The fetters of damnation, crush'd for us 
 By death the reign of death, and brought forth life ; 2G0 
 Life without sickness, life without end, life 
 Such as the angels live, and next to God. 
 
 Still were tliose travellers' ears attent, although 
 The westering sun gave warning that the eve 
 Must send the latest incense of her flowers, 
 
 ' Samson, a type of Chkist. Judges xvi. 25 — 30.
 
 12 THE DISCirLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 The latest music of her birds, to heaven. 
 
 Forthwith that unknown Friend — (for friend He was, 
 
 Who pour'd in comfort on the orphan'd men, 
 
 As holy morn pours light and warmth and joy 
 
 On utter darkness) — shifts the scene, and shows 270 
 
 Philistia's hosts and Israel's/ face to face 
 
 Stretch'd in tlic valley of the Terebinth/ 
 
 And shouting for the battle. Hope on those, 
 
 Secure of victory, sits : these sullen shame 
 
 Weighs down, and fear that dares not tempt defeat. 
 
 For lo ! the enormous champion tow'rs along. 
 
 Matchless in brutal strength, sole relic now 
 
 Of those gigantic demigods who erst 
 
 Held sway o'er Canaan. How he belches forth 
 
 Words of fierce scorn and bitter biting jeers 280 
 
 Against the people of the LoRD Most High, 
 
 Against the Loed Himself! — But why repeat 
 
 That tale of nursery-faith,^ which infants hear 
 
 Half-pleased, half-frightened, while the firelight throws 
 
 Fantastic shadows round them, and the wind 
 
 Goes rioting forth upon the Sunday Eve 
 
 Of howling Mid-November! They the while 
 
 Pillow their head upon the Mother's breast. 
 
 And in that warm white nest shut out the sight 
 
 Of great Goliath, and the brazen glare 290 
 
 Of shield and sword and terrible weaver's-beam. 
 
 A tale of nursery-lore: yet tale fulfill'd 
 
 In its deep strength, when He, the Infant, born 
 
 In David's City, Bethlehem, went to meet 
 
 ' David, a tjT)e of Christ. 1 Sam. xvii. 
 
 2 1 Sam. xvii. 2. "The valley of Elah:" rather "of the Elah," that is, 
 of the Terebinth tree. 
 
 3 " Twin'd to the people's pious nursery-faith." — "Wallensteik.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 13 
 
 The fierce Goliath of the human race. 
 
 But not as warriors go, with noise confus'd/ 
 
 And garments roll'd in blood; with captains' shout 
 
 And thunder of the battle : but despis'd, 
 
 A poor man midst the poor, He gently dropp'd 
 
 His Majesty, the friend of sinners still; 300 
 
 Till in the final conflict, drinking first 
 
 The brook of deep afiliction by the way,^ 
 
 He conquer'd; with Goliath's sword cut off^ 
 
 Goliath's head, by toil abolish' d toil, 
 
 By woe wiped off all tears, by death slew deatli, 
 
 By rising, rais'd us to eternal life. 
 
 Thus called He up the champions, one by one, 
 
 Whose mortal course prefigur'd His, the Cheist's: 
 
 And cheer'd those faithful two by many a proof 
 
 That He must suffer ere He reign'd. — But then, 310 
 
 Just as the sun went down beneath the hills. 
 
 He touch'd the " more sure word of prophecy :" 
 
 How David, in his ecstasy,* beheld 
 
 Messiah's Agony, — the hands and feet 
 
 Pierc'd by the bitter nails; the frame so rack'd; 
 
 Each member so distorted; gall His meat. 
 
 And vinegar His drink. And next to him, 
 
 The son of Amoz told his sadder tale: 
 
 He is rejected and despis'd of men, 
 
 A man of sorrows and acquaint with grief: 320 
 
 And we esteem'd Him not: His face was marred 
 
 More than the sons of men ; — 'twas marr'd for us ; 
 
 For surely, surely, He hath borne our griefs 
 
 1 Isaiah ix. 5. ^ Psalni ex. 7- 
 
 3 The slaughter of Goliath with his own sword, so continually taken by- 
 early commentators, of death destroyed hy death. 
 * Psalm xxii.
 
 14 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 And carrietl all our sorrows!^ He in death 
 Was with the malefactor, but His grave 
 Among the rich and noble. 
 
 Come thou forth, 
 
 Daniel !" and declare tlie time, ordain'd 
 Before the world was, when to save that world, 
 Messiah for its guilt shall be cut off. 
 
 The seventy weeks are ended: needs must Christ 330 
 Have entered on His Work. — The twelve-fold band 
 Eepcat the self-same tale, — from him that sank, 
 Gulph'd in that ocean-shouldering monster's maw, 
 Down to the bottom of the mountains, — thence 
 Call'd up from black despair, to light and joj, — 
 To him who hail'd the Conqueror o'er the Grave,^ — 
 Death ! I will be thy Death ! (Oh glorious song ! 
 Repeat it, earth, with all thy thousand tongues. 
 And hail it, Heav'n!) O Grave, behold and own 
 Thy great Destroyer! 340 
 
 Thus that Stranger spoke : 
 And as He spoke, a glorious vision brake 
 Upon the twain. 
 
 As when the pilgrim gropes 
 His doubtful way through thunder-fog and mist 
 Down terrible Y Wyddfa,* — where each step 
 Is peril, where each pause is utter doubt, 
 And error is destruction, — if perchance 
 The western breeze lifts off that vapourous skirt 
 High from the double summit, then each range 
 Of circling mountains laughs in sunlit joy. 
 While the clear path shoots downward, and below 350 
 Basks sweet Llanberris in the summer eve : — 
 
 1 Isaiah liii. ^ Daniel ix. 26, 27. ^ Hosea xiii. 14. 
 
 * Y "Wydflfa : " The Conspicuous ;" the highest point of Snowdon.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 15 
 
 So from their souls fled agony and doubt, 
 
 And in its stead came love and joy and peace, 
 
 And tlieir hearts burnt within them. They meanwhile 
 
 Have reach'd then* journey's goal ; a peasant's cot 
 
 Where myrtle breathes out fragrance, and the snow 
 
 Of orange bloom alternates with the gold 
 
 Of the ripe fruit, while vines, from elm to elm. 
 
 Fling the young beauty of their tendrils out. 
 
 "Abide with us," they say; "the day is spent; 360 
 
 "Abide with us, and rest." He set His Face 
 
 Towards the upland slope, where yet abide 
 
 The sentinels of twilight : still they urge 
 
 Kedoubling their petition. 
 
 As He yields. 
 The board is spread: and at the frugal meal 
 They stand, and give GoD thanks: then sit and eat. 
 Nay! mark that Stranger now! He taketh bread, 
 He blesseth, and He breaketh. 
 
 And their eyes 
 Are opened, and they know Him! 
 
 It is He, 
 The Lord of Whom they spake : the Loed That died. 
 And rose again; and lives for evermore. 371 
 
 And He hath vanish'd! 
 
 Oh to see Him yet! 
 "Did not our hearts burn in us as He shew'd 
 How Moses and the Prophets speak of Him, 
 His Death and Victory?" — That same hour they rise, 
 And lighted by the Paschal Moon, that now 
 Floods holy Olivet with trembling light, 
 Wend back towards the City. There the Eleven 
 Had -met this eve in silence and in fear, 
 With doors fast lock'd, lest enemies intrude. 380
 
 IG THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 
 
 Two days agone, " Though all men," was their boast, 
 " Reject Thee and deny Thee, yet not we : " 
 And they forsook the first! — And what if now 
 They who forgat Him be by Him forgot? 
 What if the golden chain of love be snapp'd? — 
 Nay, never, never deem it ! This His Law : 
 Loving His own, He loves them to the end. 
 Meanwhile, np hill, through copse, down vale, they go 
 Where lately He was with them : on they press 
 With this one yearning hope, to tell the tale 390 
 
 That shall remove all fear and end all doubts. 
 Now they have reach'd the portal, now they meet 
 The challenge of the soldier : now they tread 
 The dim and silent city streets, and gain 
 The upper room, that kernel of the Church. 
 And lo ! they hear the tale they thought to tell : 
 " The Lord is ris'n indeed, and hath appeared 
 To Simon!" 
 
 O the joy of joys ! O Hay 
 Blest beyond all days! Portal to the sky! 
 The golden ladder, lifting man to GoD ! 400 
 
 And Thou, — what tongue can tell Thy praise ? — what heart, 
 Bursting in thankfulness, can sing Thy love, 
 Thou vanquish'd Victor, Crucified Supreme, 
 That reign'st, because Thou suffered'st ! Thou hast now 
 Done with those woes for ever: Thou hast left 
 That glorious TereKecnai to Thy band 
 Battling in this world ; Thou upon the vault 
 Of " terrible crystal,"' which tlie Angels tread, 
 Stand'st in the midst, the Lamb That hast been slain; 
 And see'st the prostrate Elders, and the Four 410 
 
 ^ Ezekicl i. 22.
 
 THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS. 17 
 
 Mysterious Living Creatures, and the souls 
 
 Perfect through sutiering, that have reach' d Thy Land 
 
 By the same path Thou trodd'st: and how they strike 
 
 Their pui'est light-harps, and ascribe to Thee 
 
 The glory and the wisdom and the might, 
 
 The victory and salvation ! 
 
 Grant me, GoD, 
 One day, the lowest place beneath their feet! 418 
 
 J. PALM I'll, PRINTER, CAMJiRIDGE.
 
 RUTH. 
 
 % ^tiximxmx Uocm. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN MASON NEALE, M.A., 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 Camljriirt^e 
 
 DEIGITTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 
 T. .T. PALMER, EAST GRINSTED. 
 
 .r. MASTERS, LONDON. 
 
 IHGO
 
 CnmbvibgE : 
 
 PRINTED 1!Y J. PALMEH, SIDNEY STREET.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 " The Eev. Thomas Seaton, M.A., late Fellow of Clare Hall, be- 
 queathed to the University (in 1738) the rents of his Kislingbury estate, 
 now producing clear £40. per annum, to be given yearly to that Master of 
 Arts who shall write the best English Poem on a sacred subject. The 
 Yice-Chancellor, the Master of Clare Hall, and the Greek Professor (who 
 are the disposers of this premium), determine the subject, which is de- 
 livered out in January, and the Poem is to be sent to the Vice-Chancellor 
 on or before the 29th of September following. The Poem is to be printed, 
 and the expense deducted out of the product of the estate : the remainder 
 is given as a reward to the composer." 
 
 Cambridge, Nov. 2nd, 1860. 
 
 The above Peemitjm was this year awarded to the Reverend 
 John Mason Xeale, M.A., of Trinity College. 
 
 LATIMER NEVILLE, Vice- Chancellor. 
 EDWARD ATKINSON, Master of Clare College. 
 W. HEPWORTH THOMPSON, Greek Professor.
 
 Ecclesiam Ruth designat de gentibus ejus : 
 Vir, Christus : caste qui sibi jungit earn. 
 
 Petrus de Riga, Recapitulationes, 341.
 
 KUTH. 
 
 I. 
 
 He stood on tliat prophetic height, 
 
 The chief of Israel's host, 
 And cast, inspir'd of GoD, his sight 
 
 Round Canaan's furthest coast: 
 Where Spring, like some fair youthful queen, 
 Deck'd Jordan's banks with loveliest green, 
 And, right in Judah's onward road. 
 The City of the Palm-trees glow'd, 
 And Idumgea's mountains lay 
 
 Far in the South, obscurely grey, 10 
 
 To where the purple died away 
 
 Upon the Western main : 
 Where Ephraim's hills in glory shone, 
 By sea-storm'd Carmel, on and on, 
 Till, crown' d with snow-wreaths, Lebanon 
 
 Girt in Sidonia's plain. 
 Nor less he views each future scene, 
 Though many a century intervene; 
 How Judah's holier mount shall own 
 
 The Lokd's elected seat, 20 
 
 And Sion's future tow'rs enthrone 
 
 The footstool of His feet: 
 — Bcliold the land thy tribes must win, 
 But plead thou not to enter in!
 
 8 liUTH. 
 
 II. 
 
 Of all the vision, sweet yet faint, 
 
 That chccv'd the warrior and the saint, 
 
 What landscape could so brightly shine, 
 
 Bcthlehem-Epliratah, as thine? 
 
 Dear sunny fields, — true " House of bread," — 
 
 True home of David's race; 30 
 
 Whence Judah's mystic bands are fed 
 
 And whence endued with grace; 
 Where He His earliest light shall pour. 
 
 The Flower of Jesse's rod ; 
 The Wonderful, the Counsellor, 
 
 The Everlasting God: 
 Where Israel's tribes shall lift the horn. 
 
 And Satan's ranks be riv'n. 
 What time to us a Child is born. 
 
 To us a Son is giv'n : 40 
 
 Where midnight skies shall sing His birth. 
 The future Lokd of ransom'd earth : 
 Nor Gloria in Excelsis cease 
 
 From furthest shore to shore 
 To tell of '' peace to men of peace," 
 
 From thenceforth evermore. 
 
 III. 
 
 glorious theme ! but all too high 
 For my unskilful minstrelsy : 
 
 1 rather turn my ruder rhyme 
 
 Back to the scenes of earlier time; 50 
 
 Though still we mark the dews that gem 
 Each leaf and flower of Bethlehem ; 
 Still note the evening's latest tint 
 Upon her rustic turrets glint ;
 
 KUTH, 9 
 
 Though many a sun has yet in turn 
 
 To ripen Bethlehem's corn, 
 And many a summer's course to burn, 
 
 Before her Lord is born. 
 Let others tell how here that Name, 
 
 That Blessed Name, was won ; 60 
 
 And wreathe a garland for His fame, 
 
 The everlasting Son: 
 To no such strain I tune my string, 
 
 No such renown I hail; 
 I leave them all, — content to sing 
 
 A simple village-tale. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A sky of the deepest and tenderest blue : 
 
 A landscape that glistens with May's first dew : 
 
 The land of the olive, the land of the vine, 
 
 The region that floweth with oil and with wine : 70 
 
 While the pathway, down to the valley, glows 
 
 With Hermon's lily, and Sharon's rose: 
 
 And, like peaceful squadrons in rank enrolled, 
 
 The broad slopes glitter with barley-gold: 
 
 What spot upon earth, as the spot where we stand, 
 
 Is so like the happy eternal Land? 
 
 But there is no riving of heart from heart : 
 
 There none can sorrow, and none can part: 
 
 There sickness is banished, and dried each tear, 
 
 And consoled each mourner — 'tis not so here! 80 
 
 V. 
 
 'Tis not so here — for sad and slow. 
 With words of doubt, and mien of woe,
 
 1 RUTH. 
 
 ci 
 Three pilgrims onward stray ; 
 
 They mark not how, exulting loud, 
 
 The lark, from yonder purple cloud, 
 
 Salutes the early day : 
 They reck not liow the air is "balm, 
 How nature's very self breathes calm, 
 
 And all her tribes are gay: 
 No! there is hidden grief that lies 90 
 
 Too deep for all her harmonics. 
 Three pilgrims : one with matron air, 
 And features worn, yet sadly fair, 
 And beauty in its calm decay, 
 As landscape in an autumn day: 
 And two that to her neck have clung, 
 Like roses round some firmer stem. 
 O'er which their gentle leaves have hung. 
 And which their red buds diadem. 
 
 Both lovely as a dream — both dight 100 
 
 In robes of eastern beauty's light : 
 But she, whose darker ringlets deck 
 The fair pure brow, and purer neck. 
 Whose eye is clear and firm and true 
 As summer heav'n of deepest blue. 
 Whose clinging gesture tells how much 
 Affection speaks by very touch,- — ■ 
 Go forth and search from East to West 
 For tenderest eye and snowiest breast, 
 For mingled loveliness and truth, 110 
 
 And thou shalt find their home in Kuth! 
 But who that sees them now, would dare 
 To think that Orpah were less fair? 
 Less fixed in faith, less firm in hope, 
 With every toil, for love, to cope?
 
 RUTH. 11 
 
 VI. 
 
 Two summer morns alike may break, 
 
 And bid the wood's sweet anthems wake ; 
 
 And one shall mark its sun descend 
 
 Unclouded, to his glorious end, 
 
 And one shall see the whirlwind rise, 120 
 
 And storm and gloom enshroud its skies. 
 
 Two summer larks alike may spring, 
 
 At daybreak, on their upward wing ; 
 
 And this at eve shall carol loud 
 
 Beneath her canopy of cloud, 
 
 And that, before the west is grey, 
 
 Shall flutter as the fowler's prey. 
 
 Two rosebuds shall alike be seen 
 
 To burst their shrine of emerald green; 
 
 And one shall shed its life-long breath 
 
 In sweetness, and be sweet in death ; 130 
 
 And one, ere yet 'tis fully burst. 
 
 With mildew and with blight be curst. 
 
 And so these twain: — this hour shall view 
 
 Which is the feigned and which the true. 
 
 VII. 
 
 With her fair sad face, and her matron grace, 
 
 She spake to her daughters twain; 
 And her glance was cast to the days that were past, 
 
 And could never return again: 
 To the loved ones that lie 'neath an alien sky, 140 
 
 And moulder in heathen clay; 
 And never shall stand in the Lord's own land 
 
 Till the Resurrection Day.
 
 12 UUTH. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 " O happy hours, while yet of old 
 
 The God of Jacob watch'd His fold, 
 
 While yours, mine own, it was to bless 
 
 With love and careful tenderness : 
 
 And though remembering, day by day. 
 
 The Lord's own mansion, far away, 
 
 And mindful, at each evening's rise, 150 
 
 Of Shiloh's holy Sacrifice, — 
 
 Still had I hoped one day to tread, 
 
 With you and with the holy dead, 
 
 To you unknown, but dear to them, 
 
 The quiet fields of Bethlehem. 
 
 That hope is past: and though my heart 
 
 Half breaks to say it, we must part: 
 
 'Tis the Most High that wills it— No ! 
 
 Cling not to me, sweet daughters, so ! 
 
 I have no sons, my joy and pride, 160 
 
 Henceforth to claim in each their bride; 
 
 I have no hope, in sinking age 
 
 To find a home for heritage. 
 
 Turn, then, and seek your native shore; 
 
 Turn to your people's shrines once more: 
 
 And, wheresoe'er your lot be thrown, 
 
 The God we trust in guard His own ! 
 
 And give you some one day to prove 
 
 His best and holiest treasure, love; 
 
 And infants that shall yet be press'd 170 
 
 With mother's rapture to the breast: 
 
 And so His aid be by you felt, 
 
 His shield around you spread. 
 As, in the former days, ye dealt 
 
 With me, and with the dead!"
 
 RUTH. 13 
 
 IX. 
 
 Orpahj (lost tliou hide thy face, 
 And canst thou bear to sever? 
 
 And hast thou heart for that embrace 
 
 Which says farewell for ever? 
 -Thou, in Whose Hand is earthly bliss, 180 
 
 Oh give me any woe but this! 
 That where I lean with every power 
 
 Of faith and love and trust, 
 
 1 ever should endure the hour 
 That crushes all to dust! 
 
 Take those I love, if so Thy will. 
 And I may love them dearlier still : 
 They pass but for a while away, 
 
 They dwell at home with Thee ; — 
 And I shall go to them, tho' they 190 
 
 Shall not return to me : 
 But thus to lose the faith of years, — 
 'Tis grief that lies too deep for tears : 
 'Tis gloom, whence hope no ray can borrow : 
 'Tis night that cannot look for morrow. 
 Once more I pray : — an Orpah's kiss, — 
 O give me any woe but this ! 
 
 What time the storm was black as night. 
 
 And rain was driving fast. 
 And gulfs of cloud, from heiglit to height, 200 
 
 Were tossed before the blast ; 
 Hast thou not seen the rainbow-arch 
 From North to South serenely march, 
 And heard its own consoling cheer.
 
 14 liUTH. 
 
 ' Be of good comfort ! God is here !' 
 So as they stood beside the palm 
 
 Where Orpah bade farewell, 
 Those accents full of love and calm 
 
 Upon the silence fell: 
 " Whate'er of weal, whate'er of woe, 210 
 
 Beset thy future way, 
 Whither thou goest, I will go, 
 
 And where thou stayest, stay: 
 Where'er thou shalt have bow'd the knee, 
 
 Whatever path have trod. 
 Thy people shall my people be, 
 
 Thy God shall be my God: 
 And when that darkest hour draws nigh. 
 
 Yet be not thou afraid : 
 For where thou diest, I will die, 220 
 
 And there will I be laid : 
 And God do so and more to me, 
 If ought but death part me and thee !" 
 
 XL 
 
 Three thousand years have pass'd away 
 
 Since first those words were spoken, 
 And still, as on that very day. 
 
 Their spell remains unbroken ; 
 The exile on an alien shore 
 
 Drinks in their high devotion, 
 The home-wrapp'd seamen cons them o'er 230 
 
 Upon the Atlantic Ocean : 
 The soldier grasps them for his shield 
 
 Before the sign of battle ; 
 They whisper comfort in the field 
 
 Above the cannon's rattle :
 
 RUTH. 15 
 
 Watchword of woman's love, that still 
 Will mock at space, and smile at ill: 
 That, when the clouds close darkest round, 
 
 Will only shine the brighter; 
 That, when the rest are faithless found, 240 
 
 Will only cling the tighter: 
 ' The Lord do so and more to me, 
 If ought but death part me and thee !' 
 
 XII. 
 
 *Thou art praised in Sion, O God of Hosts! 
 
 And to Thee they perform the vow, 
 When they go to worship in Salem's coasts. 
 
 And before Thine Altar bow: 
 Thou visitest earth with a glorious birth ; 
 
 Thou makest it plenteous indeed ; 
 And the River of GoD shall fatten the sod, 250 
 
 For so Thou preparest the seed : 
 Thou water'st her furrows. Thou droppest the grain 
 
 Into every little vale ; 
 And Thou makest it soft with tlie drops of rain, 
 
 Nor lettest the increase fail: 
 Thou crownest the year witli Thy goodness here. 
 
 And Thy clouds drop fatness still: 
 They shall comfort and bless the wilderness. 
 
 And gladden each little hill: 
 -The folds shall be full of sheep ! 260 
 
 The valleys so thick with corn. 
 That for very joy they shall laugh and leap. 
 
 When Thou liftcst Thy people's horn ! 
 
 * Rpr Psalm Ixv.
 
 1 G RUTH. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 So from the break of early day. 
 
 Until the night grew dim, 
 In Ephratah, while all was gay, 
 
 Went on the harvest hymn : 
 But thou in harvest joy to share, 
 Poor wanderer ! hast but little care ! 
 — She hasten' d forth from Bethlehem 270 
 
 With all a IMother's pride, 
 Content the world's wild waves to stem, 
 
 Her husband at her side : 
 Now she returns in life's decay. 
 Youth's brightest dreams dissolved away: 
 Her footsteps, like an alien's, roam 
 Round that which once she called her home: 
 And, but for this dear treasure, now 
 Hers by affection and by vow. 
 
 As lonely midst her own she stands, 280 
 
 As shipwreck'd man on stranger sands. 
 'O call me not Naomi, — God 
 
 Hath changed my former name! 
 And for the Crown He sends the rod, 
 
 And for the glory, shame : 
 Yet to His Will content to bow, — 
 My title must be Mara now !' 
 
 XIV. 
 
 I marvel not that poets teacli 
 
 Of that fair golden time. 
 When heart was pure, when thought was speech, 290 
 
 When heart was in her prime. 
 And so I deem, as I behold 
 Where Bethlehem's harvest waves in gold.
 
 RUTH. 17 
 
 And see the lord of all the land 
 Come forth amidst his reaper band, 
 With gentle mien and kindlj air, 
 As if an equal part they hare, 
 -The master in the servants' toil. 
 The servants in the master's spoil. 
 "The Lord be with thee!" — O sweet token 300 
 
 Of love to God and man unbroken ! 
 O glorious words, which not alone 
 
 Shall Bethlehem's hills repeat, 
 But after years, from zone to zone, 
 Shall echo at the Lord's own Throne 
 
 In many a cadence sweet : 
 What time the vast Cathedral pile. 
 From vaulted Nave and fretted Aisle, 
 
 Shall, all in answer meet, 
 "And with thy spirit!" make reply, 310 
 
 In that full choral harmony ! 
 
 XY. 
 
 But one there is, of stranger mien. 
 
 Who dares in those sweet fields to glean. 
 
 Where none may grudge, and none upbraids. 
 
 Amidst the ranks of Israel's maids ; 
 
 Althougli the fierce sun, flaming down, 
 
 Hath tinged her cheek with darker brown, 
 
 Although with unaccustom'd toil 
 
 She gatlicr in the reaper's spoil, 
 
 Deem not her task unbless'd above, — 320 
 
 She toils in faith, and works for love. 
 
 " Hearken, my daughter ! Seek not now 
 
 In otlier fields to stray, 
 13 ut by my maidens tarry thou, 
 
 And in my harvests stay :
 
 18 KUTH. 
 
 And at their fountain cool thy lip, 
 
 And in their cup thy morsel dip : 
 
 Have I not charged them, that they be 
 
 As though they sliared one home witli thee?" 
 
 XVI. 
 
 -Oh, in this world, that turns its sight 330 
 
 To darkness rather than to light. 
 
 And, in its course embruted, 
 That loves to brand the pure and bright 
 
 As faithless and polluted; 
 The very worst suspecting still, 
 And out of good inventing ill ; 
 In this poor judgment-seat of dust, 
 How great a thing is holy trust! 
 -The merry harvest feast is past; 
 
 The harvest pipe is hush'd at last; 340 
 
 In scatter' d farm and distant cot 
 Of many a wild and hill-side spot. 
 The reapers, while in silence dim 
 
 The moon her bright watch keepeth. 
 Once more commend themselves to Him 
 
 Who slumbereth not nor sleepeth. 
 But Boaz, — he must be secure 
 Whose willing hand hath fed the poor — 
 But Boaz lays him down to rest, 
 
 Where are the barn sheaves closeliest prest. 350 
 
 When the Lord's banner is unfurl'd, 
 
 And crush'd are death and sin, 
 Thus, in the harvest of the world, 
 
 He shall be garner' d in!
 
 KUTH. 19 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Oil blame her not! she comes irapress'd 
 
 By Israel's law in clear behest: 
 
 Directed by the lore of age 
 
 To claim her wifely heritage : 
 
 As pure as Angels in the sky, 360 
 
 As safe as in a sanctuary. 
 
 The heav'n is calm, the night is dark : 
 
 That barn-floor is her holy ark : 
 
 He sleeps the good man's slumber sweet; 
 
 She crouches stilly at his feet: 
 
 And guardian Angels watch above, 
 
 With looks of joy and thoughts of love : 
 
 They see, in prophet-vision clear. 
 
 The future scenes that shall be here: 
 
 The Babe that comes our woes to heal, 370 
 
 And make our bitter sweet: 
 The Virgin Mother that shall kneel 
 
 And worship at His feet: 
 Though Israel may reject her Lord, 
 
 The ox and ass shall know 
 The Prince, for evermore ador'd, 
 
 Who comes to dwell below: 
 And hither shall the wise men bring 
 
 Their offerings three, to own 
 The God, the Mortal, and the King, 380 
 
 Who reigns from Sion's throne! 
 When shall the promis'd time appear, 
 That this shall be, and this be here? 
 That promis'd time and King they see, 
 And trace His line, sweet Ruth, to thee!
 
 20 uuTir. 
 
 XYIII. 
 
 Why should I tell how midnight rest 
 
 With holy, plighted troth was blest? 
 
 Why should I tell, at Bethlehem's gate 
 
 How Bethlehem's chosen elders wait. 
 
 And call the God Who rules the sky 390 
 
 The sacred bond to ratify? 
 
 How she, the alien-one, who chose 
 
 In Israel's land to find repose, 
 
 Her home, her kin, her gods forsaken, 
 
 From Israel's God hath guerdon taken? 
 
 And therefore is her name enroll' d 
 
 In that celestial page, 
 Which, writ in characters of gold, 
 
 Shall live from age to age : 
 And therefore doth her story shine, 400 
 
 Unspotted, in Messiah's line ; 
 And she hath won the endless fame 
 That irom her heathen-root He came. 
 And so, amidst a world of strife. 
 She speaks the words of hope and life : 
 'If thou art call'd to toil for truth. 
 
 Yet be not thou afraid ; 
 But think upon the GoD of Ruth, 
 
 And He shall give thee aid!' 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY JONATHAN PALMER.
 
 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 % ^mionmx '^omx. 
 
 BY THE 
 
 REV. JOHN MASON NEALE, M.A, 
 
 LATE SCHOLAR OF TRINITY COLLEGE. 
 
 Cambridge : 
 
 DEIGHTON, BELL, AND CO. 
 
 T. J. PALMER, EAST GRINSTED. 
 
 MASTERS AND CO., LONDON. 
 
 1862.
 
 CHmbribgi: 
 
 PRINTED BY JONATHAN PALMER, SIDNEY STREET.
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 "The Eev. Thomas Seaton, M.A., late Fellow of Clare Hall, be- 
 queathed to the University (in 1738) the rents of his Kislingbui-y estate, 
 now producing clear £40. per annum, to be given yearly to that Master of 
 Arts who shall write the best English Poem on a sacred subject. The 
 Vice- Chancellor, the Master of Clare Hall, and the Greek Professor (who 
 are the disposers of this premium), determine the subject, which is de- 
 livered out in January, and the Poem is to be sent to the Vice-Chancellor 
 on or before the 29th of September following. The Poem is to be printed, 
 and the expense deducted out of the product of the estate : the remainder 
 is given as a reward to the composer." 
 
 Cambridge, Nov. 1st, 1862, 
 
 The above Premium was this year awarded to the Reverend 
 John Mason Neale, M.A., of Trinity College. 
 
 GEORGE PHILLIPS, Vice- Chancellor. 
 EDWARD ATKINSON, Master of Clare College. 
 W. HEPWORTH THOMPSON, Greek Professor.
 
 Sicut chorda musicorum 
 Tandem sonum dat son arum 
 
 Plectri ministerio, — 
 Sic in chely tormentorum 
 Melos Christi confessorum 
 
 Dcdit liujus tensio. 
 
 Adam. Victohin.
 
 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 Who, with apparel stained of crimson hue, 
 
 — Like one that treads the winefat, or as chief 
 
 Returning victor from the field of blood — 
 
 Comes softly thro' the woodland ? — Who but He, 
 
 The God of Autumn, guarding plighted troth, 
 
 Troth, then first plighted when He stretched the bow 
 
 From Ararat to Elbrouz, " while earth lasts, 
 
 Seedtime and harvest, day and night, shall be"?-j: 
 
 He speaks the word : and leafy chapels, late 
 
 Rich with the music of a thousand songs, 10 
 
 Green shrines, where niglitingales from eve till morn 
 
 Poured antiphonal joy, and loftier Aisles, 
 
 Sweet with tlie wild doves' gurgling note of love, 
 
 Assume the sunset of the year. The elm 
 
 Dissolves in golden showers : the maple sends 
 
 A flock of red leaves, like the rainbow-birds 
 
 Of tropic forests, wandering through the air; 
 
 And the brave oak tears oif his purpler vest. 
 
 *' God made not death :" and autumn had no rule 
 
 In His first Paradise, nor shall have place 20
 
 8 KING JOSTAH. 
 
 In that, the better Paradise, which One, 
 
 On the dim evening of a stormy day, 
 
 With dying lips foretold to dying ears, 
 
 Saying, " To-day shalt thou be with Me there." 
 
 Yes : Autumn is of Earth : and Eartli hath too 
 An Autumn of the nations. Then the sap 
 Which, in its young wild life, joined land to land, 
 Turned forests into cities, made the sea 
 AVhitc with a thousand sails, sent lion-hearts 
 To found new empires, making glad the waste 30 
 
 With woman's love and beauty, children's smiles. 
 And man's brave honest toil, and all tliat bids 
 The sad and solitary land rejoice, 
 Dies at its very fountain. Then strong arras 
 Falter and tremble : then strong hearts grow faint : — 
 And e^rts dwarf and dwindle, and the night 
 Cometh when none can work. So nations' years 
 Draw to the mournful autumn of their close ; 
 And such an autumn knows no second spring. 
 
 So Israel's autumn now; as shortening days, 40 
 
 And rising winds, and gathering clouds, proclaim. 
 Yet, as in Western forests, ere the snow 
 Wraps the whole earth in Winter's bridal veil. 
 Ere nature's pulses cease, ere yet the wolf 
 Wakes the gaunt echoes of the leafless trees. 
 The Indian knows of gentler gales, — of flowers 
 Dcck'd in half-vernal beauty, — knows of skies
 
 KING JOSIAH. y 
 
 Cloudless, or flecked with soft-winged specks, that drop 
 
 Their playful shadows where the warm wind breathes, 
 
 — And all the more presages that the end, 50 
 
 The dead year's winding-sheet, is therefore nigh : 
 
 Or, as when hectic's deadly rose hath burnt 
 
 Some maiden cheek, — and kindled up the eye 
 
 To deeper beauty, while each waning day 
 
 Gives troth more earnest to the last great Foe ; 
 
 And they, the hopeless watchers, know her lot 
 
 No other bridal chamber than the grave : 
 
 Perchance, in that last conflict, nature wakes 
 
 Her utmost efforts, and, a moment. Life 
 
 Winning her last, last field, keeps Death at bay : 60 
 
 Yet not the less, poor Mother, dost thou see 
 
 The glazing eye, damp brow, and all, that makes 
 
 The laying down the flesh so hard, at hand: — 
 
 So Israel trod the last steep steps of death. 
 
 A helpless, hopeless struggle thine, O King, 
 Last very King of Judah ! Yet not less 
 I deem that chief's a glorious part, who now. 
 Outnumbered, outmanoeuvred, sure of fate. 
 While arm can strike, or heart can beat, fights on. 
 Nor less the pilot's, who, when utmost skill 70 
 
 Hath done its part, and done its part in vain. 
 With bulwarks gone, and mainmast by the board. 
 And boats swept off, while right ahead, the deep 
 Churns, on the jaws of some near reef, its foam, 
 Stands by the helm, and faithful to the last,
 
 10 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 Kules the devoted vessel. Them, if not 
 The meed of man, the Crown of GoD awaits. 
 
 Wherefore let God's great temple, that dear House 
 Of Israel's praises, raise its head once more! 
 Once more with trumpet peal, and gentler lute, 80 
 
 And dulcimer and psaltery, pour the strain 
 Over the thousand victims ! Let the Priests, 
 The sons of Aaron, in their courses wait : 
 And choose ye out the Lamb, and strike the blood 
 On lintel and on doorpost, while the tale 
 Of Israel's great salvation passes round : 
 And eat with girded loins, and staff in hand, 
 And bitter herbs : while orphan lips* rehearse 
 The glories of that Red Sea march, and tell 
 Of horse and rider thrown into the sea : 90 
 
 And let the great shout rise — " For He is good, 
 His Mercy is for ever," — echoed back 
 From Sion to Mount Olivet, and o'er 
 The Hill of Evil Counsel. There are ears 
 Now drinking in this jubilance of praise. 
 That, pass how short a space! shall hear the roar 
 Of flame-cones shooting high above those towers ; 
 The wild Chaldean yell, — the groan of death, 
 The sob of mortal anguish, and the shriek 
 Of maiden's last despair. And eyes which now 100 
 
 * It is well known that a portion of the Passover Service, according to 
 the Jewish tradition, was necessarily said by an orphan ; to which our Lord's 
 words, " I will not leave you orphans," spoken on that same Passover night, 
 have probably reference.
 
 KING JOSIAH. 1.1 
 
 Behold the goodly cohort, that arrayed 
 
 In linen vest and ephod, as one man, 
 
 Pour from a thousand trumpets God's great praise, — 
 
 Those eyes shall see the marble halls enwrapped 
 
 In smoke and fire, while streams of molten gold 
 
 Eun down the glorious pavement, and the air 
 
 In far off vales and palmgroves breathes the scent 
 
 Of cedar roofs consuming. But not yet : 
 
 While Judah's monarch lives, her life is charmed : 
 
 So spake, by woman's voice, the Lord of Hosts: 110 
 
 " Thou shalt be gathered to thy grave in peace, 
 
 And shalt not see the evil." So the Feast 
 
 Was Queen of all past Festals : — and the King 
 
 If hopeless of his country's future, still 
 
 Goes forth to wreak God's vengeance on the shrines 
 
 That thus have wrouglit her ruin. 
 
 Aye, strike on ! 
 Still in thine ear those curses ring, — still glare 
 Those letters in thine eyes : " If thou slialt turn 
 To such foul gods of wood and stone, the fear 
 Of those devoted nations, then accurs'd 120 
 
 In city art thou, and in field accurs'd : 
 Accurs'd in going out and coming in : 
 Accurs'd in basket and in store : Accurs'd 
 In fruit of body, and in fruit of land ; 
 In increase of thy kine and of thy sheep : 
 Then shall the plague, the thing* that walks by night, 
 
 * Vulff. Psalm xc. 6. A negotio pcrambulante in tenebrig.
 
 12 KING JOSIAIT. 
 
 Stalk through thy dwelling : then consumption seize 
 
 The flower of all thine offspring : then the Lord 
 
 Shall smite thee with the mildew and the blight, • 
 
 The blasting, and tlic burning, and the scab : 130 
 
 Then shall the heaven above thee turn to brass, 
 
 The earth beneath be iron. Thou shalt grope 
 
 At noonday in the darkness that is felt : 
 
 Thou shalt betroth a bride in all her youth 
 
 And all her beauty ; and her beauty' and youth 
 
 Others shall rifle. So shalt thou become 
 
 A byeword and a hissing and a curse: 
 
 One way shalt thou go forth against thy foes ; 
 
 Ten ways shalt flee before them." 
 
 So he stands 
 Amid that cypress grove, where autumn suns 140 
 
 Diffuse a mournful splendour: where they lie 
 Who passed away — I say not, fell asleep — 
 In worship of the hate of Israel's GoD. 
 
 — Thou seest yon forest where the great oaks cast 
 Their broken and fantastic shades athwart 
 The greensward glades, where, but for them, the sun 
 Had ploughed his golden furrows on the lea? — 
 Yes; they have seen, since that great day of wrath, 
 Four centuries of foliage. Then be came, 
 The Prophet of the Living GoD, — he told 150 
 
 God's vengeance on the Altar and the King. 
 Oh wise for others! madman for himself!
 
 KING JOSIAH. 13 
 
 He ventured on the Martyr's path : he saw 
 
 The Monarch's hand outstretched : he saw it struck 
 
 And palsied in the very act of sin : 
 
 Then rose his prayer like incense to the skies, 
 
 And so the sin was pardoned. Yet not less 
 
 Himself was faithless, — yet not less himself 
 
 Obeyed an alien teaclier. So he left 
 
 A monument to other years of sin 160 
 
 So hardly punished, that, in future days, 
 
 God's Prophet may obey the Loed he tells : 
 
 God's Seer may be God's Saint. 
 
 Now midst the tombs 
 Under the cypress trees, — those mossy stones 
 Grey with the lichens of four hundred years. 
 He rests, rests well at last. " Let him alone : 
 Let no man move his bones." The heavy guilt 
 Hath heavily been punished : he shall now 
 Stand forth the safeguard of the treacherous friend, 170 
 And lured by him to death, preserve in death. 
 Nor doubt that, by a short rough path, he went 
 To happier fields : " no lion shall be there ; 
 Nor any evil beast go up thereon." 
 
 And will not all avail? The tears, the prayers. 
 The rendering back its beauty to God's shrine, 
 The casting down of idols? Shall not this 
 Plead for the guilt of many a year of sin? — 
 No more than all the tears of autumn-dew 
 Can call back spring's poor flowers : no more than gales 180
 
 14 KING JOSIAII. 
 
 llich with September-fragrance, can awake 
 
 May's fresh green foliage on the forest bough. 
 
 " There is a sin to death :" there is a time 
 
 When God shuts up the future: leaving there 
 
 A certain looking for of fiery wrath. 
 
 Woe, woe for him that hangs about the gate, 
 
 Which entered, hope departs! And yet despite 
 
 Of warning and of mercy, spite of all 
 
 That his good Angel, in mysterious way, 
 
 Whispers in those dim chambers of the heart, 190 
 
 In spite of utmost danger, man sins on. 
 
 Thou, glorious King of Judah, thou shalt save 
 
 Thyself before the ruin : thou shalt find 
 
 Before the ship goes down, a blessed port : 
 
 But Israel's doom was fixed, what time slie shed 
 
 The blood of all those Martyr-seers, what time 
 
 There stood an idol in the house of God :* 
 
 Some stoned, some sawn asunder, some with sword 
 
 Sent to their glory : they of whom the world 
 
 Was not found worthy : they who wandered, clad 200 
 
 In sheepskins and in goatskins, far and wide, 
 
 Tormented and afflict and destitute : 
 
 And chiefly him, the eagle-seer, who soared 
 
 So far above things earthly — who proclaimed 
 
 " A Virgin shall conceive and bear the Son ;" 
 
 The Monarch That should reign, but reign by death. 
 
 Should be rejected and despised of men. 
 
 Afflicted, and deserted, and contemned: 
 
 * 2 Kings, xxi. 7.
 
 KING JOSIAH. 15 
 
 Who saw the goodly Lcand, to which That King 
 
 Should call His followers, in His time, to share 210 
 
 The many mansions of His Father's House. 
 
 " The sun shall be no more thy light by day, 
 
 Neither for brightness shall the moon," he cried; 
 
 " The Lord shall be Thine everlasting light, 
 
 And all thy mourning days have found their end." 
 
 That blood calls still, calls bitterly : the years 
 
 Of idol worship, join their cry to that. 
 
 Look backward to the glory of that day, 
 
 When gold and gems, and utmost art conjoined 
 
 Built up that glorious temple. Step by step, 220 
 
 Conquest on conquest, loss by loss, it fell. 
 
 Oh manifold oblations — threefold feasts 
 That drew all Israel, whether Paschal Lamb 
 Call'd them — or when they kept the Festal "Weeks," 
 Or sojourned under tents ! These all must cease ; 
 Must cease — and they shall sit by other streams, 
 And sing the Lord's song in an alien land. 
 May they not plead on high? — those glorious Kings, 
 True both in act and suffering, — from the day 
 When Zephathah saw Ethiopian hosts 230 
 
 In numbers numberless, o'erwhelmed ; — and when, 
 Far in the wilderness, the rising sun 
 Turned into crimson every newborn spring; — 
 And when the Assyrian host, arrayed about 
 Tlic battlements of Sion, vaunted high 
 "Where is the King of Eden? where the King
 
 16 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 Of ITena and of Ivali? Have their gods 
 
 Delivered Judah's people from my hands?" 
 
 And when, — oh wonder not on earth alone, 
 
 But reaching to the Heav'ns! the smi went back, 24:0 
 
 And every planet heard His voice, Who rules 
 
 Arcturus and the Pleiades, and girds 
 
 Peerless Orion with his golden belt : 
 
 And ten degrees were added to the world, 
 
 And all its cares and joys and woes ; — and when 
 
 The Angel of the Lord went out by night, 
 
 A gloomy night, when mist enwrapped the earth 
 
 As with its funeral pall, and midst the tents 
 
 That girded Salem, sent, in one same hour. 
 
 One hundred fourscore thousand to their doom : 250 
 
 — May not these Saints now plead on high? Themselves 
 
 They have delivered : they have gained the seat 
 
 On the right hand of mercy: they shall quaff 
 
 Tlie river of His pleasures evermore : 
 
 But none can save his brother; none can make 
 
 Agreement unto GoD for him : it cost 
 
 More to redeem their souls : and he must needs 
 
 Let that alone for ever. 
 
 Who is this 
 That, entering from the Northern Gate, rides on 260 
 
 Adown the hill of David? This is he, 
 Envoy of Israel's ancient foe, — to claim 
 Freedom of passage over Israel's realm. 
 O hapless people, own the voice of God !
 
 KING JOSIAH. 17 
 
 Hear it, Son of David! Now the ship 
 
 Is driv'n into the ''place where two seas meet:" 
 
 On this side and on that the high, high waves 
 
 Would dash thy little bark to pieces. Now 
 
 Own thou the word of GoD, albeit proclaimed 
 
 From lips unused to speak it. He, who once 270 
 
 Said, " Israel's GoD I know not, nor will let 
 
 The tribes of Israel's God go free," — he now, 
 
 (In generations long adown the line, 
 
 The golden line of thousand years,) demands 
 
 Like passage here God's children asked for there. 
 
 Woe ! when amidst the darkness of the mine, 
 Long toiled for, hoped for long, the glorious gem 
 Gladdens the heart, and flashes on the eyes 
 Of them whose strong right arms with eager toil 
 Have delved to gain it — if perchance that gem 280 
 
 Priceless, except one flaw, by that one flaw 
 Weighed in the scales, is robbed of half its worth! 
 Thou think'st, O King of Judah ! that to thee 
 And thee alone, GoD speaks ; but know tiiou tliis : 
 God by an alien voice can teach His law 
 True, as by holiest prophets. Thou would'st keep 
 His land by alien footsteps undefiled. 
 But what if this thy trial ? what if this 
 The lesson tliat thou, learning, might'st redeem 
 So many a lesson by thy tribes unlearned? 290 
 
 Oh if thou would'st but hear him ! Oh if now, 
 Thou, even thou, at least in tin's tliy day,
 
 18 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 Would'st listen to the things that touch tliy peace! 
 — It may not be ; the sentence had gone forth : 
 The sentence then enrolled, what time the cry 
 Went up from earth to heaven, of all the blood, 
 The martyr-blood, of them that died for Him 
 " Which the Lord would not pardon."* 
 
 Go then forth. 
 Go, King of Judah, battle with tliy GoD ! 
 Thou, who so long hast fought the glorious fight, 300 
 
 Run the true race so long, and kept the faith, — 
 And must thou turn astray at last? He speaks — 
 Hear it, or hear it not, — from God's Own Mouth. 
 
 O fearful balance ! Israel's scales are poised ; 
 Their sins on this side, God's dear love on that : 
 And TEKEL is the verdict. 
 
 Therefore now, 
 God's Own elected Jewel, to the fight! 
 Thou shalt be His when He makes up His own. 
 Safe in the golden shrine wherein the true 
 And brave ones are His own predestinate : 310 
 
 But dream thou not of earthly victories won ; 
 Of Alleluias which shall echo back 
 From every hill round Salem. Thou hast once 
 Offered the holiest Passover of all ; 
 Now shalt thou be the victim. Forth he went 
 
 * 2 Kings, xxiv. 4.
 
 KING JOSIAH. 19 
 
 In his own strength, Sion, to the fight: 
 
 Now he returns in other guise : the hand 
 
 That held so late the royal sceptre, touched 
 
 And withered by the grave. Now God's Own House 
 
 Hath seen its latest glories. Triumph now, 32(» 
 
 Judah's earliest, Judah's latest Foe ! 
 
 This is the last of reckonings up : this hour 
 
 Takes the long line of Judah's ancient kings, 
 
 Weighs in the balances, and finds them fail. 
 
 Woe, woe for these ! Joy, joy for him ! E^or them 
 That struggle still amidst the storm, that yet 
 Strive hard amidst the battle, almost whelmed 
 Amidst the peril of its eddies, woe! 
 Woe to the men that shall behold the house, — 
 " The beautiful and holy house," enwrapj>ed 330 
 
 In Babylonian fire ! 
 
 But joy to him, 
 So early called to fight, so soon to peace ! 
 Who would not gladly gird his armour on, 
 If, wearing it a moment, he miglit hang 
 That armour forthwith in the hall of Rest? 
 The figlit he fought, the toils he bore, are ours ; 
 Like his, our idols also ; hand to hand 
 With them our warfare : onlv now no more 
 The battle-field is visible : 'tis deep 
 In the recesses of the inmost heart; 340
 
 20 KING JOSIAH. 
 
 " The good I would I do not" — there the strife- 
 '' The evil that I would not that I do." 
 
 And Judah's Monarch won the truer crown ; 
 But won it by his death. And how shall we, 
 God's own elected Israel, triumph now. 
 Till when, in that last battle with the Foe, 
 Egypt then crushed for ever, we shall fall ?
 
 POEMS 
 
 AND 
 
 TRANSLATIONS. 
 
 BY 
 
 REGINALD HEBER, 
 
 AFTKRW AltbS 
 
 LORD BISHOP OF CALCUTTA. 
 
 A NEW EDITION. 
 
 LONDON: 
 JOHN iMUIlRAV, ALBEMARLE-STREET. 
 
 MDCCCXXIX.
 
 LONDON : 
 
 rUINTED BY R. OILBKIIT, 
 ST. JOHN'S SQUARE.
 
 TO 
 
 RICHARD HEBER, ESQUIRE, 
 
 THE FOLLOWING 
 
 POEMS 
 
 ARE DEDICATED 
 
 AS A TRIBUTE OF GRATITUDE 
 
 TO THE TALENT, TASTE, AND AFFECTION, 
 
 WHICH HE HAS UNIFORMLY EXERTED 
 
 IN ENCOURAGING AND DIRECTING THE STUDIES 
 
 OF HIS BROTHER. 
 
 HODNF.T RKCTOHY, 
 
 Jiiii. I, 1HI2.
 
 \
 
 PREFACE, 
 
 Of the collection of Poems now offered to 
 the Public, the first is an academical exercise 
 composed at the age of nineteen, and which had 
 the good fortune to obtain a prize from the Uni- 
 versity of Oxford. The second is an attempt to 
 embody and compare the different feelings ex- 
 cited, in the first instance, by the opening and 
 event of the war between France and Prussia ; 
 and afterwards, by the glorious struggle of the 
 Spanish people in defence of their political 
 liberty. The events which have since taken 
 place in Europe have not been such as to lessen 
 the hopes or change the sentiments expressed in 
 the former editions, and the poem is again pre- 
 sented without alteration ; though if the charac- 
 ters of poet and prophet had indeed been still 
 synonymous, the imaginary guardian of Europe 
 would doubtless have carried his views consider-
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 ably farther ; would have averted his eyes in 
 horror from the calamitous scenes of Wagram 
 and Walcheren ; and have reposed with joyful 
 anticipation on the achievements of Hill, Gra- 
 ham and Wellington. 
 
 The remaining contents of the volume have 
 been written at various times, and under the 
 pressure of various occupations. The pursuits 
 of a life which, though retired, has not been idle, 
 joined to the peculiar duties of the author's pro- 
 fession, have permitted few opportunities of in- 
 dulging in the relaxation of poetry. If the future 
 should present, as is far from improbable, still 
 fewer than these, and forbid his adding to the 
 followdng trifles any thing more worthy of fame ; 
 he trusts, at least, that nothing will be detected 
 in his pages, repugnant to the first interests of 
 mankind, to the cause of Liberty or Religion. 
 
 Jmi. 1, 1812.
 
 The poem of Palestine has been lately much in- 
 debted to the taste and genius of the Musical 
 Professor of Oxford. It is unnecessary, and the 
 author would feel it presumptuous to say any 
 thing in praise of a composer so eminent as Dr. 
 Crotch ; but he cannot refrain from expressing 
 how strongly he feels the distinction shewn to 
 his lines, by making them the humble vehicle of 
 harmony so perfect.
 
 PALESTINE: 
 
 A PRIZE POEM, 
 
 RECITED 
 
 IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, 
 
 IN THE YEAR MDCCCIII.
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 Reft of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn, 
 Mourn, widow'cl Queen, forgotten Sion, mourn ! 
 Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne, 
 Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone ? 
 While suns unblest their angry lustre fling, 
 And way-worn pilgi-ims seek the scanty spring ? — 
 Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy view'd? 
 Where now thy might, which all those kings subdu'd? 
 No martial myriads muster in thy gate ; 
 No suppliant nations in thy Temple wait ; 
 No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among, 
 Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song : 
 
 n 2
 
 4 PALESTINE. 
 
 But lawless Force, and meagre Want are there, 
 And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear, 
 While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid. 
 Folds his dank wing beneath the ivy shade. 
 
 Ye guardian saints ! ye warrior sons of Heaven, 
 To whose high care Judaea's state was given ! 
 O wont of old your nightly watch to keep, 
 A host of gods, on Sion's towery steep ! 
 If e'er your secret footsteps linger still 
 By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill ; 
 If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell, 
 And mourn the captive land you lov'd so well ; 
 (For oft, 'tis said, in Kedron's palmy vale 
 Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale, 
 And, blest as balmy dews that Hermon cheer. 
 Melt in soft cadence on the pilgi'im's ear) ; 
 Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high 
 Mock the weak notes of mortal minsti-elsy ! 
 Yet, might your aid this anxious breast inspire 
 With one faint spark of Milton's seraph fire.
 
 i. PALESTINE. 5 
 
 Then should my Muse ascend with bolder flight, 
 And wave her eagle-plumes exulting in the light. 
 
 O happy once in Heaven's peculiar love, 
 Delight of men below, and saints above ! 
 Though, Salem, now the spoiler's ruffian hand 
 Has loos'd his hell-hounds o'er thy wasted land ; 
 Though weak, and whelm'd beneath the storms of fate, 
 Thy house is left unto thee desolate ; 
 Though thy proud stones in cumbrous ruin fall, 
 And seas of sand o'ertop thy mould'ring wall ; 
 Yet shall the Muse to Fancy's ardent view 
 Each shadowy trace of faded pomp renew : 
 And as the seer on Pisgah's topmost brow 
 With glist'ning eye beheld the plain below, 
 With prescient ardour drank the scented gale, 
 And bade the op'ning glades of Canaan hail ; 
 Her eagle eye shall scan the prospect wide. 
 From Carmel's cliffs to Almotana's tide ; 
 The flinty •<^ aste, the cedar-tufted hill. 
 The liquid health of smooth Ardeni's rill ;
 
 6 PALESTINE. 
 
 The gTot, where, by the watch-fire's evening blaze, 
 The robber riots, or the hermit prays ; 
 Or where the tempest rives the hoary stone. 
 The wintry top of giant Lebanon. 
 
 Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold. 
 Those stormy seats the warrior Druses hold ; 
 From Norman blood their lofty line they trace. 
 Their lion courage proves their generous race. 
 They, only they, while all around them kneel 
 In sullen homage to the Thracian steel, 
 Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear 
 The patriot terrors of the mountain spear. 
 
 Yes, valorous chiefs, while yet your sabres shine. 
 The native guard of feeble Palestine, 
 O, ever thus, by no vain boast dismay 'd. 
 Defend the birthright of the cedar shade ! 
 What though no more for you th' obedient gale 
 Swells the white bosom of the Tyrian sail ; 
 Though now no more your glitt'ring marts unfold 
 Sidonian dyes and Lusitanian gold;
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 Though not for you the pale and sickly slave 
 Forgets the light in Ophir's wealthy cave ; 
 Yet yours the lot, in proud contentment blest, 
 Where cheerful labour leads to tranquil rest. 
 No robber rage the ripening harvest knows ; 
 And unresti'ain'd the generous vintage flows ; 
 Nor less your sons to manliest deeds aspire, 
 And Asia's mountains glow with Spartan fire. 
 
 So when, deep sinking in the rosy main, 
 The western Sun forsakes the Syrian plain. 
 His watery rays refi'acted lustre shed. 
 And pour their latest light on Carmel's head. 
 
 Yet shines your praise, amid surrounding gloom, 
 As the lone lamp that trembles in the tomb : 
 For few the souls that spurn a tyrant's chain. 
 And small the Ijounds of freedom's scanty reign. 
 As the poor outcast on the cheerless wild, 
 Arabia's parent, clasp'd her fainting child, 
 And wander'd near the roof, no more her home. 
 Forbid to linger, yet afraid to roam ;
 
 8 PALESTINE. 
 
 My soiTOwing Fancy quits the happier height. 
 And southward throws her half-averted sight. 
 For sad the scenes Judaea's plains disclose, 
 A dreary waste of undistinguish'd woes : 
 See War untir'd his crimson pinions spread, 
 And foul Revenge that ti-amples on the dead ! 
 Lo, where from far the guarded fountains shine. 
 Thy tents, Nebaioth, rise, and Kedar, thine ! 
 'Tis yours the boast to mark the stranger's way, 
 And spur your headlong chargers on the prey. 
 Or rouse your nightly numbers from afar, 
 And on the hamlet pour the waste of war ; 
 Nor spare the hoary head, nor bid your eye 
 Revere the sacred smile of infancy. 
 Such now the clans, whose fiery coursers feed 
 Where waves on Kishon's bank the whisp'ring reed ; 
 And theirs the soil, where, curling to the skies, 
 Smokes on Samaria's mount her scanty sacrifice ; 
 While Israel's sons, by scorpion curses driven. 
 Outcasts of earth, and reprobate of heaven.
 
 PALESTINE. 9 
 
 Through the wide world in friendless exile stray, 
 Remorse and shame sole comrades of their way, 
 With dumb despair their country's wrongs behold, 
 And, dead to glory, only burn for gold. 
 
 O Thou, their Guide, their Father, and their Lord, 
 Lov'd for Thy mercies, for Thy power ador'd ! 
 If at Thy Name the waves forgot their force, 
 And refluent Jordan sought his trembling source ; 
 If at Thy Name like sheep the mountains fled. 
 And haughty Sirion bow'd his marble head ; — 
 To Israel's woes a pitying ear incline, 
 And raise from earth Thy long-neglected vine ! 
 Her rifled fruits behold the heathen bear, 
 And wild-wood boars her mangled clusters tear. 
 Was it for this she stretch'd her peopled reign 
 From far Euphrates to the western main ? 
 For this, o'er many a hill her boughs she threw, 
 And her wide arms like goodly cedars grew ? 
 For this, proud Edom slept beneath her shade, 
 And o'er th' Arabian deep her branches play'd ?
 
 10 PALESTINE. 
 
 O, feeble boast of transitory power! 
 Vain, fruitless trust of Judah's happier hour! 
 Not such their hope, when through the parted main 
 The cloudy wonder led the warrior train : 
 Not such their hope, when through the fields of night 
 The torch of heaven diffus'd its friendly light : 
 Not, when fierce conquest urg'd the onward war, 
 And hurl'd stern Canaan from his iron car : 
 Nor, when five monarchs led to Gibeon's fight, 
 In rude array, the harness'd Amorite : 
 Yes — in that hour, by mortal accents stay'd, 
 The lingering Sun his fiery wheels delay 'd ; 
 The Moon, obedient, trembled at the sound, 
 Curb'd her pale car, and check'd her mazy round ! 
 
 Let Sinai tell — for she beheld his might, 
 And God's own darkness veil'd her mystic height : 
 (He, cherub-borne, upon the whirlwind rode. 
 And the red mountain like a furnace glow'd) : 
 Let Sinai tell — but who shall dare recite 
 His praise, his power, eternal, infinite ? —
 
 PALESTINE. 11 
 
 Awe-sti'uck I cease ; nor bid my strains aspire, 
 Or serve his altar with unhallow'd fire. 
 
 Such were the cares that watch'd o'er Israel's fate, 
 And such the glories of their infant state. 
 — Triumphant race ! and did your power decay ? 
 Fail'd the bright promise of your early day ? 
 No ; — by that sword, which, red with heathen gore, 
 A giant spoil, the sti-ipling champion bore ; 
 By him, the chief to farthest India known, 
 The mighty master of the iv'ry throne ; 
 In Heaven's own sti'ength, high towering o'er her foes. 
 Victorious Salem's lion banner rose : 
 Before her footstool prostrate nations lay, 
 And vassal tyi*ants crouch'd beneath her sway. 
 — And he, the kingly sage, whose restless mind 
 Through nature's mazes wander'd unconfin'd; 
 Who ev'ry bird, and beast, and insect knew. 
 And spake of every plant that quaffs the dew ; 
 To him were known — so Hagar's offspring tell — 
 The powerful sigil and the starry spell,
 
 \2 PALESTINE. 
 
 The midnight call, hell's shadowy legions dread. 
 
 And sounds that burst the slumbers of the dead. 
 
 Hence all his might ; for who could these oppose ? 
 
 And Tadmor thus, and Syrian Balbec rose. 
 
 Yet e'en the works of toiling Genii fall. 
 
 And vain was Estakhar's enchanted wall. 
 
 In frantic converse with the mournful wind. 
 
 There oft the houseless Santon rests reclin'd ; 
 
 Strange shapes he views, and drinks with wond'ring ears 
 
 The voices of the dead, and songs of other years. 
 
 Such, the faint echo of departed praise, 
 Still sound Arabia's legendary lays ; 
 And thus their fabling bards delight to tell 
 How lovely were thy tents, O Israel ! 
 
 For thee his iv'ry load Behemoth bore, 
 And far Sofala teem'd with golden ore ; 
 Thine all the arts that wait on wealth's increase. 
 Or bask and wanton in the beam of peace. 
 When Tyber slept beneath the cypress gloom. 
 And silence held the lonely woods of Rome ;
 
 PALESTINE. 1 
 
 n 
 
 Or ere to Greece the builder's skill was known. 
 Or the light chisel brush'd the Parian stone ; 
 Yet here fair Science nui's'd her infant fire, ' 
 Fann'd by the artist aid of friendly Tyre. 
 Then tower'd the palace, then in awful state 
 The Temple rear'd its everlasting gate. 
 No workman steel, no pond'rous axes rung ; 
 Like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprung. 
 Majestic silence ! — then the harp awoke, 
 The cymbal clang'd, the deep-voic'd trumpet spoke ; 
 And Salem spread her suppliant arms abroad, 
 View'd the descending flame, and bless'd the present God. 
 Nor shrunk she then, when, raging deep and loud, 
 Beat o'er her soul the billows of the proud. 
 E'en they who, dragg'd to Shinar's fiery sand, 
 Till'd with reluctant strength the stranger's land ; 
 Who sadly told the slow-revolving years, 
 And steep'd the captive's bitter bread with tears ; — 
 Yet oft their hearts with kindling hopes would burn. 
 Their destin'd trium{)hs, and their glad return,
 
 14 PALESTINE. 
 
 And their sad lyres, which, silent and unstrung, 
 
 In mournful ranks on Babel's willows hung, 
 
 Would oft awake to chant their future fame. 
 
 And from the skies their ling'ring Saviour claim. 
 
 His promis'd aid could every fear controul ; 
 
 This nerv'd the warrior's arm, this steel'd the martyr's soul ! 
 
 Nor vain their hope : — Bright beaming through the sky, 
 
 Burst in full blaze the Day-spring from on high ; 
 
 Earth's utmost isles exulted at the sight, 
 
 And crowding nations drank the orient light. 
 
 Lo, star-led chiefs Assyrian odours bring, 
 
 And bending Magi seek their infant King ! 
 
 Mark'd ye, where, hov'ring o'er his radiant head, 
 
 The dove's white wings celestial glory shed? 
 
 Daughter of Sion ! virgin queen ! rejoice ! 
 
 Clap the glad hand, and lift th' exulting voice ! 
 
 He comes, — but not in regal splendour di'est, 
 
 The haughty diadem, the Tyrian vest ; 
 
 Not arm'd in flame, all-glorious from afar, 
 
 Of hosts the chieftain, and the lord of war :
 
 PALESTINE. 15 
 
 Messiah comes ! — let furious discord cease ; 
 Be peace on earth before the Prince of Peace ! 
 
 Disease and anguish feel his blest controul, 
 And howling fiends release the tortur'd soul ; 
 The beams of gladness hell's dark caves illume, 
 And Mercy broods above the distant gloom. 
 
 Thou palsied earth, with noonday night o'erspread ! 
 Thou sick'ning sun, so dark, so deep, so red ! 
 Ye hov'ring ghosts, that throng the starless air, 
 Why shakes the earth? why fades the light? declare! 
 Are those his limbs, with ruthless scourges torn? 
 His brows, all bleeding with the twisted thorn ? 
 His the pale form, the meek forgiving eye 
 Rais'd from the cross in patient agony ? 
 — Be dark, thou sun, — thou noonday night arise. 
 And hide, oh hide, the di'eadful sacrifice ! 
 
 Ye faithful few, by bold affection led. 
 Who round the Saviour's cross your sorrows shed, 
 Not for his sake your tearful vigils keep ; — 
 Weep for your country, for your children weep !
 
 16 PALESTINE. 
 
 — Vengeance ! thy fiery wing their race pursu'd ; 
 Thy thirsty poniard blush'd with infant blood, 
 Rous'd at thy call, and panting still for game, 
 The bird of war, the Latian eagle came. 
 Then Judah rag'd, by ruffian Discord led. 
 Drunk with the steamy carnage of the dead : 
 He saw his sons by dubious slaughter fall. 
 And war without, and death within the wall. 
 Wide-wasting Plague, gaunt Famine, mad Despair, 
 And dire Debate, and clamourous Strife was there : 
 Love, strong as Death, retain'd his might no more, 
 And the pale parent drank her children's gore. 
 Yet they, who wont to roam th' ensanguin'd plain. 
 And spurn with fell delight their kindred slain ; 
 E'en they, when, high above the dusty fight, 
 Their burning Temple rose in lurid light, 
 To their lov'd altars paid a parting groan, 
 And in their country's woes forgot their own. 
 
 As 'mid the cedar courts, and gates of gold, 
 The trampled ranks in miry carnage roll'd.
 
 PALESTINE. 
 
 To save their Temple every hand essay 'd, 
 And with cold fingers gi-asp'd the feeble blade : 
 Through their torn veins reviving fury ran, 
 And life's last anger warm'd the dying man ! 
 
 But heavier far the fetter'd captive's doom ! 
 To glut vdth sighs the iron ear of Rome : 
 To swell, slow-pacing by the car's tall side, 
 The stoic tyrant's philosophic pride ; 
 To flesh the lion's rav'nous jaws, or feel 
 The sportive fury of the fencer's steel ; 
 Or pant, deep plung'd beneath the sultry mine, 
 For the light gales of balmy Palestine. 
 
 Ah ! fruitful now no more, — an empty coast, 
 She mourn'd her sons enslav'd, her glories lost : 
 In her wide streets the lonely raven bred, 
 There bark'd the wolf, and dire hyaenas fed. 
 Yet midst her towery fanes, in ruin laid. 
 The pilgrim saint his murmuring vespers paid ; 
 'Twas his to climb the tufted rocks, and rove 
 Tho chequor'd twilight of the olive grove ; 
 
 c
 
 18 PALESTINE. 
 
 'Twas his to bend beneath the sacred gloom, 
 And wear with many a kiss Messiah's tomb : 
 While forms celestial fill'd his tranced eye, 
 The day-light dreams of pensive piety, 
 O'er his still breast a tearful fervour stole. 
 And softer sorrows charm'd the mourner's soul. 
 
 Oh, lives there one, who mocks his artless zeal ? 
 Too proud to worship, and too wise to feel ? 
 Be his the soul with wintry Reason blest, 
 The dull, lethargic sov'reign of the breast ! 
 Be his the life that creeps in dead repose, 
 No joy that sparkles, and no tear that flows ! 
 
 Far other they who rear'd yon pompous shrine. 
 And bade the rock with Parian marble shine. 
 Then hallow'd Peace renew'd her wealthy reign. 
 Then altars smok'd, and Sion smil'd again. 
 There sculptur'd gold and costly gems were seen, 
 And all the bounties of the British queen ; 
 There barb'rous kings their sandal'd nations led. 
 And steel-clad champions bow'd the crested head.
 
 PALESTINE. 15) 
 
 There, when her fiery race the desert pour'd. 
 And pale Byzantium feai-'d Medina's sword, 
 When coward Asia shook in trembling woe, 
 And bent appall'd before the Bactrian bow ; 
 From the moist regions of the western star 
 The wand' ring hermit wak'd the storm of war. 
 Their limbs all iron, and their souls all flame, 
 A countless host, the red-cross warriors came : 
 E'en hoary priests the sacred combat wage. 
 And clothe in steel the palsied arm of age ; 
 While beardless youths and tender maids assume 
 The weighty morion and the glancing plume. 
 In sportive pride the warrior damsels wield 
 The pond'rous falchion, and the sun-like shield. 
 And start to see their armour's iron gleam 
 Dance with blue lustre in Tabaria's stream. 
 
 The blood-red banner floating o'er their van, 
 All madly blithe the mingl'd myriads ran : 
 Impatient Death beheld his destin'd food. 
 And liov'ring vultures snufi^'d the scent of blood. 
 
 c2
 
 20 PALESTINE. 
 
 Not such the numbers, nor the host so dread. 
 By northern Brenn or Scythian Timur led ; 
 Nor such the heart-inspiring zeal that bore 
 United Greece to Phrygia's reedy shore ! 
 There Gaul's proud knights with boastful mien advance, 
 Form the long line, and shake the cornel lance ; 
 Here, link'd with Thrace, in close battalions stand 
 Ausonia's sons, a soft inglorious band ; 
 There the stern Norman joins the Austrian train, 
 And the dark tribes of late-reviving Spain ; 
 Here in black files, advancing firm and slow, 
 Victorious Albion twangs the deadly bow : — 
 Albion, — still prompt the captive's wrong to aid. 
 And wield in Freedom's cause the freeman's generous blade! 
 
 Ye sainted spirits of the warrior dead, 
 Whose giant force Britannia's armies led ! 
 Whose bickering falchions, foremost in the fight. 
 Still pour'd confusion on the Soldan's might ; 
 Lords of the biting axe and beamy spear. 
 Wide-conquering Edward, Hon Richard, hear !
 
 PALESTINE. 21 
 
 At Albion's call your crested pride resume, 
 And burst the marble slumbers of the tomb ! 
 Your sons behold, in arm, in heart the same. 
 Still press the footsteps of parental fame, 
 To Salem still their generous aid supply. 
 And pluck the palm of Syrian chivalry ! 
 
 When he, from towery Malta's yielding isle. 
 And the green waters of reluctant Nile, 
 Th' apostate chief, — from Misraim's subject shore 
 To Acre's walls his trophied banners bore ; 
 When the pale desert mark'd his proud array, 
 And Desolation hop'd an ampler sway ; 
 WTiat hero then triumphant Gaul dismay 'd ? 
 W^hat arm repell'd the victor Renegade ? 
 Bi'itannia's champion ! — bath'd in hostile blood. 
 High on the breach the dauntless Seaman stood: 
 Admiring Asia saw th' unequal fight, — 
 E'en the pale crescent bless'd the Christian's might. 
 Oh day of death ! Oh thirst, beyond controul. 
 Of crimson conquest in th' Invader's soul !
 
 oo PALESTINE. 
 
 /*<*■' 
 
 The slain, yet warm, by social footsteps trod, 
 O'er the red moat supplied a panting road ; 
 O'er the red moat our conquering thunders flew, 
 And loftier still the gi'isly rampire grew. 
 While proudly glow'd above the rescued tower 
 The wavy cross that mark'd Britamiia's power. 
 
 Yet still destruction sweeps the lonely plain, 
 And heroes lift the generous sword in vain. 
 Still o'er her sky the clouds of anger roll, 
 And God's revenge hangs heavy on her soul. 
 Yet shall she rise ; — but not by war restor'd, 
 Not built in murder, — planted by the sword : 
 Yes, Salem, thou shalt rise : thy Father's aid 
 Shall heal the wound his chastening hand has made ; 
 Shall judge the proud oppressor's ruthless sway, 
 And burst his brazen bonds, and cast his cords away. 
 Then on your tops shall deathless verdure spring, 
 Break forth, ye mountains, and ye valleys, sing ! 
 No more your thirsty rocks shall frown forlorn, 
 The unbeliever's jest, the heathen's scorn ;
 
 PALESTINE. 23 
 
 The sultry sands shall tenfold harvests yield, 
 
 And a new Eden deck the thorny field. 
 
 E'en now, perchance, wide-waving o'er the land, 
 
 That mighty Angel lifts his golden wand, 
 
 Courts the bright vision of descending power. 
 
 Tells every gate, and measures every tower ; 
 
 And chides the tardy seals that yet detain 
 
 Thy Lion, Judah, from his destin'd reign. 
 
 And who is He ? the vast, the awful form. 
 Girt with the whirlwind, sandal'd with the storm ? 
 A western cloud around his limbs is spread. 
 His crown a rainbow, and a sun his head. 
 To highest heaven he lifts his kingly hand, 
 And ti'eads at once the ocean and the land ; 
 And, hark ! his voice amid the thunder's roar, 
 His dreadful voice, that time shall be no more ! 
 
 Lo ! cherub hands the golden courts prepare, 
 Lo ! thrones arise, and every saint is there ; 
 Earth's utmost bounds confess their awful sway, 
 The mountains worship, and the isles obey ;
 
 24 PALESTINE. 
 
 Nor sun nor moon they need, — nor day, nor night; — 
 
 God is their temple, and the Lamb their hght : 
 
 And shall not Israel's sons exulting come. 
 
 Hail the glad beam, and claim their ancient home ? 
 
 On David's throne shall David's offspring reign, 
 
 And the dry bones be vrarm with life again. 
 
 Hark ! white-rob'd crowds their deep hosannas raise. 
 
 And the hoarse flood repeats the sound of praise ; 
 
 Ten thousand harps attune the 'mystic song. 
 
 Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong ; — 
 
 " Worthy the Lamb ! omnipotent to save, 
 
 " Who died, who hves, triumphant o'er the grave !"
 
 EUROPE: 
 
 LINES ON THE PRESENT WAR. 
 
 WRITTEN IN MDCCCIX.
 
 ID. QVANDO. ACCIDERIT. NON. SATIS. AVDEO 
 EFFARI. SIQVIDEM. NON. CLARIVS. MIHI 
 PER. SACROS. TRIPODES. CERTA. REFERT. DEVS 
 NEC. SERVAT. PENITVS. FIDEM 
 
 QVOD. SI. QVID. LICEAT. CREDERE. ADHVC. TAMEN 
 NAM. LAEVVM. TONVIT. NON. FVERIT. PROCVL 
 QVAERENDVS. CELERI. QVI. PROPERET. GRADV 
 ET. GALLVM. REPRIMAT. FEROX 
 
 PETRVS. CRINITVS. IN. CARMINE 
 AD. BER, CARAPHAM.
 
 EUROPE. 
 
 At that dread season when th' indignant North 
 
 Pour'd to vain wars her tardy numbers forth. 
 
 When Frederic bent his ear to Europe's cry. 
 
 And fann'd too late the flame of hberty ; 
 
 By feverish hope oppress'd, and anxious thought, 
 
 In Dresden's grove the dewy cool I sought. 
 
 Through tangled boughs the broken moonshine play'd. 
 
 And Elbe slept soft beneath his linden shade : — 
 
 'Yet slept not all ; — I heard the ceaseless jar, 
 
 The rattling waggons, and the wheels of war ; 
 
 The sounding lash, the march's mingled hum, 
 
 And, lost and heard by fits, the languid drum ;
 
 28 EUROPE. 
 
 O'er the near bridge the thundering hoofs that trode, 
 And the far-distant fife that thrill'd along the road. 
 Yes, sweet it seems across some watery dell 
 To catch the music of the pealing bell ; 
 And sweet to list, as on the beach we stray, 
 The ship-boy's carol in the wealthy bay : — 
 But sweet no less, when Justice points the spear. 
 Of martial wrath the glorious din to hear, 
 To catch the war-note on the quivering gale, 
 And bid the blood-red paths of conquest hail. 
 
 Oh ! song of hope, too long delusive strain ! 
 And hear we now thy flattering voice again ? 
 But late, alas ! I left thee cold and still, 
 Stunn'd by the wrath of Heaven, on Pratzen's hill. 
 Oh ! on that hill may no kind month renew 
 The fertile rain, the sparkling summer dew ! 
 Accurs'd of God, may those bleak summits tell 
 The field of anger where the mighty fell. 
 There youthful Faith and high-born Courage rest, 
 And, red with slaughter, Freedom's humbled crest ;
 
 EUROPE. 29 
 
 There Europe, soil'd with blood her tresses grey. 
 And ancient Honour's shield, — all vilely thrown away. 
 
 Thus mus'd my soul, as in succession dear 
 Rose each gi*im shape of Wrath and Doubt and Fear ; 
 Defeat and Shame in gi'isly vision past. 
 
 And Vengeance, bought with blood, and glorious Death the last. 
 Then as my gaze their waving eagles met, 
 And through the night each sparkling bayonet, 
 Still Memory told how Austria's evil hour 
 Had felt on Praga's field a Frederic's power. 
 And Gallia's vaunting train, and Mosco's horde. 
 Had flesh'd the maiden steel of Brunswick's sword. 
 Oh ! yet, I deem'd, that Fate, by Justice led. 
 Might wi'eath once more the veteran's silver head ; 
 That Europe's ancient pride would yet disdain 
 The cumbrous scepti-e of a single reign ; 
 That conscious right would tenfold strength afford, 
 And Heaven assist the patriot's holy sword, 
 And look in mercy through th' auspicious sky. 
 To bless the saviour host of Germany.
 
 ,J0 EUROPE. 
 
 And are they dieams, these bodings, such as shed 
 Their lonely comfort o'er the hermit's bed ? 
 And are they dreams ? or can th' Eternal Mind 
 Care for a sparrow, yet neglect mankind ? 
 Why, if the dubious battle own his power, 
 And the red sabre, where he bids, devour. 
 Why then can one the curse of worlds deride, 
 And millions weep a tyrant's single pride ? 
 
 Thus sadly musing, far my footsteps stray 'd. 
 Rapt in the visions of the Aonian maid. 
 It was not she, whose lonely voice I hear 
 Fall in soft whispers on my love-lorn ear ; 
 My daily guest, who wont my steps to guide 
 Through the green walks of scented even-tide. 
 Or stretch'd vnth me in noonday ease along. 
 To list the reaper's chaunt, or throstle's song : — 
 But she of loftier port ; whose grave controul 
 Rules the fierce workings of the patriot's soul ; 
 She, whose high presence, o'er the midnight oil, 
 With Fame's bright promise cheers the student's toil ;
 
 EUROPE. 31 
 
 That same was she, whose ancient lore refin'd 
 
 The sober hardihood of Sydney's mind. 
 
 Borne on her wing, no more I seem'd to rove 
 
 By Dresden's gUttering spires, and hnden grove ; 
 
 No more the giant Elbe, all silver bright, 
 
 Spread his broad bosom to the fair moonlight, 
 
 While the still margent of his ample flood 
 
 Bore the dark image of the Saxon wood — 
 
 (Woods happy once, that heard the carols free. 
 
 Of rustic love, and cheerful industry ; 
 
 Now dull and joyless he their alleys gi-een. 
 
 And silence marks the track where France has been.) 
 
 Far other scenes than these my fancy view'd : 
 
 Rocks rob'd in ice, a mountain solitude ; 
 
 Where on Helvetian hills, in godlike state. 
 
 Alone and awful, Europe's Angel sate : 
 
 Silent and stern he sate ; then, bending low, 
 
 Listen'd th' ascending plaints of human woe. 
 
 And waving as in grief his towery head, 
 
 " Not yet, not yet the day of rest," he said ;
 
 32 EUROPE. 
 
 "It may not be. Destruction's gory wing 
 
 Soars o'er the banners of the younger king, 
 
 Too rashly brave, who seeks with single sway 
 
 To stem the lava on its destin'd way. 
 
 Poor, glittering warriors, only wont to know 
 
 The bloodless pageant of a martial show ; 
 
 Nurselings of peace, for fiercer fights prepare. 
 
 And di'ead the step-dame sway of unaccustom'd war ! 
 
 They fight, they bleed ! — Oh ! had that blood been shed 
 
 When Charles and Valour Austria's armies led ; 
 
 Had these stood forth the righteous cause to shield, 
 
 When victory waver'd on Moravia's field ; 
 
 Then France had mourn'd her conquests made in vain, 
 
 Her backward-beaten ranks, and countless slain ; — 
 
 Then had the sti'ength of Europe's freedom stood, 
 
 And still the Rhine had roll'd a German flood ! 
 
 " Oh ! nurs'd in many a wile, and practis'd long 
 To spoil the poor, and cringe before the strong ; 
 To swell the victor's state, and hovering near. 
 Like some base vulture in the battle's rear,
 
 EUROPE. 33 
 
 To watch the carnage of the field, and share 
 Each loathsome alms the prouder eagles spare : 
 A curse is on thee, Brandenburgh ! the sound 
 Of Poland's wailing drags thee to the ground ; 
 And, di'unk with guilt, thy harlot lips shall know 
 The bitter dregs of Austria's cup of woe. 
 
 " Enough of vengeance ! O'er th' ensanguin'd plain 
 I gaze, and seek their numerous host in vain ; 
 Gone like the locust band, when whirlwinds bear 
 Their flimsy legions through the waste of air. 
 Enough of vengeance ! — By the glorious dead. 
 Who bravely fell where youthful Lewis led ; 
 By Blucher's sword in fiercest danger tried, 
 And the true heart that burst when Brunswick died ; 
 By her whose charms the coldest zeal might warm, 
 The manhest firmness in the fairest form — 
 Save, Europe, save the remnant ! — Yet remains 
 One glorious path to free the world from chains. 
 Why, when yon northern band in Eylau's wood 
 Retreating struck, and track'd their course with blood.
 
 34 EUROPE. 
 
 While one firm rock the floods of ruin stay'd, 
 Why, generous Austria, were thy wheels delay 'd ? 
 And Albion 1" — Darker sorrow veil'd his brow — 
 " Friend of the friendless — Albion ! where art thou ? 
 Child of the Sea, whose wing-like sails are spread, 
 The covering cherub of the ocean's bed ! 
 The storm and tempest render peace to thee, 
 And the wild-roaring waves a stern security. 
 But hope not thou in Heaven's own strength to ride. 
 Freedom's lov'd ark, o'er broad oppression's tide ; 
 If virtue leave thee, if thy careless eye 
 Glance in contempt on Europe's agony. 
 Alas ! where now the bands who wont to pour 
 Their strong deliverance on th' Egyptian shore ? 
 Wing, wing your course, a prostrate world to save. 
 Triumphant squadrons of Trafalgar's wave. 
 
 " And thou, blest star of Europe's darkest hour. 
 Whose words were wisdom, and whose counsels power. 
 Whom Earth applauded through her peopled shores ! 
 (Alas ! whom Earth too early lost deplores : — )
 
 EUROPE. 35 
 
 Young without follies, without rashness bold, 
 And gi-eatly poor amidst a nation's gold ! 
 In every veering gale of faction true, 
 Untarnish'd Chatham's genuine child, adieu ! 
 Unlike our common sons, whose gradual ray 
 Expands fi-om twilight to intenser day. 
 Thy blaze broke forth at once in full meridian sway. 
 O, prov'd in danger ! not the fiercest flame 
 Of Discord's rage thy constant soul could tame; 
 Not when, far-stinding, o'er thy palsied land. 
 Gigantic Treason took his bolder stand ; 
 Not when mid Zeal, by murderous Faction led. 
 On Wicklow's hills her grass-gi-een banner spread ; 
 Or those stern conquerors of the restless wave 
 Defied the native soil they wont to save. — 
 Undaunted patriot! in that dreadful hour. 
 When pride and genius own a sterner power ; 
 When the dimm'd eyeball, and the struggling breath. 
 And pain, and terror, mark advancing death ; — 
 
 D 2
 
 36 EUROPE. 
 
 Still in that breast thy country held her throne. 
 
 Thy toil, thy fear, thy prayer were hers alone, 
 
 Thy last faint effort hers, and hers thy parting groan. 
 
 " Yes, from those lips while fainting nations drew 
 Hope ever sti-ong, and courage ever new; — 
 Yet, yet, I deem'd, by that supporting hand 
 Propp'd in her fall might Freedom's ruin stand ; 
 And purg'd by fire, and stronger from the storm, 
 Degraded Justice rear her reverend form. 
 Now hope adieu ! — adieu the generous care 
 To shield the weak, and tame the proud in war ! 
 The golden chain of realms, when equal awe 
 Pois'd the strong balance of impartial law ; 
 When rival states as federate sisters shone, 
 Alike, yet various, and though many, one ; 
 And, bright and numerous as the spangled sky, 
 Beam'd each fair star of Europe's galaxy — 
 All, all are gone, and after-time shall trace 
 One boundless rule, one undistinguish'd race ;
 
 EUROPE. 37 
 
 Twilight of worth, where nought remains to move 
 The pati'iot's ardour, or the subject's love. 
 
 " Behold, e'en now, while every manly lore 
 And every muse forsakes my yielding shore ; 
 Faint, vapid fruits of slavery's sickly clime. 
 Each tinsel art succeeds, and harlot rhyme ! 
 To gild the vase, to bid the purple spread 
 In sightly foldings o'er the Grecian bed, 
 Their mimic guard where sculptur'd gryphons keep. 
 And Memphian idols watch o'er beauty's sleep ; 
 To rouse the slumbering sparks of faint desire 
 With the base tinkling of the Teian IjTe ; 
 While youth's enervate glance and gloating age 
 Hang o'er the mazy waltz, or pageant stage ; 
 Each wayward wish of sickly taste to please, 
 The nightly revel and the noontide ease — 
 These, Europe, are thy toils, thy trophies these ! 
 
 " So, when vnde-wasting hail, or whelming rain, 
 Have strew'd the bearded hope of golden gi-ain,
 
 38 EUROPE. 
 
 From the wet furrow, struggling to the skies, 
 The tall, rank weeds in barren splendour rise ; 
 And strong, and towering o'er the mildew'd ear, 
 Uncomely flowers and baneful herbs appear ; 
 The swain's rich toils to useless poppies yield. 
 And Famine stalks along the purple field. 
 
 *' And thou, the poet's theme, the patriot's prayer !- 
 Where, France, thy hopes, thy gilded promise, where ? 
 When o'er Montpelier's vines, and Jura's snows, 
 All goodly bright, young Freedom's planet rose ? 
 What boots it now, (to our destruction brave), 
 How strong thine arm in war? a valiant slave! 
 What boots it now that wide thine eagles sail, 
 Fann'd by the flattering breath of conquest's gale ? 
 What, that, high-pil'd within yon ample dome, 
 The blood-bought treasures rest of Greece and Rome ? 
 Scourge of the highest, bolt in vengeance hurl'd 
 By Heaven's dread justice on a shrinking world! 
 Go, vanquish'd victor, bend thy proud helm down 
 Before thy sullen tyrant's steely crown.
 
 EUROPE. 39 
 
 For him in Afric's sands, and Poland's snows, 
 Rear'd by thy toil the shadowy laurel gi'ows ; 
 And rank in German fields the harvest springs 
 Of pageant councils and obsequious kings. 
 Such purple slaves, of glittering fetters vain, 
 Link'd the wide circuit of the Latian chain ; 
 And slaves like these shall every tyrant find, 
 To gild oppression, and debase mankind. 
 
 " Oh ! live there yet whose hardy souls and high 
 Peace bought with shame, and tranquil bonds defy ? 
 Who, driven from every shore, and lords in vain 
 Of the wide prison of the lonely main, 
 Cling to their country's rights with freeborn zeal. 
 More strong from every stroke, and patient of the steel ? 
 Guiltless of chains, to them has Heaven consign'd 
 Th' entrusted cause of Europe and mankind ! 
 Or hope we yet in Sweden's martial snows 
 That Freedom's weary foot may find repose ? 
 No ; — from yon hermit shade, yon cypress dell, 
 Where fiiintly peals the distant matin-bell ;
 
 40 EUROPE. 
 
 Where bigot kings and tyrant priests had shed 
 Their sleepy venom o'er his dreadful head ; 
 He wakes, th' avenger— hark ! the hills around, 
 Untam'd Asturia bids her clarion sound ; 
 And many an ancient rock, and fleecy plain, 
 And many a valiant heart returns the strain : 
 Heard by that shore, where Calpe's armed steep 
 Flings its long shadow o'er th' Herculean deep. 
 And Lucian glades, whose hoary poplars wave 
 In soft, sad murmurs over Inez' grave. 
 They bless the call who dar'd the first withstand 
 The Moslem wasters of their bleeding land, 
 When firm in faith, and red with slaughter'd foes. 
 Thy spear-encircled crown, Asturia, rose. 
 Nor these alone ; as loud the war-notes swell. 
 La Mancha's shepherd quits his cork-built cell ; 
 Alhama's strength is there, and those who till 
 (A hardy race !) Morena's scorched hill ; 
 And in rude arms through wide Gallicia's reign. 
 The swarthy vintage pours her vigorous train.
 
 EUROPE. 41 
 
 " Saw ye those tribes ? not theirs the plumed boast, 
 The sightly trappings of a marshall'd host ; 
 No weeping nations curse their deadly skill, 
 Expert in danger, and enur'd to kill : — 
 But theirs the kindling eye, the strenuous arm ; 
 Theirs the dark cheek, with patriot ardour warm, 
 Unblanch'd by sluggard ease, or slavish fear. 
 And proud and pure the blood that mantles there. 
 Theirs from the birth is toil ; — o'er granite steep. 
 And heathy wild, to guard the wandering sheep ; 
 To urge the labouring mule, or bend the spear 
 'Gainst the night-prowling wolf, or felon bear ; 
 The bull's hoarse rage in dreadful sport to mock. 
 And meet with single sword his bellowing shock. 
 Each martial chant they know, each manly rhyme, 
 Rude, ancient lays of Spain's heroic time ; 
 Of him in Xeres' carnage fearless found, 
 (His glittering brows with hostile spear-heads bound;) 
 Of that chaste king whose hardy mountain train 
 O'erthrew the knightly race of Charlemagne ;
 
 43 EUROPE. 
 
 And chiefest him who rear'd his banner tall 
 (Illustrious exile !) o'er Valencia's wall ; 
 Ungrac'd by kings, whose Moorish title rose 
 The toil-earned homage of his wondering foes. 
 
 " Yes ; ev'ry mould'ring tow'r and haunted flood, 
 And the wild murmm*s of the waving wood ; 
 Each sandy waste, and orange-scented dell, 
 And red Buraba's field, and Lugo, tell, 
 How their brave fathers fought, how thick th' invaders 
 fell. 
 
 " Oh ! virtue long forgot, or vainly tried, 
 To glut a bigot's zeal, or tyrant's pride ; 
 Condemn'd in distant climes to bleed and die 
 'Mid the dank poisons of Tlascala's sky ; 
 Or when stern Austria stretch'd her lawless reign, 
 And spent in Northern fights the flower of Spain ; 
 Or war's hoarse furies yell'd on Ysell's shore, 
 And Alva's ruffian sword was drunk with gore. 
 Yet dar'd not then Tlascala's chiefs withstand 
 The lofty daring of Castilia's band ;
 
 EUROPE. 43 
 
 And weeping France her captive king deplor'd, 
 And curs'd the deathful point of Ebro's sword. 
 Now, nerv'd with hope, their night of slavery past. 
 Each heart beats high in freedom's buxom blast ; 
 ' Lo ! Conquest calls, and beck'ning fi-om afar, 
 Uplifts his laurel wreath, and waves them on to war. 
 — Woe to th' usurper then, who dares defy 
 The sturdy wi'ath of rustic loyalty ! 
 Woe to the hireling bands, foredoom'd to feel 
 How strong in labour's horny hand the steel ! 
 Behold e'en now, beneath yon Boetic skies 
 Another Pavia bids her trophies rise ; — 
 E'en now in base disguise and fi'iendly night 
 Their robber-monarch speeds his secret flight ; 
 And with new zeal the fiery Lusians rear, 
 (Rous'd by their neighbour's worth) the long-neglected spear. 
 
 " So, when stern winter chills the April showers, 
 And iron frost forbids the timely flowers ; 
 Oh, deem not thou the vigorous herb below 
 Is crush'd and dead beneath th' incumbent snow:
 
 44 EUROPE. 
 
 Such tardy suns shall wealthier harvests bring 
 Than all the early smiles of flattering spring." 
 
 Sweet as the martial trumpet's silver swell, 
 On my charm'cl sense th' unearthly accents fell : 
 Me wonder held, and joy chastis'd by fear, 
 As one who wish'd, yet hardly hop'd to hear. 
 " Spirit," I cried, " dread teacher, yet declare, 
 In that good fight, shall Albion's arm be there ? 
 Can Albion, brave, and wise, and proud, refrain 
 To hail a kindi'ed soul, and link her fate with Spain ? 
 Too long her sons, esti-ang'd from war and toil, 
 Have loath'd the safety of the sea-girt isle ; 
 And chid the waves which pent their fire within, 
 As the stall'd war-horse wooes the battle's din. 
 Oh, by this throbbing heart, this patriot glow. 
 Which, well I feel, each English breast shall know ; 
 Say, shall my country, rous'd from deadly sleep, 
 Crowd with her hardy sons yon western steep ? 
 And shall once more the star of France gi'ow pale. 
 And dim its beams in Roncesvalles' vale ?
 
 EUROPE. 45 
 
 Or shall foul sloth and timid doubt conspire 
 To mar our zeal, and waste our manly fire ?" 
 
 Still as I gaz'd, his low'ring features spread. 
 High rose his form, and darkness veil'd his head ; 
 Fast fi-om his eyes the ruddy lightning broke, 
 To heaven he rear'd his arm, and thus he spoke : 
 
 " Woe, trebly woe to their slow zeal who bore 
 Delusive comfort to Iberia's shore ! 
 Wlio in mid conquest, vaunting, yet dismay'd, 
 Now gave, and now withdrew their laggard aid ; 
 Who, when each bosom glow'd, each heart beat high, 
 Chill'd the pure stream of England's energy, 
 And lost in courtly forms and blind delay 
 The loiter'd hours of glory's short-liv'd day. 
 
 " O peerless island, generous, bold, and free, 
 Lost, ruin'd Albion, Europe mourns for thee ! 
 Hadst thou but known the hour in mercy given 
 To stay thy doom, and ward the ire of Heaven ; 
 Bar'd in the cause of man thy warrior breast. 
 And crush'd on yonder hills th' approaching pest,
 
 4V> EUROPE. 
 
 Then had not murder sack'd thy smiHng plain, 
 And wealth, and worth, and wisdom all been vain ; 
 " Yet, yet awake ! while fear and wonder wait 
 On the pois'd balance, trembling still with fate ! 
 If aught their worth can plead, in battle tried, 
 Who ting'd with slaughter Tajo's curdling tide ; 
 (What time base truce the wheels of war could stay, 
 And the weak victor flung his wi-eath away ;) — 
 Or theirs, who, dol'd in scanty bands afar, 
 W^ag'd without hope the disproportion'd war, 
 And cheerly still, and patient of distress. 
 Led their forwasted files on numbers numberless ! 
 
 " Yes, through the march of many a weary day, 
 As yon dark column toils its seaward way ; 
 As bare, and shrinking from th' inclement sky, 
 The languid soldier bends him down to die ; 
 As o'er those helpless limbs, by murder gor'd. 
 The base pursuer waves his weaker sword. 
 And, trod to earth, by trampling thousands press'd, 
 The horse-hoof glances from that mangled breast ; —
 
 EUROPE. 47 
 
 E'en in that hour his hope to England flies, 
 And fame and vengeance fire his closing eyes. 
 
 " Oh ! if such hope can plead, or his, whose bier 
 Drew from his conquering host their latest tear ; 
 Whose skill, whose matchless valour, gilded flight ; 
 Entomb'd in foreign dust, a hasty soldier's rite ; — 
 Oh ! rouse thee yet to conquer and to save. 
 And Wisdom guide the sword which Justice gave ! 
 
 " And yet the end is not ! fi'om yonder tow'rs 
 While one Saguntum mocks the victor's pow'rs ; 
 While one brave heart defies a servile chain. 
 And one true soldier wields a lance for Spain ; 
 Trust not, vain tyrant, though thy spoiler band 
 In tenfold myriads darken half the land ; 
 (Vast as that power, against whose impious lord 
 Bethulia's matron shook the nightly sword ;) 
 Though ruth and fear tliy woundless soul defy. 
 And fatal genius fire thy martial eye ; 
 Yet trust not here o'er yielding realms to roam. 
 Or cheaply bear a bloodless laurel home.
 
 48 EUROPE. 
 
 " No ! by His viewless arm whose righteous care 
 Defends the orphan's tear, the poor man's prayer ; 
 Who, Lord of Nature, o'er this changeful ball 
 Decrees the rise of empires, and the fall ; 
 Wondrous in all His ways, unseen, unknown, 
 Who treads the wine-press of the world alone ; 
 And rob'd in darkness, and surrounding fears. 
 Speeds on their destin'd road the march of years ! 
 No ! — shall yon eagle, from the snare set free. 
 Stoop to thy wrist, or cower his wing for thee? 
 And shall it tame despair, thy strong controul, 
 Or quench a nation's still reviving soul ? — 
 Go, bid the force of countless bands conspire 
 To curb the wandering wind, or grasp the fire ! 
 Cast thy vain fetters on the troublous sea!— 
 But Spain, the brave, the virtuous, shall be free."
 
 TO LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, 
 
 SIR ROWLAND HILL, K.B. 
 
 Hill ! whose high d,aring with renew'd success 
 Hath cheer'd our tardy war, what time the cloud 
 Of expectation, dark and comfortless, 
 Hung on the mountains ; and yon factious crowd 
 Blasphem'd their country's valour, babbling loud ! 
 Then was thine arm reveal'd, to whose young might, 
 By Toulon's leaguer'd wall, the fiercest bow'd ; 
 Whom Egypt honour'd, and the dubious fight 
 Of sad Corunna's winter, and more bright 
 Douro, and Talavera's gory bays ;
 
 50 SONNET. 
 
 Wise, modest, brave, in danger foremost found. — 
 So still, young warrior, may thy toil-earn'd praise. 
 With England's love and England's honour crown'd, 
 Gild with delight thy Father's latter days !
 
 THE 
 
 PASSAGE 
 
 OF 
 
 THE RED SEA. 
 
 E 3
 
 THE 
 
 PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 
 
 With heat o'erlabour'd and the length of way, 
 On Ethan's beach the bands of Israel lay. 
 'Twas silence all, the sparkling sands along ; 
 Save where the locust trill'd her feeble song, 
 Or blended soft in drowsy cadence fell 
 The wave's low whisper or the camel's bell. — • 
 'Twas silence all ! — the flocks for shelter fly 
 Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie ; 
 Or where, from far, the flatt'ring vapours make 
 The noon-tide semblance of a misty lake :
 
 54 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 While the mute swain, in careless safety spread, 
 With arms enfolded, and dejected head. 
 Dreams o'er his wondrous call, his lineage high, 
 And, late reveal'd, his children's destiny. — 
 For, not in vain, in thraldom's darkest hour, 
 Had sped from Amram's sons the word of pow'r ; 
 Nor fail'd the dreadful wand, whose god-like sway 
 Could lure the locust from her airy way ; 
 With reptile war assail their proud abodes. 
 And mar the giant pomp of Egypt's Gods. 
 Oh helpless Gods ! who nought avail'd to shield 
 From fiery rain your Zoan's favour'd field ! — 
 Oh helpless Gods ! who saw the curdled blood 
 Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood, 
 And fourfold-night the wondering earth enchain, 
 While Memnon's orient harp was heard in vain ! — 
 Such musings held the tribes, till now the west 
 With milder influence on their temples prest ; 
 And that portentous cloud which, all the day. 
 Hung its dark curtain o'er their weary way,
 
 THE RED SEA. 55 
 
 (A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night), 
 
 Roird back its misty veil, and kindled into light ! — 
 
 Soft fell the eve : — But, ere the day was done. 
 
 Tall, waving banners streak'd the level sun ; 
 
 And wide and dark along th' horizon red, 
 
 In sandy surge the rising desert spread. — 
 
 " Mark, Israel, mark!" — On that strange sight intent. 
 
 In breathless terror, every eye was bent ; 
 
 And busy faction's fast-increasing hum 
 
 And female voices shriek, " They come, they come !" 
 
 They come, they come ! in scintillating show 
 
 O'er the dark mass the brazen lances glow ; 
 
 And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine, 
 
 As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line ; — 
 
 And fancy's keener glance ev'n now may trace 
 
 The threatening aspects of each mingl'd race : 
 
 For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear. 
 
 The hireling guards of Misraim's throne, were there. 
 
 From distant Cush they troop'd, a warrior train, 
 
 Siwah's green isle and Sennaar's marly plain :
 
 5G THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 On eitlier wing their fiery coursers check 
 
 The parch'd and sinewy sons of Amalek : 
 
 While close behind, iniir'd to feast on blood, 
 
 Deck'd in Behemoth's spoils, the tall Shangalla strode. 
 
 'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold 
 
 Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots roll'd ? 
 
 Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates, 
 
 Old Thebes hath pour'd through all her hundred gates. 
 
 Mother of armies! — How the emeralds glow'd. 
 
 Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode ! 
 
 And stol'd in white, those brazen wheels before, 
 
 Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore ; 
 
 And still responsive to the trumpet's cry 
 
 The priestly sistrum murmur'd — Victory ! — 
 
 Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom ? 
 
 Whom come ye forth to combat ? — warriors, whom ? — 
 
 These flocks and herds — this faint and weary train — 
 
 Red from the scourge and recent from the chain ? — 
 
 God of the poor, the poor and friendless save ! 
 
 Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave ! —
 
 THE RED SEA. 57 
 
 North, south, and west the sandy whirlwinds fly, 
 
 The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry. 
 
 On earth's last margin throng the weeping train : 
 
 Their cloudy guide moves on: — " And must we swim the main?"' 
 
 'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, 
 
 Nor bath'd a fetlock in the nauseous flood — 
 
 He comes — their leader comes ! — the man of God 
 
 O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod. 
 
 And onward ti-eads — The circling waves retreat. 
 
 In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet; 
 
 And the chas'd surges, inly roaring, show 
 
 The hard wet sand and coral hills below. 
 
 With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, 
 Down, down they pass — a steep and slippery dell — 
 Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd, 
 The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world ; 
 And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green. 
 And caves, the sea-calves' low-roofd haunt, are seen. 
 Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread; 
 The beetling waters storm above their head :
 
 58 THE PASSAGE OF 
 
 While far behind retires the sinking day, 
 And fades on Edom's liills its latest ray. 
 
 Yet not fi'om Israel fled the friendly light, 
 Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night. 
 Still in their van, along that dreadful road, 
 Blaz'd broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God. 
 Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave 
 On the long miiTor of the rosy wave : 
 While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply, 
 Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye — 
 To them alone — for Misraim's wizard train 
 Invoke for light their monster-gods in vair : 
 Clouds heap'd on clouds their sti'uggling sight confine, 
 And tenfold darkness broods above their line. 
 Yet on they fare by reckless vengeance led. 
 And range unconscious through the ocean's bed : 
 Till midway now — that strange and fiery form 
 Show'd his dread visage lightening through the storm ; 
 With withering splendour blasted all their might. 
 And brake their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight.
 
 THE RED SEA. 59 
 
 " Fly, Misraim, fly !" — The ravenous floods they see, 
 Aiid, fiercer than the floods, the Deity. 
 " Fly, Misrami, fly !" — From Edom's coral strand 
 Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand : — 
 With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, — 
 And all is waves — a dark and lonely deep — 
 Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past, 
 As mortal wailing swell'd the nightly blast : 
 And sti'ange and sad the whispering breezes bore 
 The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore. 
 
 Oh ! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood 
 In trustless wonder by th' avenging flood ! 
 Oh ! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show 
 The drifted wi-eck of Zoan's pride below ; 
 The mangled limbs of men — the broken car — 
 A few sad relics of a nation's war : 
 Alas, how few ! — Then, soft as Elim's well. 
 The precious tears of new-born freedom fell. 
 And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne 
 The house of bondage and th' oppressor's scorn,
 
 60 THE PASSAGE, &c. 
 
 The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued, 
 In fiiltcring accents sobb'd his gratitude- 
 Till kindling into warmer zeal, around 
 The virgin timbrel wak'd its silver sound : 
 And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest, 
 The struggling spirit throbb'd in Miriam's breast. 
 She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky 
 The dark transparence of her lucid eye, 
 Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony. 
 " Where now," she sang, " the tall Egyptian spear ? 
 " On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where ? 
 " Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. 
 " Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed!" — 
 And every pause between, as Miriam sang, 
 From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, 
 And loud and far their stormy chorus spread, — 
 " Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF PINDAR.
 
 THE FIRST OLYMPIC ODE. 
 
 TO HIERO OF SYRACUSE, VICTOR IN THE HORSE RACE. 
 
 Can earth, or fire, or liquid air, 
 With water's sacred stream compare? 
 Can aught that wealthy tyi'ants hold 
 Surpass the lordly blaze of gold ? — 
 Or lives there one, whose restless eye 
 Would seek along the empty sky, 
 Beneath the sun's merichan ray, 
 A warmer star, a purer day ? — 
 O thou, my soul, whose choral song 
 Would tell of contests sharp and strong, 
 Extol not other lists above 
 The circus of Olympian Jove ;
 
 64 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Whence, borne on many a tuneful tongue, 
 To Saturn's seed the anthem sung, 
 With harp, and flute, and trumpet's call, 
 Hath sped to Hiero's festival. — 
 
 Over sheep-clad Sicily 
 
 Who the righteous sceptre beareth, 
 Every flovirer of Virtue's tree 
 
 Wove in various wreath he weareth. — 
 But the bud of Poesy 
 
 Is the fairest flow^er of all ; 
 Which the bards, in social glee, 
 
 Strew round Hiero's wealthy hall. — 
 The harp on yonder pin suspended, 
 Seize it, boy, for Pisa's sake ; 
 And that good steed's, whose thought will wake 
 A joy vv^ith anxious fondness blended : — 
 No sounding lash his sleek side rended : — 
 
 By Alpheus' brink, with feet of flame, 
 Self-driven, to the goal he tended :
 
 OF PINDAR. 65 
 
 And earn'd the olive wi-eath of fame 
 For that dear lord, whose righteous name 
 The sons of Syracusa tell : — 
 Who loves the generous courser well : 
 Belov'd himself by all who dwell 
 In Pel ops' Lydian colony. — 
 — Of earth-embracing Neptune, he 
 The darling, when, in days of yore, 
 All lovely from the caldron red 
 By Clotho's spell delivered. 
 The youth an ivory shoulder bore. — 
 
 — Well ! — these are tales of mystery ! — 
 
 And many a darkly-woven lie 
 
 With men will easy credence gain ; 
 
 While truth, calm truth, may speak in vain ;- 
 
 For Eloquence, whose honey 'd sway 
 
 Our frailer mortal wits obey. 
 
 Can honour give to actions ill, 
 
 And faith to deeds incredible ; —
 
 6G TRANSLATIONS 
 
 And bitter blame, and praises high, 
 Fall truest from posterity. — 
 
 But, if we dare the deeds rehearse 
 
 Of those that aye endure, 
 'Twere meet that in such dangerous verse 
 
 Our very word were pure. — 
 Then, son of Tantalus, receive 
 
 A plain unvarnish'd lay ! — 
 My song shall elder fables leave, 
 And of thy parent say. 
 That, when in heaven a favour'd guest, 
 He call'd the gods in turn to feast 
 On Sipylus, his mountain home : — 
 The sovereign of the ocean foam, 
 — Can mortal form such favour prove ? — 
 Rapt thee on golden car above 
 To highest house of mighty Jove; 
 
 To which, in after day. 
 Came golden-haired Ganymede,
 
 OF PINDAR. Gl 
 
 As bards in ancient story read, 
 
 The dark-wing'd eagle's prey. — 
 
 And when no earthly tongue could tell 
 The fate of thee, invisible ; — 
 Nor friends, who sought thee wide in vain, 
 To soothe thy weeping mother's pain, 
 Could bring the wanderer home again ; 
 
 Some envious neighbour's spleen, 
 In distant hints, and darkly, said. 
 That in the caldron hissing red. 
 And on the god's gi-eat table spread, 
 
 Thy mangled limbs were seen. — 
 
 But who shall tax, I dare not, I, 
 The blessed gods with gluttony? — 
 Full oft the sland'rous tongue has felt 
 By their high wrath the thunder dealt ; — 
 
 And sure, if ever mortal head 
 Heaven's holy watchers honoured, 
 
 F 2
 
 G8 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 That liead was Lydia's lord. — 
 Yet, could not mortal heart digest 
 The wonders of that heavenly feast ; 
 Elate with pride, a thought unblest 
 
 Above his nature soar'd. — 
 And now, condemn'd to endless dread, — 
 (Such is the righteous doom of fate,) 
 He eyes, above his guilty head, 
 The shadowy rock's impending weight: — 
 The fourth, with that tormented three 
 In horrible society ! — 
 
 For that, in frantic theft, 
 
 The nectar cup he reft, 
 And to his mortal peers in feasting pour'd. 
 
 For whom a sin it were 
 
 With mortal life to share 
 The mystic dainties of th' immortal board : 
 
 And who by policy 
 
 Can hope to 'scape the eye 
 Of him who sits above by men and gods ador'd?-
 
 OF PINDAR. Oy 
 
 For such offence, a doom severe. 
 Sent down the son to sojourn here 
 Among the fleeting race of man ; — 
 Who, wlien the curly down began 
 To clothe his cheek in darker shade. 
 To car-borne Pisa's royal maid 
 A lover's tender service paid. — 
 But, in the darkness first he stood 
 Alone, by ocean's hoary flood. 
 And rais'd to him the suppliant cry. 
 The hoarse earth-shaking deity. — 
 
 Nor call'd in vain, through cloud and storm 
 Half-seen, a huge and shadowy form. 
 
 The God of Waters came. — 
 He came, whom thus the youth address'd — 
 " Oh thou, if that immortal breast 
 
 Have felt a lover's flame, 
 A lover's prayer in pity hear, 
 Kej)tl the tyrant's brazen spear
 
 70 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 That guards my lovely dame ! — 
 And grant a car whose rolling speed 
 May help a lover at his need ; 
 Condemn'd by Pisa's hand to bleed 
 Unless I win the envied meed 
 
 In Elis' field of fame ! — 
 
 For youthful knights thirteen 
 
 By him have slaughter'd been, 
 His daughter vexing with perverse delay. — 
 
 Such to a coward's eye 
 
 Were evil augury ; — 
 Nor durst a coward's heart the strife essay ! 
 
 Yet, since alike to all 
 
 The doom of death must fall, 
 Ah ! wherefore, sitting in unseemly shade, 
 
 Wear out a nameless life ; 
 
 Remote from noble strife 
 And all the sweet applause to valour })aid:^— 
 Yes ! — I will dare the course ! but, thou, 
 Immortal friend, my prayer allow !" —
 
 OF PINDAR. 71 
 
 Thus, not in vain, his grief he told. — 
 
 The ruler of the wat'ry space 
 Bestow'd a wondrous car of gold, 
 
 And tireless steeds of winged pace. — 
 So, victor in the deathful race. 
 
 He tam'd the sti-ength of Pisa's king, 
 And, fi'om his bride of beauteous face. 
 
 Beheld a stock of warriors spring, 
 
 Six valiant sons, as legends sing. — 
 And now, with fame and virtue crown'd, 
 
 Where Alpheus' stream, in wat'ry ring. 
 Encircles half his turfy mound. 
 He sleeps beneath the piled ground ; 
 
 Near that blest spot where strangers move 
 In many a long procession round 
 
 The altar of protecting Jove. — 
 Yet chief, in yonder lists of fame, 
 Survives the noble Pelops' name ; 
 Where strength of hands and nimble feet 
 In stern and dubious contest meet;
 
 n TRANSLATIONS 
 
 And liigli renown and honey *d praise, 
 And following length of honour'd days;, 
 The victor's weary toil repays. — 
 
 But what are past or future joys? — • 
 
 The present is our own ! — 
 And he is wise who best employs 
 
 The passing hour alone. — 
 To crown with knightly wreath the king, 
 
 (A grateful task,) be mine ; — 
 And on the smooth yEolian string 
 
 To praise his ancient line ! — 
 For ne'er shall wand'ring minstrel find 
 A chief so just, — a friend so kind ; 
 With every grace of fortune blest ; 
 The mightiest, wisest, bravest, best ! — 
 God, who beholdeth thee and all thy deeds. 
 Have thee in charge, king Hiero ! — so again 
 The Bard may sing thy horny-hoofed steeds 
 In frequent triumph o'er the Olympian plain !-
 
 OF PINDAR. 73 
 
 Nor shall the Bard awake a lowly strain, 
 
 His wild notes flinging o'er the Cronian steep ; 
 
 Whose ready muse, and not invoked in vain, 
 
 For such high mark her strongest shaft shall keep. — 
 
 Each hath his proper eminence ! — 
 To kings indulgent providence 
 (No farther search the will of Heaven,) 
 The glories of the earth hath given. — 
 Still may'st thou reign ! enough for me 
 To dwell with heroes like to thee, 
 Myself the chief of Grecian minstrelsy. —
 
 74 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 II. 
 
 TO THERON OF AGRAGAS, VICTOR IN THE CHARIOT RACE. 
 
 O SONG ! whose voice the harp obeys, 
 Accordant aye with answering string ; 
 What god, what hero wilt thou praise, 
 What man of godhke prowess sing ? — 
 Lo, Jove himself is Pisa's king; 
 And Jove's strong son the first to raise 
 The barriers of th' Olympic ring. — 
 And now, victorious on the wing 
 Of sounding wheels, our bards proclaim 
 The sti-anger Theron's honour'd name, 
 The flower of no ignoble race, 
 And prop of ancient Agragas ! — 
 
 His patient sires, for many a year, 
 Where that blue river rolls its flood.
 
 OF PINDAR. 75 
 
 Mid fruitless war and civil blood 
 
 Essay'd their sacred home to rear. — 
 Till time assign'd, in fatal hour, 
 Their native virtues, wealth and power ; 
 And made them from their low degree, 
 The eye of warlike Sicily. 
 
 And, may that power of ancient birth, 
 From Saturn sprung, and parent Earth, 
 Of tall Olympus' lord, 
 
 Who sees with still benignant eye 
 The games' long splendour sweeping by 
 
 His Alpheus' holy ford : — 
 Appeas'd with anthems chanted high. 
 To Theron's late posterity 
 
 A happier doom accord ! — 
 Or good or ill, the past is gone, 
 Nor time himself, the parent one, 
 Can make the former deeds undone ; — 
 
 But who would these recal, —
 
 76 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 When happier clays would fain efface 
 The memory of each past disgrace, 
 And, from the gods, on Theron's race 
 
 Unbounded blessings fall ? — 
 
 Example meet for such a song, 
 The sister queens of Laius' blood ; 
 
 Who sorrow's edge endured long, 
 Made keener by remember'd good ! — 
 Yet now, she breathes the air of Heaven 
 (On earth by smouldering thunder riven) 
 
 Long-haired Semele : — 
 
 To Pallas dear is she ; — 
 Dear to the sire of gods, and dear 
 To him, her son, in dreadful glee 
 Who shakes the ivy-wreathed spear.— 
 
 And thus, they tell that deep below 
 The sounding ocean's ebb and flow, 
 Amid the daughters of the sea,
 
 OF PINDAR. 77 
 
 A sister nymph must I no be, 
 And dwell in bliss eternally : — 
 
 But, ignorant and blind, 
 We little know the coming hour ; 
 Or if the latter day shall low'r ; 
 Or if to Nature's kindly power 
 
 Our life in peace resign'd. 
 Shall sink like fall of summer eve. 
 And on the face of darkness leave 
 
 A ruddy smile behind. — 
 For grief and joy with fitful gale 
 Our crazy bark by turns assail. 
 
 And, whence our blessings flow, 
 That same tremendous Providence 
 Will oft a varying doom dispense, 
 
 And lay the mighty low. — 
 
 To Theban Laius that befel. 
 
 Whose son, with murder dyed, 
 
 FulfiU'd the former oracle, 
 Unconscious panicide ! —
 
 78 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Unconscious ! — yet avenging hell 
 Pursu'd th' offender's stealthy pace, 
 And heavy, sure, and hard it fell, 
 The curse of blood, on all his race! — 
 
 Spar'd fi'om their kindred strife. 
 
 The young Thersander's life, 
 Stern Polynices' heir, was left alone : 
 
 In every martial game, 
 
 And in the field of Fame, 
 For early force and matchless prowess known :- 
 
 Was left, the pride and prop to be 
 
 Of good Adrastus' pedigi'ee. 
 
 And hence, through loins of ancient kings, 
 
 The warrior blood of Theron springs ; 
 
 Exalted name ! to whom belong 
 
 The minstrel's harp, the poet's song, 
 In fair Olympia crown'd ; 
 
 And where, 'mid Pythias olives blue, 
 
 An equal lot his brother drew ; 
 
 And where his twice-twain coursers flew 
 The isthmus twelve times round. —
 
 OF PINDAR. 79 
 
 Such honour, earn'd by toil and care, 
 May best his ancient wrongs repair, 
 
 And wealth, unstain'd by pride. 
 May laugh at Fortune's fickle power. 
 And blameless in the tempting hour 
 
 Of syren ease abide : — 
 Led by that star of heavenly ray. 
 Which best may keep our darkling way 
 
 O'er life's unsteady tide ! — 
 
 For, whoso holds in righteousness the throne, 
 
 He in his heart hath known 
 How the foul spirits of the guilty dead, 
 
 In chambers dark and dread. 
 Of nether earth abide, and penal flame : 
 
 Where he whom none may name, 
 Lays bare the soul by stern necessity ; 
 
 Seated in judgment high ; 
 The minister of God whose arm is there, 
 In heaven alike and hell, almighty every where!
 
 80 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 But, ever bright, by day, by night, 
 Exuhing in excess of Hght; 
 From labour free and long distress, 
 The good enjoy their happiness. — 
 No more the stubborn soil they cleave, 
 Nor stem for scanty food the wave ; 
 
 But with the venerable gods they dwell : — 
 No tear bedims their thankful eye, 
 Nor mars their long tranquillity ; 
 
 While those accursed howl in pangs unspeakable. 
 
 But, who the thrice-renew'd probation 
 Of either world may well endure ; 
 And keep with righteous destination 
 The soul fi'om all transgression pure ; 
 To such and such alone is given. 
 To walk the rainbow paths of heaven. 
 To that tall city of almighty time, 
 Where Ocean's balmy breezes play, 
 And, flashing to the western day,
 
 OF PINDAR. 81 
 
 The gorgeous blossoms of such blessed clime, 
 Now in the happy isles are seen 
 Sparkling through the gi'oves of green ; 
 And now, all glorious to behold. 
 Tinge the wave with floating gold. — ■ 
 
 Hence are their garlands woven — hence their hands 
 Fill'd with triumphal boughs; — the righteous doom 
 Of Rhadamanthus, whom, o'er these his lands, 
 A blameless judge in every time to come, 
 Chronos, old Chronos, sire of gods hath placed ; 
 
 Who with his consort dear 
 
 Dread Rhea, reigneth here 
 On cloudy throne with deathless honour graced. — 
 
 And still, they say, in high communion, 
 Peleus and Cadmus here abide ; 
 And, with the blest in blessed union, 
 (Nor Jove has Thetis' prayer denied) 
 The daughter of the ancient sea 
 Ilnth hionnhf h^y warrior boy to be;
 
 82 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Him wliose stern avenging blow 
 Laid the prop of Ilium low, 
 Hector, train'd to slaughter fell, 
 By all but him invincible ; — 
 And sea-born Cycnus tamed ; and slew 
 Aurora's knight of Ethiop hue. — 
 
 Beneath my rattling belt I wear 
 A sheaf of arrows keen and clear, 
 Of vocal shafts, that wildly fly, 
 Nor ken the base their import high. 
 
 Yet to the wise they breathe no vulgar melody. 
 
 Yes, he is wise whom Nature's dower 
 Hath raised above the crowd. — 
 
 But, train'd in study's formal hour, 
 
 There are who hate the minstrel's power. 
 
 As daws who mark the eagle tower, 
 And croak in envy loud ! — 
 
 So let them rail ! but thou ! my heart, 
 
 Rest on the bow thy levell'd dart ; 
 Nor seek a worthier aim
 
 OF PINDAR. 8^ 
 
 o 
 
 For arrow sent on Friendship's wing, 
 Than him the Agragantine king 
 
 Who best thy song may claim. — 
 For, by eternal truth I swear, 
 His parent town shall scantly bear 
 A soul to every friend so dear, 
 
 A breast so void of blame ; 
 Though twenty lustres rolling round, 
 With rising youth her nation crown'd, 
 In heart, in hand, should none be found 
 
 Like Theron's honour 'd name. — 
 Yes ! we have heard the factious lie ! — 
 But let the babbling vulgar try 
 To blot his worth with tyi'anny. — 
 
 Seek thou the ocean strand ! — 
 And when thy soul would fain record 
 The bounteous deeds of yonder lord, 
 
 Go — reckon up the sand! — 
 
 G 2
 
 84 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 III. 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 May my solemn strain ascending 
 Please the long-hair'd Helen well, 
 And those brave twins of Leda's shell 
 The stranger's holy cause defending ! — 
 With whose high name the chorus blending 
 To ancient Agragas shall rise, 
 And Theron for the chariot prize 
 Again, and not in vain, contending. — 
 The muse, in numbers bold and high. 
 Hath taught my Dorian note to fly, 
 Worthy of silent awe, a strange sweet harmony- 
 Yes '.—as I fix mine eager view 
 On yonder wreath of paly blue,
 
 OF PINDAR. 85 
 
 That olive wreatli, whose shady round 
 Amid the courser's mane is bound ; 
 I feel again the sacred glow 
 That bids my strain of rapture flow, 
 With shrilly breath of Spartan flute, 
 The many-voiced harp to suit ; 
 And wildly fling my nmnbers sweet. 
 Again mine ancient friend to greet. — 
 
 Nor, Pisa, thee I leave unsung ; 
 
 To men the parent of renown. 
 
 Amid whose shady ringlets strung, 
 
 Etolia binds her olive crown ; 
 
 Whose sapling root from Scythian down 
 
 And Istei''s fount Alcides bare, 
 
 To deck his parent's hallow'd town; 
 
 Witli placid brow and suppliant prayer 
 
 Soothing the liivour'd northern seed, 
 
 Whose horny-hoofed victims bleed 
 
 To Phoebus of the flowing hair.
 
 86 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 A boon from these the Hero piay'd ; 
 One graft of that dehghtful tree ; 
 To Jove's high hill a welcome shade, 
 To men a blessed fruit to be, 
 And crown of future victory. — 
 For that fair moon, whose slender light 
 With inefficient horn had shone, 
 When late on Pisa's airy height 
 He rear'd to Jove the altar stone; 
 Now, through the dappled air, alone. 
 In perfect ring of glory bright, 
 Guided her golden-wheeled throne ; 
 The broad and burning eye of night. — 
 And now the days were told aright. 
 When Alpheus, from his sandy source, 
 Should judge the champion's eager might, 
 And mark of wheels the rolling force. — 
 Nor yet a tree to cheer the sight 
 The Cronian vale of Pelops l)ore ; — 
 Obnoxious to the noonday weight
 
 OF PINDAR. 87 
 
 Of summer suns, a naked shore. — 
 But she who sways the silent sky, 
 Latona's own equesti'ian maid 
 Beheld how far Alcides stray 'd, 
 Bound on adventure strange and high : 
 Forth from the glens of Arcady 
 To Istrian rocks in ice array 'd 
 He urged th' interminable race, 
 (Such penance had Eurystheus laid,) 
 The golden-horned hind to chace, 
 Which, grateful for Diana's aid, 
 By her redeem'd from foul embrace. 
 Old Atlas' daughter hallowed. — 
 Thus, following where the quarry fled. 
 Beyond the biting North he past, 
 Beyond the regions of the blast. 
 And, all unknown to traveller's tread, 
 He saw the blessed land at last. — 
 He stopt, he gazed with new delight 
 When that stangc verdure met his sight ;
 
 88 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 And soft desire enflamed his soul 
 
 (Where twelve-times round the chariots roll,) 
 
 To plant with such the Pisan goal. 
 
 But now, unseen to mortal eyes. 
 
 He comes to Theron's sacrifice; 
 
 And with him brings to banquet there 
 
 High bosom'd Leda's knightly pair. — 
 
 Himself to high Olympus bound, 
 
 To these a latest charge he gave, 
 
 A solemn annual feast to found. 
 
 And of contending heroes round 
 
 To deck the strong, the swift, the brave. — 
 
 Nor doubt I that on Theron's head, 
 
 And on the good Eumenides, 
 
 The sons of Jove their blessing shed ; 
 
 Whom still, with bounteous tables spread. 
 
 That holy tribe delight to please ; 
 
 Observing with religious dread 
 
 The hospitable god's decrees. —
 
 OF PINDAR. 89 
 
 But, wide as water passeth earthy clay, 
 Or sun-bright gold transcendeth baser ore ; 
 Wide as fi'om Greece to that remotest shore 
 Whose rock-built pillars own Alcides' sway ; 
 Thy fame hath past thine equals ! — To explore 
 The further ocean all in vain essay, 
 Or fools or wise ; — here from thy perilous way 
 Cast anchor here, my bark ! I dare no more ! —
 
 90 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 IV 
 
 TO PSAUMIS OF CAMARINA. 
 
 Oh, urging on the tireless speed 
 
 Of Tliunder's elemental steed, 
 
 Lord of the world. Almighty Jove ! 
 
 Since these thine hours have sent me forth 
 
 The witness of thy champions' worth. 
 
 And prophet of thine olive grove ; — 
 
 And since the good thy poet hear, 
 
 And hold his tuneful message dear ; — 
 
 Saturnian Lord of Etna hill ! — 
 
 Whose storm-cemented rocks encage 
 
 The hundred-headed rebel's rage ; 
 
 Accept with favourable will 
 
 The Muses' gift of harmony ; 
 
 The dance, the song, whose numbers liigh
 
 OF PINDAR. 91 
 
 Forbid the hero's name to die, 
 
 A crown of life abiding still ! — 
 
 Hark ! round the car of victory, 
 Where noble Psaumis sits on high, 
 
 The cheering notes resound; 
 Who vows to swell with added fame 
 His Camarina's ancient name ; 
 
 With Pisan olive crown d. — 
 And thou, oh father, hear his prayer ! — 
 For much I praise the knightly care 
 
 That trains the warrior steed : — 
 Nor less the hospitable hall 
 Whose open doors the stranger call ; — 
 Yet, praise I Psaumis most of all 
 
 For wise and peaceful rede. 
 And patriot love of liberty. — 
 — What?— do we weave the glozing lie?- 
 Then whoso list my truth to try, 
 
 The proof be in the deed ! —
 
 92 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore, 
 Such was the proof Ernicus bore. 
 
 When, matchless in his speed, 
 All brazen-arm'd the racer hoar, 
 Victorious on the applauding shore, 
 
 Sprang to the protfer'd meed ; — ■ 
 Bow'd to the queen his wreathed head ; — 
 " Thou seest my limbs are light," he said ; 
 
 " And, lady, mayst thou know. 
 That every joint is firmly strung. 
 And hand and heart alike are young ; 
 Though treacherous time my locks among 
 
 Have strew'd a summer snow !" —
 
 OF PINDAR. 93 
 
 TO THE SAME. 
 
 Accept of these Olympian games the crown, 
 
 Daughter of Ocean, rushy Camarine ! — 
 
 The flower of knightly worth and high renown, 
 
 Which car-borne Psaumis on thy parent shrine, 
 
 (Psaumis, the patriot, whom thy peopled town 
 
 Its second author owns,) with rite divine 
 
 Suspends ! — His praise the twice six altars tell 
 
 Of the great gods whom he hath feasted well 
 
 With blood of bull ; the praise of victory, 
 
 Where cars and mules and steeds contest the prize 
 
 And that green garland of renown to thee 
 
 He hallows, Virgin daughter of the sea ! 
 
 And to his sire and household deities. — 
 
 Thee too, returning home from Pelops' land.
 
 94 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Thee guardian Pallas, and thy holy wood, 
 
 He hails with song ; and cool Oanus flood ; 
 
 And of his native pool the rushy strand ; 
 
 And thy broad bed, refreshing Hipparis, 
 
 Whose silent waves the peopled city kiss ; 
 
 That city which hath blest his bounteous hand 
 Rearing her goodly bowers on high. — 
 That now, redeem'd from late disgrace, 
 
 The wealthy mother of a countless race, 
 
 She lifts her front in shining majesty. — 
 
 'Tis ever thus ! by toil, and pain. 
 And cumbrous cost we strive to gain 
 Some seeming prize whose issues lie 
 In darkness and futurity. 
 And yet, if conquest crown our aim, 
 Then, foremost in the rolls of fame, 
 Even from the envious herd a forced applause we claim. 
 
 O cloud-enthron'd, protecting Jove, 
 Who sits the Cronian cliffs above,
 
 OF PINDAR. 95 
 
 And Alpheus' ample wr.ve, 
 And that dark gloom hast deign'd to love 
 
 Of Ida's holy cave ! 
 On softest Lydian notes to thee 
 
 I tune the choral prayer, 
 That this thy town, the brave, the free, 
 The strong in virtuous energy, 
 
 May feel thine endless care. 
 
 And, Victor, thou, whose matchless might 
 
 The Pisan uTeath hath bound ; 
 Still, Psaumis, be thy chief delight 
 
 In generous coursers found. — 
 Calm be thy latter age, and late 
 And gently fall the stroke of fate, 
 
 Thy children standing round ! — 
 And know, when favouring Gods have given 
 A green old age, a temper even. 
 
 And wealth and fame in store, 
 The task were vain to scale the heaven ; — 
 — Have those iiiunortals more? —
 
 96 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 VI. 
 
 TO AGESIAS OF SYRACUSE. 
 
 Who seeks a goodly bowev to raise, 
 Conspicuous to the stranger's eye, 
 With gold the lintel overlays, 
 And clothes the porch in ivory. — 
 So bright, so bold, so wonderful, 
 The choicest themes of verse I cull, 
 To each high song a frontal high ! — 
 
 But, lives there one, whose brows around 
 The green Olympian wreath is bound ; 
 Prophet and priest in those abodes 
 Where Pisans laud the sire of gods ; 
 And Syracusa's denizen? — 
 Who, 'mid the sons of mortal men. 
 While envy's self before his name 
 Abates her rage, may fitlier claim 
 Whate'er a bard may yield of fame ? —
 
 OF PINDAR. y- 
 
 For sure, to no forbidden strife, 
 In hallowed Pisa's field of praise, 
 He came, the priest of blameless life ! — 
 Nor who in peace hath past his days, 
 
 Marring with canker sloth his might, 
 
 May hope a name in standing fight 
 Nor in the hollow ship to raise ! — 
 
 By toil, illustrious toil alone. 
 Of elder times the heroes shone ; 
 And, bought by like emprize, to thee, 
 Oh warrior priest, like honour be ! — 
 Such praise as good Adi*astus bore 
 To him, the prophet chief of yore, 
 When, snatch'd from Thebes' accursed fight. 
 With steed and car and armour bright, 
 Down, down he sank to earthy night. — 
 
 When the fight was eaded, 
 And the sevenfold pyres 
 
 H
 
 98 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 All their funeral fires 
 
 In one sad lustre blended, 
 
 The leader of the host 
 
 Murmur'd mournfully, 
 
 " 1 lament the eye 
 
 Of all mine army lost ! — 
 
 To gods and mortals dear, 
 
 Either art he knew ; 
 
 Augur tried and true, 
 
 And strong to wield the spear !" — 
 
 And, by the powers divine, 
 
 Such praise is justly thine. 
 
 Oh Syracusian peer, — 
 For of a gentle blood thy race is sprung. 
 As she shall truly tell, the muse of honey'd tongue. 
 
 Then yoke the mules of winged pace. 
 And, Phintis, climb the car with me ; 
 For well they know the path to trace
 
 OF PINDAR. 99 
 
 Of yonder victor's pedigree ! — 
 
 Unbar the gates of song, unbar ! — 
 
 For we to-day must journey far, 
 To Sparta, and to Pitane. — 
 
 She, mournful nymph, and nursing long 
 
 Her silent pain and virgin wrong. 
 
 To Neptune's rape a daughter fair, 
 
 Evadne of the glossy hair, 
 
 (Dark as the violet's darkest shade,) 
 
 In solitary sorrow bare. 
 
 Then to her nurse the infant maid 
 
 She weeping gave, and bade convey 
 
 To high Phersana's hall away ; 
 
 Where woman-gi'own, and doom'd to prove 
 
 In turn a god's disastrous love, 
 
 Her charms allured tlic Lord of day. — 
 
 Nor long the months, ere, fierce in pride, 
 The painful tokens of disgrace 
 
 II 2
 
 100 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Her foster-father sternly eyed, 
 Fruit of the furtive god's embrace. — 
 He spake not, but, with soul on flame. 
 He sought th' unknown offender's name, 
 At Phoebus' Pythian dwelling place. — 
 
 But she, beneath the greenwood spray, 
 Her zone of purple silk untied ; 
 And flung the silver clasp away 
 That rudely prest her heaving side ; 
 While, in the solitary wood, 
 Lucina's self to aid her stood, 
 And fate a secret force supplied. — 
 
 But, who the mother's pang can tell, 
 As sad and slowly she withdrew. 
 And bade her babe a long farewell, 
 Laid on a bed of violets blue ? — 
 When, ministers of Heaven's decree, 
 (Dire nurses they and strange to see,)
 
 OF PINDAR. 101 
 
 Two scaly snakes of azure hue 
 Watch'd o'er his helpless infancy, 
 And, rifled from the mountain bee. 
 Bare on their forky tongues a harmless honey dew. — 
 
 Swift roll the wheels ! from Delphos home 
 Arcadia's car-borne chief is come : 
 
 But, ah, how chang'd his eye ! — 
 His wrath is sunk, and past his pride, 
 " Where is Evadne's babe," he cried, 
 
 " Child of the Deity? 
 " 'Twas thus the augur god replied, 
 "Nor strove his noble seed to hide ; 
 " And to his favoured boy, beside, 
 
 " The gift of prophecy, 
 " And power beyond the sons of men 
 " The secret things of fate to ken, 
 
 " His blessing will supply." — 
 
 But, vainly, from his liegemen round,
 
 102 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 He sought the noble child ; 
 Who, naked on the grassy ground, 
 
 And nurtur'd in the wild, 
 Was moisten'd with the sparkling dew 
 
 Beneath his hawthorn bower ; 
 Where morn her watry radiance threw 
 Now golden bright, now deeply blue. 
 
 Upon the violet flower. — 
 
 From that dark bed of breathing bloom 
 
 His mother gave his name ; 
 And lamus, through years to come. 
 
 Will live in lasting fame ; 
 Who, when the blossom of his days. 
 
 Had ripen'd on the tree, 
 From forth the brink where Alpheus strays, 
 Invok'd the god whose sceptre sways 
 
 The hoarse resounding sea ; 
 And, whom the Delian isle obeys, 
 
 The archer deity. —
 
 OF PINDAR. 103 
 
 Alone amid the nightly shade, 
 Beneath the naked heaven he pray'd, 
 And sire and grandsire call'd to aid ; 
 When lo, a voice that loud and dread 
 
 Burst from the horizon free ; 
 " Hither!" it spake, " to Pisa's shore! 
 " My voice, oh son, shall go before, 
 
 " Beloved, follow me !" 
 
 So, in the visions of his sire, he went 
 
 Where Cronium's scarr'd and barren brow 
 Was red with morning's earliest glow 
 
 Though darkness wrapt the nether element. — 
 There, in a lone and craggy dell, 
 
 A double spirit on him fell, 
 
 Th' unlying voice of birds to tell, 
 
 And, (when Alcmena's son should fountl 
 
 The holy games in Elis crown'd,) 
 By Jove's high altar evermore to dwell, 
 
 Prophet and priest! — From him descend
 
 104 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 The fathers of our vahant friend, 
 
 Wealthy ahke and just and wise, 
 
 Who trod tlie plain and open way ; 
 
 And who is he that dared despise 
 
 With galling taunt the Cronian prize, 
 
 Or their illustrious toil gainsay, 
 
 Whose chariots whirling twelve times round 
 
 With burning wheels th' Olympian ground 
 
 Have gilt their brow with glory's ray ? 
 
 For, not the steams of sacrifice 
 
 From cool Cyllene's height of snow, 
 
 Nor vainly from thy kindred rise 
 
 The heaven-appeasing litanies 
 
 To Hermes, who, to men below, 
 
 Or gives the garland or denies : — 
 
 By whose high aid, Agesias, know. 
 
 And his, the thunderer of the skies. 
 
 The olive wreatli hath bound thy brow! — 
 
 Arcadian! Yes, a warmer zeal
 
 OF PINDAR. 105 
 
 Shall whet my tongue thy praise to tell ! 
 I feel the sympathetic flame 
 Of kindred love;— a Theban I, 
 Whose parent nymph from Arcady 
 (Metope's daughter, Thebe) came. — 
 Dear fountain goddess, warrior maid, 
 By whose pure rills my youth hath play'd ; 
 Who now assembled Greece among, 
 To car-borne chiefs and warriors strong, 
 Have wove the many-colour'd song. — 
 
 Then, minstrel ! bid thy chorus rise 
 To Juno, queen of deities, 
 Parthenian lady of the skies ! 
 For, live there yet who dare defame 
 With sordid mirth our country's name ; 
 Who tax with scorn our ancient line. 
 And call the brave Boeotians swine; — 
 Yet, y^neas, sure thy numbers high 
 May charm their brutish enmity ;
 
 106 TRANSLATIONS 
 
 Dear herald of the holy muse, 
 
 And, teeming with Parnassian dews, 
 
 Cup of untasted harmony ! — 
 
 That strain once more ! — The chorus raise • 
 
 To Syracusa's wealthy praise, 
 
 And his the lord whose happy reign 
 
 Controuls Trinacria's ample plain, 
 
 Hiero, the just, the wise, 
 
 Whose steamy offerings rise 
 To Jove, to Ceres, and that darling maid, 
 
 Whom, rapt in chariot bright, 
 
 And horses silver-white, 
 Down to his dusky bower the lord of hell convey'd ! 
 
 Oft hath he heard the Muses' string resound 
 
 His honour'd name ; and may his latter days, 
 
 With wealth and worth, and minstrel garlands crown'd, 
 
 Mai'k with no envious ear a subject praise. 
 
 Who now from fair Arcadia's forest wide 
 
 To Syracusa, homeward, from his home
 
 OF PINDAR. 107 
 
 Returns, a common care, a common pride, — 
 
 (And, whoso darkling braves the ocean's foam, 
 
 May safehest moor'd with twofold anchor ride ;) 
 
 Arcadia, Sicily, on either side 
 
 Guard him with prayer ; — and thou who rulest the deep, 
 
 Fair Amphitrite's lord ! in safety keep 
 
 His tossing keel, — and evermore to me 
 
 No meaner theme assign of poesy !
 
 108 LINES ON LOUD 
 
 LINES 
 
 SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD, 
 
 ON LORD GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION 
 
 AS CHANCELLOR. 
 
 Ye viewless guardians of these sacred shades, 
 
 Dear dreams of early song, Aonian maids! — 
 
 And you, illusti*ious dead ! whose spirits speak 
 
 In each warm flush that tints the student's cheek, 
 
 As, wearied with the world, he seeks again 
 
 The page of better times and greater men ; 
 
 If with pure worship we your steps pursue. 
 
 And youth, and health, and rest forget for you, 
 
 (Whom most we serve, to whom our lamp burns bright 
 
 Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,)
 
 GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION. 109 
 
 Yet, yet be present ! — Let the worldly train 
 Mock our cheap joys, and hate our useless strain, 
 Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear 
 The fleece Iberian or the pamper'd steer ; — 
 Let sterner science with unwearied eye 
 Explore the circling spheres and map the sky ; 
 His long-drawn mole let lordly commerce scan, 
 And of his iron arch the rainbow span : 
 Yet, while, in burning characters imprest, 
 The poet's lesson stamps the youthful breast ; 
 Bids the rapt boy o'er suffering virtue bleed, 
 Adore a brave or bless a gentle deed. 
 And in warm feeling from the storied page 
 Arise the saint, the hero, or the sage ; 
 Such be our toil ! — Nor doubt we to explore 
 The thorny maze of dialectic lore. 
 To climb the chariot of the gods, or scan 
 The secret workings of the soul of man ; 
 Upborne aloft on Plato's eagle flight. 
 Or the slow pinion of the Stagyrite. —
 
 no LINES ON LORD 
 
 And, those gi'ey spoils of Herculanean pride, 
 
 If aught of yet untasted sweets they hide; — 
 
 If Padua's sage be tliere, or art have power 
 
 To wake Menander from his secret bower. 
 
 Such be our toil ! — Nor vain the labour proves, 
 
 Which Oxford honours, and which Grenville loves ! 
 
 — On, eloquent and firm ! — whose warning high 
 
 Rebuked the rising surge of anarchy, 
 
 When, like those brethren stars to seamen known, 
 
 In kindred splendour Pitt and Grenville shone ; — 
 
 On in thy glorious course ! not yet the wave 
 
 Has ceas'd to lash the shore, nor storm forgot to rave. 
 
 Go on ! and oh, while adverse factions raise 
 
 To thy pure worth involuntary praise ; 
 
 While Gambia's swarthy tribes thy mercies bless, 
 
 And from thy counsels date their happiness ; 
 
 Say, (for thine I sis yet recals with pride 
 
 Thy youthful triumphs by her leafy side,) 
 
 Say, hast thou scorn'd, mid pomp, and wealth, and power, 
 
 The sober transports of a studious hour? —
 
 GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION. Ill 
 
 No, statesman, no ! — tliy patriot fire was fed 
 From the warm embers of the mighty dead ; 
 And thy strong spirit's patient grasp combin'd 
 The souls of ages in a single mind. — 
 — By arts like these, amidst a world of foes. 
 Eye of the earth, th' Athenian glory rose ; — 
 Thus, last and best of Romans, Brutus shone ; — 
 Our Somers thus, and thus our Clarendon ; 
 Such Cobham was ; — such, Grenville, long be thou, 
 Our boast before, — our chief and champion now! —
 
 112 EPITAPH. 
 
 EPITAPH 
 
 ON A 
 
 YOUNG NAVAL OFFICER. 
 
 DESIGNED FOR A TOMB IN A SEAPORT TOWN IN NORTH WALES. 
 
 Sailor ! if vigour nerve thy frame, 
 
 If to high deeds thy soul is strung, 
 
 Revere this stone that gives to fame 
 
 The brave, the virtuous, and the young ! — 
 
 For manly beauty deck'd his form, 
 
 His bright eye beam'd with mental power ; 
 Resistless as the winter storm. 
 
 Yet mild as summer's mildest shower. —
 
 EPITAPH. 113 
 
 In war's hoarse rage, in ocean's strife, 
 
 For skill, for force, for mercy known; 
 
 Still prompt to shield a comrade's life. 
 And greatly careless of his own. — 
 
 Yet, youthful seaman, mourn not thou 
 
 The fate these artless lines recal ; 
 No, Cambrian, no, be thine the vow, 
 
 Like him to live, like him to fall ! — 
 
 But hast thou known a father's care. 
 
 Who son'owing sent thee forth to sea ; 
 
 Pour'd for thy weal th' unceasing prayer. 
 
 And thought the sleepless night on thee ? — 
 
 Has e'er thy tender fancy flown, 
 
 When winds were strong and waves were high, 
 Where listening to the tempest's moan, 
 
 Thy sisters heav'd the anxious sigh ?
 
 114 EPITAPH. 
 
 Or, in the darkest hour of dread, 
 
 Mid war's wild din, and ocean's swell. 
 
 Hast mourn'd a hero brother dead, 
 
 And did that brother love thee well ? — 
 
 Then pity those whose sorrows flow 
 
 In vain o'er Shipley's empty grave ! — 
 
 — Sailor, thou weep'st: — Indulge thy woe; 
 Such tears will not disgrace the brave !-
 
 NOTES. 
 
 o
 
 NOTES ON PALESTINE. 
 
 P. 4. 1. 4. 
 
 Folds his dank roiyig. 
 
 Alluding to the usual manner in which sleep is represented 
 
 in ancient statues. See also Pindar, Pyth. I. v. 16, 17. 
 
 " Kvu)(T(Ti>)v vypov viJiTOV alwpel,' 
 
 P. 4. 1. 5. 
 Ye warrior sons of Heaven. 
 Authorities for these celestial warriors may be found, Josh. 
 V. 13. 2 Kings vi. 2. 2 Mace. v. 3. Ibid. xi. Joseph. Ed. 
 Huds. vi. p. 1282. et alibi passim. 
 
 P. 4. 1. 8. 
 Sion's towery steep. 
 It is scarcely necessary to mention the lofty site of .lenisa- 
 1cm. " The hill of God is a high hill, even a high hill as the 
 " hill of Bashan." 
 
 P. 4. 1.14. 
 Mysterious harpinys. 
 See Sandys, and other travellers into Asia.
 
 118 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 5. 1. 1. 
 
 Then should my Muse. 
 Common practice, and the autliority of Milton, seem suffi- 
 cient to justify using this term as a personification of poetry. 
 
 P. 5. 1. 8. 
 
 Thy house is left unto thee desolate. 
 
 Matt, xxiii. 38. 
 
 P. 5. 1. 13. 
 
 The seer. 
 
 Moses. 
 
 P. 5. 1. 18. 
 
 Almotana's tide. 
 
 Almotana is the oriental name for the Dead Sea, as Ardeni 
 
 is for Jordan. 
 
 P. 6. 1. 2. 
 
 The robber riots, or the hermit prays. 
 The mountains of Palestine are full of caverns, which are 
 generally occupied in one or other of the methods here men- 
 tioned. Vide Sandys, Maundrell, and Calmet, passim. 
 
 P. 6. 1. 6. 
 Those stormy seats the warrior Druses hold. 
 The untameable spirit, feodal customs, and affection for 
 Europeans, which distinguish this extraordinary race, who 
 boast themselves to be a remnant of the Crusaders, are well 
 described in Pages. The account of their celebrated Emir, 
 Facciardini, in Sandys, is also very interesting. Puget de 
 S. Pierre compiled a small volume on their history ; Paris, 
 17ii3. 12mo.
 
 PALESTINE. 119 
 
 P. 6. 1. 11. 
 Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear. 
 " The Turkish sultans, whose moon seems fast approach- 
 " ing to its wane." Sir W. Jones's first Disc, to the Asiatic 
 Society. 
 
 P. 6. 1. 20. 
 Sidonian dyes and Lusitanian gold. 
 The gold of the Tyrians chiefly came from Portugal, which 
 was probably their Tarshish. 
 
 P. 7. I. G. 
 And tmrestrain'd the generous vintage flows. 
 In the southern parts of Palestine the inhabitants reap their 
 corn green, as they are not sure that it will ever be allowed to 
 come to maturity. The oppression to which the cultivators of 
 vineyards are subject throughout the Ottoman empire is well 
 known. 
 
 P. 7. 1. 18. 
 
 Arabia's parent. 
 
 11 agar. 
 
 P. 8. 1. 7. 
 The guarded fountains shine. 
 The watering places are generally beset with Arabs, who 
 exact toll from all comers. See Harmer and Pages. 
 
 P. 8. I. 8. 
 
 Thy tents, Ncbaioth, rise, and Kcdar, thine ! 
 
 See Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. xiv. p. 4.3. Rd. Vales.
 
 120 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 8. 1. 13. 
 
 Nor spare the hoari/ head, nor bid your eye 
 Revere the sacred smile of infancy. 
 
 " Thine eye shall not spare them." 
 
 P. 8. 1. 18. 
 
 Smokes on Samaria s mount her scanty sacrifice. 
 
 A miserable remnant of Samaritan worship still exists on 
 
 Mount Gerizim. Maundrell relates his conversation with the 
 
 high priest, 
 
 P. 9. 1. 8. 
 
 Ayid refluent Jordan sought his trembling source. 
 
 Psalm cxiv. 
 
 P. 9. 1. 11. 
 
 To IsraeVs woes a pitying car incline. 
 And raise from earth Thy long -neglected vine ! 
 See Psalm Ixxx. 8 — 14. 
 
 P. 10. 1.10. 
 
 The harness d Amorite. 
 
 Joshua X. 
 
 P. 11. 1. 2. 
 
 Or serve his altar with unhallowed fire. 
 
 Alluding to the fate of Nadab and Abihu. 
 
 P. 11.1. 10. 
 The mighty master of the ivWy throne. 
 Solomon. Ophir is by most geographers placed in the 
 Aurea Chersonesus. See Tavernier and Raleigh.
 
 ' PALESTINE. 121 
 
 P. 11.1. 16. 
 
 Through nature^s mazes iuander'd unconfind. 
 The Arabian mythology respecting Solomon is in itself so 
 fascinating, is so illustrative of the present state of the coun- 
 try, and on the whole so agreeable to Scripture, that it was 
 judged improper to omit all mention of it, though its wildness 
 might have operated as an objection to making it a principal 
 object in the poem. 
 
 P. 12. 1. 4. 
 And Tadmor thus, and Syrian Balbec rose. 
 Palmyra (" Tadmor in the Desert") was really built by So- 
 lomon, (1 Kings ix. 2 Chron. viii.) and universal tradition 
 marks him out, with great probability, as the founder of Bal- 
 bec. Estakhar is also attributed to him by the Arabs. See 
 the Romance of Vathek, and the various Travels into the East, 
 more particularly Chardin's, in which, after a minute and in- 
 teresting description of the majestic ruins of Estakhar, or Per- 
 sepolis, the ancient capital of Persia, an account follows of the 
 wild local traditions just alluded to. Vol. ii. p. 190. Ed. 
 Amst. 1735, 4to. Vide also Sale's Koran ; D'Herbelot, Bibl. 
 Orient, (article Solimon Ben Daoud) ; and the Arabian Nights 
 Entertainments, passim. 
 
 P. 12. 1. 8. 
 
 Houseless Santon. 
 It is well known that the Santons are real or affected mad- 
 men, pretending- to extraordinary sanctity, who wander about 
 the country, sleeping in caves or ruins.
 
 122 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 12. I. 14. 
 
 Hoiv lovely were thy tents, Israel .' 
 
 Numbers xxiv. 5. 
 
 P. 12.1. 15. 
 For thee his ivWy load Behemoth horc. 
 Behemoth is sometimes supposed to mean the elephant, in 
 which sense it is here used. 
 
 P. 12.1. 16. 
 And far Sofala teemd with golden ore. 
 An African port to the south of Bab-el-mandeb, celebrated 
 for gold mines. 
 
 P. 13. 1. 6. 
 
 The Temple reard its everlasting gate. 
 Psalm xxiv. 7. 
 
 P. 13. 1. 7. 
 No workman steel, no pondWous axes rung. 
 " There was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, 
 " heard in the house while it was in building;." 1 Kinas vi. 7. 
 
 P. 13.1. 12. 
 
 View'd the descending flame, and bless' d the present God. 
 
 " And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came 
 " down, and the glory of the Lord upon the house, they bowed 
 " themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pave- 
 " ment, and worshipped." 2 Chron. vii. 3. 
 
 P. 13. 1. 14. 
 
 Beat oer her soul the billows of the proud. 
 
 Psalm rxxiv. 4.
 
 PALESTINE. 123 
 
 P. 15. 1. 20. 
 
 Weep for your country, for your children weep ! 
 
 Luke xxiii. 27, 28. 
 
 P. 16.1. 12. 
 
 /ind the pale parent drank her children's gore. 
 
 Joseph, vi. p. 1275. Ed. Huds. 
 
 P. 17. 1. 8. 
 The stoic tyrant's philosophic pride. 
 The Roman notions of humanity cannot have been very ex- 
 alted when they ascribed so large a share to Titus. For the 
 horrible details of his conduct during the siege of Jerusalem 
 and after its capture, the reader is referred to Josephus. When 
 we learn that so many captives were crucified, that ^iri to 
 TrXii^OQ x*^P" ''^ evEXdTTETO ro'ig OTavpotQ Knl aravpol toIq 
 (rijfxaaiv ; and that after all was over, in cold blood and mer- 
 riment, he celebrated his brother's birth-day with similar sacri- 
 fices ; we can hardly doubt as to the nature of that untold 
 crime, which disturbed the dying moments of the " darling of 
 the human race." After all, the cruelties of this man are 
 probably softened in the high priest's narrative. The fall of 
 Jerusalem nearly resembles that of Zaragoza, but it is a Morla 
 
 who tells the tale. 
 
 P. 18.1. 13. 
 
 Yon pompous shrine. 
 
 The Temple of the Sepulchre. 
 
 P. 18.1. 14. 
 
 And hade the rock with Parian marble shine. 
 
 See Cotovicus, p. 1 79. and from him Sandys.
 
 1*24 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 18. I. 18. 
 
 The British queen. 
 
 St. Helena, who was, according to Camden, born at Col- 
 chester. See also Howel's Hist, of the VV^orld. 
 
 P. 19. 1. 2. 
 
 And pale Brjzantiiim feared Medina s sivord. 
 
 The invasions of the civilized parts of Asia by the Arabian 
 and Turkish Mahometans. 
 
 P. 19. 1. 6. 
 
 The wand'ring hermit wak'd the storm ofwav. 
 
 Peter the hermit. The world has been so long accustomed 
 to hear the Crusades considered as the height of phrenzy and 
 injustice, that to undertake their defence might be perhaps a 
 hazardous task. We must, however, recollect, that had it not 
 been for these extraordinary exertions of generous courage, the 
 whole of Europe would perhaps have fallen, and Christianity 
 been buried in the ruins. It was not, as Voltaire has falsely 
 or weakly asserted, a conspiracy of robbers ; it was not an un- 
 provoked attack on a distant and inoffensive nation ; it was a 
 blow aimed at the heart of a most powerful and active enemy. 
 Had not the Christian kingdoms of Asia been established as a 
 check to the Mahometans, Italy, and the scanty remnant of 
 Christianity in Spain, must again have fallen into their power ; 
 and France herself have needed all the heroism and s;ood for- 
 tune of a Charles Mart.el to deliver her from subjugation.
 
 PALESTINE. 125 
 
 P. 19. 1. 11. 
 
 While beardless youths and tender maids assume 
 The weighty morion and the glancing ■plume. 
 
 See Vertot, Hist. Chev. Malthe, liv. i. 
 
 P. 19. 1. 16. 
 
 Tabarias stream. 
 
 Tabcvria (a corruption of Tiberias) is the name used for the 
 Sea of Galilee in the old romances. 
 
 P. 20. 1. 2. 
 
 By northern Brenn or Scythian Timur led. 
 
 Brennus, and Tamerlane. 
 
 P. 20. 1. 5. 
 
 There Gaul's proud knights with boastful mien advance. 
 
 The insolence of the French nobles twice caused the ruin of 
 
 the army ; once by refusing to serve under Richard Cceur de 
 
 Lion, and again by reproaching the English with cowardice in 
 
 St. Louis's expedition to Egypt. See Knolles's History of the 
 
 Turks. 
 
 P. 20. 1. 6. 
 
 Form the loiuj line. 
 The hue (combat a la hayej, according to Sir Walter Ra- 
 leigh, was characteristic of French tactics ; as the column 
 (herse) was of the English. The English at Cre(;i were drawn 
 up thirty deep.
 
 126 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 20. 1. 16. 
 Whose giant force Britamiia s armies led. 
 All the British nations served under the same banner. 
 Sono gl' Inglesi sagittarii ed hanno 
 Gente con lor, ch' e piu vicina al polo, 
 Questi da I'alte selve irsuti nianda 
 La divisa dal mondo, ultima Irlanda. 
 
 Tasso, Gierusal. lib. i. 44. 
 Ireland and Scotland, it is scarcely necessary to observe, were 
 synonymous. 
 
 P. 20. 1. 19. 
 Lords of the biting axe and beamy spear. 
 The axe of Richard was very famous. See Warton's Hist, 
 of Ancient Poetry. 
 
 P. 22. 1. 16. 
 
 And burst his brazen bonds, and cast his cords away. 
 
 Psalm ii. 3. cvii. 16. 
 
 P. 22. 1. 17. 
 
 Then on your tops shall deathless verdure spring. 
 
 " I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the 
 
 " field, that ye shall receive no more the reproach of famine 
 
 " among the heathen." — " And they shall say, This land that 
 
 " was desolate is become like the garden of Eden," &c. 
 
 Ezek. xxxvi. 
 
 P. 23. 1. 5. 
 
 Courts the bright vision of descending power. 
 
 " That great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of 
 
 " heaven from God, having the glory of God." Rev. xxi. 10.
 
 PALESTINE. 127 
 
 P. 23. 1. 6. 
 
 Telh every gate, and measures every tower. 
 
 Ezekiel xl. 
 
 P. 23. I. 9. 
 
 And who is He ? the vast, the aioful form. 
 
 Revelations x, 
 
 P. 23. 1. 18. 
 
 Lo ! thrones arise, and every saint is there. 
 
 Revelations xx. 
 
 P. 24. 1. 2. 
 God is their teynple, and the Lamb their light, 
 " And I saw no temple therein : for the Lord God Almighty 
 " and the Lamb are the temple of it. And the city had no 
 " need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for the 
 " glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light there- 
 " of." Rev. xxi, 22. 
 
 P. 24. 1. 6. 
 
 And the dry bones be loarm with life again. 
 
 " Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones, ' Behold, I 
 
 " will cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live.' — 
 
 " Then he said unto me. Son of man, these bones are the whole 
 
 " house of Israel." Ezek. xxxvii.
 
 NOTES ON EUROPE. 
 
 P. 27. 1. 6. 
 In Dresden's grove the dewy cool I sought. 
 The opening lines of this poem were really composed in the 
 situation (the Park of Dresden), and under the influence of the 
 feelings which they attempt to describe. The disastrous issue 
 of King Frederick's campaign took away from the author all 
 inclination to continue them, and they remained neglected till 
 the hopes of Europe were again revived by the illustrious efforts 
 of the Spanish people. 
 
 P. 28. 1. 14. 
 Pratzen's hill. 
 The hill of Pratzen was the point most obstinately contested 
 in the great battle which has taken its name from the neigh- 
 bouring town of Austerlitz ; and here the most dreadful slaugh- 
 ter took place, both of French and Russians. The author 
 had, a few weeks before he wrote the above, visited every part 
 of this celebrated field. 
 
 P. 28. 1. 20. 
 And, red with slaughter, Freedoms humbled crest. 
 It is necessary perhaps to mention, that, by freedom, in this 
 and in other passages of the present poem, political liberty is
 
 NOTES, &c. 129 
 
 understood, in opposition to the usurpation of any single Euro- 
 pean state. In the particular instance of Spain, however, it is 
 a hope which the author has not yet seen reason to abandon, 
 that a struggle so nobly maintained by popular energy, must 
 terminate in the establishment not only of national indepen- 
 dence, but of civil and religious liberty. 
 
 P. 29. 1. 11. 
 
 Gallia's vaunting train. 
 
 The confidence and shameful luxury of the French nobles, 
 
 during the seven years' war, are very sarcastically noticed by 
 
 Tem pieman. 
 
 P. 33. 1. 12. 
 
 Where youthful Lewis led. 
 
 Prince Lewis Ferdinand of Prussia, who fell gloriously with 
 
 almost the whole of his regiment. 
 
 P. 33. 1. 15. 
 By her whose charms, §c. 
 The Queen of Prussia; beautiful, unfortunate, and unsub- 
 dued by the severest reverses. 
 
 P. 34. 1. 6. 
 The covering cherub, 6;c. 
 " Thou art the anointed cherub that coverest." — Addressed 
 to Tyre, by Ezekiel, xxviii. 14. 
 
 P. 40. I. 10. 
 Inez" grave. 
 Inez de Castro, the beloved mistress of the Infant Don Pe- 
 dro, son of Alphonso IV. King of Portugal, and stabbed by 
 
 K
 
 130 NOTES ON 
 
 the orders, and, according to Camoens, in the presence of that 
 monarch. A fountain near Coimbra, the scene of their loves 
 and misfortunes, is still pointed out by tradition, and called 
 Amores. — De la Clede, Hist, de Portugalle, 4to. torn. i. page 
 282 — 7 : — and Camoens' Lusiad, canto 3, stanza cxxxv. 
 
 P. 40. 1. 11. 
 Who dar'd the first withstand 
 
 The Moslem wasters of their bleeding land. 
 The Asturians, who under Pelagius first opposed the career 
 of Mahometan success. 
 
 P. 40. 1. 14. 
 Thy spear-encircled croivn, Asturia. 
 " La couronne de fer de Dom Pelage, — cette couronne si 
 " simple mais si glorieuse, dont chaque fleuron est forme du 
 " fer d'une lance arrachee aux Chevaliers Maures que ce heros 
 " avoit fails tomber sous ses coups." Roman de Dom Ursino 
 le Navarin,Tressan, torn. ix. 52. 
 
 P. 41. 1. 16. 
 Rude, ancient lays of Spain's heroic time. 
 See the two elegant specimens given by Bishop Percy in his 
 Reliques; and the more accurate translations of Mr. Rodd, in 
 his Civil Wars of Grenada. 
 
 P. 41. 1.17. 
 
 Him in Xeres' carnage fearless found. 
 
 The Gothic monarchy in Spain was overthrown by the 
 
 Mussulmans at the battle of Xeres, the Christian army being 
 
 defeated with dreadful slaughter, and the death of their king,
 
 EUROPE. 131 
 
 the unhappy and licentious Roderigo. Pelagius assembled 
 the small band of those fugitives who despised submission, 
 amid the mountains of the Asturias, under the name of King 
 of Oviedo. 
 
 P, 41.1. 19. 
 
 Of that chaste king, S^c. 
 
 Alonso, surnamed the Chaste, with ample reason, if we be- 
 lieve his historians : who defeated, according to the Spanish 
 romances, and the graver authority of Mariana, the whole force 
 of Charlemagne and the twelve peers of France, at Ronces- 
 valles. Bertrand del Carpio, the son of Alonso's sister, 
 Ximena, was his general ; and according to Don Quixote (no 
 incompetent authority on such a subject) put the celebrated 
 Orlando to the same death as Hercules inflicted on Antseus. 
 His reason was, that the nephew of Charlemagne was en- 
 chanted, and, like Achilles, only vulnerable in the heel, to 
 guard which he wore always iron shoes. — See Mariana, 1. vii. 
 c. xi. ; Don Quixote, book i. c. i. ; and the notes on Mr. 
 Southey's Chronicle of the Cid ; a work replete with powerful 
 description, and knowledge of ancient history and manners, 
 and which adds a new wreath to one, who " nullum fere 
 scribendi genus intactum reliquit, nullum quod tetigit non 
 ornavit." 
 
 P. 42. 1. 1. 
 
 Chicfest him who rear'd his banner tall, Sfc. 
 
 Rodrigo Diaz, of Bivar, surnamed the Cid by the Moors. — 
 See Mr. Southey's Chronicle. 
 
 K 2
 
 132 NOTES ON 
 
 P. 42. 1. 8. 
 Red Buraha's field, and Lugo — 
 Buraba and Lugo were renowned scenes of Spanish victo- 
 ries over the Moors, in the reigns of Bermudo, or, as his name 
 is Latinized, Veremundus, and Alonso the Chaste. Of Lugo 
 the British have since obtained a melancholy knowledge. 
 
 P. 42. L 18. 
 Tlascala. 
 An extensive district of Mexico : its inhabitants were the 
 first Indians who submitted to the Spaniards under Cortez. 
 
 P. 43. 1. 1. 
 
 Her captive king. 
 
 Francis I. taken prisoner at the battle of Pavia. 
 
 P. 43. 1. 11. 
 
 Yon Boetic skies. 
 Andalusia forms a part of the ancient Hispania Boetica. 
 
 P. 44. 1. 20. 
 
 Roncesvalles" vale. 
 
 See the former note on Alonso the Chaste. 
 
 P. 46. 1. 4. 
 
 The pois'd balance, trembling still with fate. 
 This line is imitated from one in Mr. Roscoe's spirited verses 
 on the commencement of the French revolution. 
 
 P. 46. 1. 12. 
 Numbers numberless. 
 " He look'd and saw what numbers numberless." 
 
 Milton, Paradise Regained.
 
 EUROPE. ' 133 
 
 P. 47. 1. 10. 
 One Saguntum. 
 The ancient siege of Saguntum has been now rivalled by 
 Zaragoza. The author is happy to refer his readers to the in- 
 teresting, narrative of his friend, Mr. Vaughan. 
 
 P. 47. 1. 16. 
 
 Bethulia's matron. 
 
 Judith. 
 
 P. 48. I. 6. 
 Who treads the wine-press of the world alone. 
 " I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people 
 " there was none with me, for I will tread them in mine anger, 
 " and trample them in my fury." — Isaiah Ixiii. 3.
 
 NOTES ON THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 
 
 P. 55. 1. 20. 
 Siwah. Oasis. Sennaar. — Meroe, 
 
 P. 56. 1. 4. 
 
 Shangalla. 
 The black tribes, whom Bruce considers as the aboriginal 
 Nubians, are so called. For their gigantic stature, and their 
 custom of ornamenting themselves and their houses with the 
 spoils of the elephant, see the account he gives of the person 
 and residence of one of their chiefs, whom he visited on his 
 departure from Ras el Feel. 
 
 P. 56. I. 9. 
 Emeralds. 
 The emerald, or whatever the ancients dignified by the 
 name of smaragdus, is said to have been found in great quan- 
 tities in the mountain now called Gebel Zumrud (the mount 
 
 of emeralds.) 
 
 P. 59. 1. 17. 
 
 Elim's well. 
 It is interesting to observe with what pleasure and minute- 
 ness Moses, amid the Arabian wilderness, enumerates the 
 " twelve wells of water," and the " threescore and ten palm- 
 trees," of Elim.
 
 NOTES ON THE TRANSLATIONS OF 
 PINDAR. 
 
 P. 68. 1. 10. 
 The fourth, with that tormented three. 
 The three were Sisyphus, Tityus, and Ixion. The author 
 of the Odyssey, or, at least, of that passage which describes 
 the punishments of Tantalus, assigns him an eternity of hun- 
 ger, thirst, and disappointment. Which of these opinions is 
 most ancient, is neither very easy nor very material to decide. 
 The impending rock of Pindar is perhaps a less appropriate, 
 but surely a more picturesque mode of punishment. 
 
 P. 69. 1. 6. 
 
 Car-borne Pisa's royal maid. 
 Qinomaus king of Pisa had promised his daughter, the 
 heiress of his states, in marriage to any warrior who should 
 excel him in the chariot race, on condition, however, that the 
 candidates should stake their lives on the issue. Thirteen had 
 essayed and perished before Pelops. 
 
 P. 71. 1. 13. 
 
 Sleeps beneath the piled ground. 
 Like all other very early tombs, the monument of Pelops 
 was a l)arrow or earthen mound. I know not whether it may
 
 136 NOTES ON THE 
 
 still be traced. The spot is very accurately pointed out, and 
 such works are not easily obliterated. 
 
 P. 72. 1. 17. 
 God, who beholdeth thee and all thy deeds. 
 
 The solemnity of this prayer contrasted with its object, that 
 Hiero might again succeed in the chariot race, is ridiculous to 
 modern ears. I do not indeed believe that the Olympic and 
 other games had so much importance attached to them by the 
 statesmen and warriors of Greece, as is pretended by the so- 
 phists of later ages ; but where the manners are most simple, 
 public exhibitions, it should be remembered, are always most 
 highly estimated, and religious prejudice combined with the 
 ostentation of wealth to give distinction to the Olympic con- 
 tests. 
 
 P. 74.1. 11. 
 The floxoer of no ignoble race. 
 
 Theron was a descendant of (Edipus, and consequently of 
 Cadmus. His family had, through a long line of ancestors, 
 been remarkable, both in Greece and Sicily, for misfortune ; 
 and he was himself unpopular with his subjects and engaged 
 in civil war. Allusions to these circumstances often occur in 
 the present ode. 
 
 P. 79. 1. 16. 
 
 He whom none may name. 
 
 In the original " ne," " a certain nameless person." The 
 ancients were often scrupulous about pronouncing the names 
 of their gods, particularly those who presided over the region 
 of future hopes and fears; a scruple corresponding with the
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF PINDAR. 137 
 
 Rabbinical notions of the ineffable word. The pictures which 
 follow present a striking discrepancy to the mythology of Ho- 
 mer, and of the general herd of Grecian poets, whose Zeus is 
 as far inferior to the one supreme divinity of Pindar, as the 
 religion of Pindar himself falls short of the clearness and ma- 
 jesty of Revelation. The connection of these Eleusinian doc- 
 trines with those of Hindiistan, is in many points sufficiently 
 striking. Southey and Pindar might seem to have drunk at 
 
 the same source. 
 
 P. 81.1. 18. 
 
 Nor Jove has Thetis' prayer denied. 
 I know not why, except for his brutality to the body of Hec- 
 tor, Achilles is admitted with so much difficulty into the 
 islands of the blessed. That this was considered in the time 
 of Pindar as sufficient to exclude him without particular inter- 
 cession, shews at least that a great advance had been made in 
 moral feeling since the days of Homer. 
 
 P. 82. 1. 14. 
 Train d in study's formal hour, 
 
 There are who hate the minstrel's power. 
 
 It was not likely that Pindar's peculiarities should escape 
 criticism, nor was his temper such as to bear it with a very even 
 mind. He treats his rivals and assailants with at least a suffi- 
 cient portion of disdain, as servile adherents to rule, and mere 
 students without genius. Some of their sarcasms passed, 
 however, into proverbs. " Aiog Kopiy^og," an expression in 
 ridicule of Pindar's perpetual recurrence to mythology and 
 antiquities, is preserved in the Phcedon ; while his occasional
 
 1 38 N O T E S O N T H E 
 
 mention of himself and his own necessities, is parodied by 
 Aristophanes. I cannot but hope, however, that the usual 
 conduct of Pindar himself, was less obtrusive and importunate 
 than that of the Dithyrambic poet who intrudes on the fes- 
 tival of Nephelocoggugia, like the Gaelic bard in " Christ's 
 kirk o' the green." 
 
 P. 85. 1. 13. 
 
 Whose sapling root from Sajthian down 
 And Isters fount Alcides bare. 
 
 There seems to have been in all countries a disposition to 
 place a region of peculiar happiness and fertility among inac- 
 cessible mountains, and at the source of their principal rivers. 
 Perhaps indeed the Mount Meru of Hindustan, the blameless 
 Ethiopians at the head of the Nile, and the happy Hyperbo- 
 rean regions at the source of the Ister, are only copies of the 
 garden and river of God in Eden. Some truth is undoubtedly 
 mixed with the tradition here preserved by Pindar. The olive 
 was not indigenous in Greece, and its first specimens were 
 planted near Pisa. That they ascribed its introduction to 
 their universal hero Hercules, and derived its stock from the 
 land of the blessed, need not be wondered at by those who 
 know the importance of such a present. The Hyperborean or 
 Atlantic region, which continually receded in proportion as 
 Europe was explored, still seems to have kept its ground in 
 the fancies of the vulgar, under the names of the island of 
 St. Brandan, of Flath Innis, or the fortunate land of Cock- 
 ayne, till the discovery of America peopled the western ocean 
 with something less illusive.
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF PINDAR. 139 
 
 P. 87.1. 13. 
 
 Old Atlas' daughter hallowed. 
 
 Taygeta. 
 
 P. 92. 1. 1. 
 
 To Lemnos' laughing dames of yore, 
 
 Such was the proof Ernicus bore. 
 Ernicus was one of the Argonauts, who distinguished him- 
 self in the games celebrated at Lemnos by its hospitable queen 
 Hypsipile, as victor in the foot-race of men clothed in armour. 
 He was prematurely grey-headed, and therefore derided by the 
 Lemnian women before he had given this proof of his vigour. 
 It is not impossible that Psaurais had the same singularity of 
 appearance. 
 
 There is a sort of playfulness in this ode, which would make 
 us suspect that Pindar had no very sincere respect for the 
 character of Psaumis. Perhaps he gave offence by it ; for the 
 following poem to the same champion is in a very different 
 
 style. 
 
 P. 94. 1. 7. 
 
 Rearing her goodly towers on high. 
 
 Camarina had been lately destroyed by fire, and rebuilt in a 
 
 great measure by the liberality of Psaumis. 
 
 P. 97. I. 12. 
 Such praise as good Adrastus bore 
 
 To him, the prophet chief. 
 
 The prophet chief is Amphiaraus, who was swallowed up by 
 the Earth before the attack of Polynices and his allies on 
 Thebes, cither because the gods determined to rescue his vir-
 
 140 NOTES ON THE 
 
 tues from the slain of that odious conflict ; or, according to 
 the sagacious Lydgate, because, being a sorcerer and a pagan 
 " byshoppe," the time of his compact was expired, and the 
 infernal powers laid claim to him, 
 
 P. 98. 1. 18. 
 Then yoke the mules of winged pace, 
 And, Phintis, climb the car with me. 
 Agesias had been victor in the Apene or chariot drawn by 
 mules ; Phintis was, probably, his charioteer. 
 
 P. 100. 1. 8. 
 And flung the silver clasp away 
 That rudely prest her heaving side. 
 I venture in the present instance to translate " k-a\7rie," a 
 clasp, because it was undoubtedly used for the stud or buckle 
 to a horse's bit, as " KaXTra^eiv" signifies to run by a horse's 
 side, holding the bridle. The " koXv'^," too, appended to the 
 belt of Hercules, which he left with his Scythian mistress, 
 should seem, from the manner in which Herodotus mentions 
 it, to have been a clasp or stud, nor can I in the present pas- 
 sage understand why the pregnant Evadne should encumber 
 herself with a water-pot, or why the water-pot and zone should 
 be mentioned as laid aside at the same time. But the round 
 and cup-like form of an antique clasp may well account for 
 such names being applied to it. 
 
 P. 104. 1. 11. 
 
 Cool Cyllene's height of snow. 
 
 Cyllene was a mountain in Arcadia, dedicated to Mercury.
 
 TRANSLATIONS OF PINDAR. 141 
 
 P. 105.1. U. 
 
 Then, minstrel ! bid thy chorus rise 
 
 To Juno, queen of deities. 
 Such passages as this appear to prove, first, that the Odes 
 of Pindar, instead of being danced and chaunted by a chorus 
 of hired musicians and actors, in the absurd and impossible 
 manner pretended by the later Grecian writers (whose igno- 
 rance respecting their own antiquities is in many instances 
 apparent,) were recited by the poet himself sitting, (his iron 
 chair was long preserved at Delphos,) and accompanied by one 
 or more musicians, such as the Theban iEneas whom he here 
 compliments. Secondly, what will account at once for the 
 inequalities of his style and the rapidity of his transitions, we 
 may infer that the Dirceean swan was, often at least, an 
 " improvisatore." I know not the origin of the Boeotian agno- 
 men of swine. In later times we find their region called 
 " vervecum patria." 
 
 P. 106. I. 18. 
 Mark with no envious ear a subject praise. 
 Either the poet was led by his vanity to ascribe a greater 
 consequence to his verses than they really possessed, when he 
 supposes that the praise of Agesias may move his sovereign to 
 jealousy ; or we may infer from this little circumstance, that 
 the importance attached to the Olympic prize has not been so 
 greatly overrated by poets and antiquaries, and that it was in- 
 deed " a gift more valuable than a hundred trophies."
 
 NOTE ON LINES ON LORD GRENVILLE'S 
 INSTALLATION. 
 
 P. 108.1. 1. 
 
 Ye vietvless guardians of these sacred shades. 
 
 These lines were spoken (as is the custom of the University on 
 the installation of a new chancellor,) by a young nobleman, 
 whose diffidence induced him to content himself with the 
 composition of another. Of this diffidence his friends have 
 reason to complain, as it suppressed some elegant lines of his 
 own on the same occasion. 
 
 NOTE ON AN EPITAPH ON A YOUNG 
 NAVAL OFFICER. 
 
 P. 112.1.4. 
 
 The brave, the virtuous, and the young. 
 
 Captain Conway Shipley, third son to the dean of St. 
 Asaph, perished in an attempt to cut out an enemy's vessel
 
 NOTE ON AN EPITAPH, &c. 143 
 
 from the Tagiis with the boats of his Majesty's frigate La 
 Nymphe, April 22, 180S, in the twenty-sixth year of his age, 
 and after nearly sixteen years of active service ; distinguished 
 by every quality both of heart and head which could adorn a 
 man or an officer. Admiral Sir Charles Cotton, and the cap- 
 tains of his fleet, have since erected a monument to his memory 
 in the neighbourhood of Fort St. Julian, 
 
 THE END. 
 
 London: 
 
 PRINTED BY R. GILIIERT, 
 ST. John's square.
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 
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