And, hark! the loud flourish of trumpet and drum
Announces aloud that the monarch is come.
Surrounded with all the proud pomp of his court,
How kingly his tread! how majestic his port!
The rose and the myrtle and laurel combined
In a fillet of gold round his temples are twined;
In robes starred with jewels resplendently bright
He moves like a god, in a circle of light:
And now he has taken his seat at the board,
As God he is honoured, as God is adored;
While crowding in thousands the satraps so gay
With their ladies all glittering in costly array,
Exulting like eaglets approaching the sun,
By their stations are ranked, and the feast is begun.
Now let the loud chorus of music ascend;
All voices, all hearts, and all instruments blend:
The flute's mellow tone with the cornet's shrill note
The harp and the drum and the trump's brazen throat,
And captains and nobles and ladies so bright,
To swell the loud anthem of triumph unite.
Come, make deep libations to honour the king;
Now let our high cheering re-echoing ring,
Yet louder and louder!—the monarch commands;
Secure in her strength the proud Babylon stands !
High praise to our gods of brass, iron, and stone
But most to great Belus, the guard of the throne:
All gorgeous they stand in our temples displayed,
With gold and with elephant richly inlaid;
Our strength and our glory in city and field,-
In peace our advisers, in battle our shield.
To them, mighty rulers of earth and of heaven,
All honour and power and dominion be given;
By them shall proud Babylon, towering sublime,
Stand fast in her strength till the dotage of time!
Now giving full wing, in the festival hour,
To the thoughts of his heart and the pride of his power, The monarch desires the rich vessels of gold,
The pride of high Salem, before she was sold,
To be brought to the banquet. And now hands profane And idolatrous lips their bright purity stain.
All dim in the service of idols abhorred
Grows the chalice that once shone so bright to the Lord
But, lo! in the hand of the monarch it foams,
As his eye round the walls half-inebriate roams;
And, hark! he exclaims, “This fair chalice so proud
Was once that Jehovah's whose throne is a cloud;
But, by Babylon torn from his temple and shrine,
Is consecrate now to her glory and mine!
Ye satraps-"
Amazement!-'tis dashed from his hand,
As if struck by some potent invisible wand.
His soul what dire horror has suddenly wrung,
That palsies his nerves and relaxes his tongue?
His visage grows pale with the hues of despair,
And his eye-balls congeal with an ominous glare;
For see! on the wall what strange characters rise:
Some sentence transcribed from the book of the skies
By fingers immortal! How suddenly still
Grows the noise of the banquet!—all fear-struck and chill
Sit the revellers now; bound up is their breath,
As though they had felt the cold vapour of death.
All dimmed is the glory that beamed round the throne,
And the god sits the victim of terrors unknown.
At length words find utterance-"Oh haste, hither call
The Augurs, Chaldeans, Astrologers, all!
Whoever that sentence shall read and expound,
A chain of bright gold on his neck shall be bound;
The third of my realm to his power I bestow,
And the purple of kings on his shoulders shall glow."
The Astrologers come; but their science is vain;
Those characters dark may no mortal explain,
Save one who to idols ne'er humbled his heart,—
Some Seer to whom God shall his Spirit impart.
And that one exists-of the captives a sage,
Now grey with the honours and wisdom of age-
A Hebrew, a prophet—to him it is given
To read and resolve the dark counsels of Heaven.
"Oh haste! let that sage this strange secret unfold, And his be my power with the purple and gold."
While the king and his nobles, distracted in thought, Their doubts are revolving, the captive is brought; But not in that visage and not in that eye
A captive's dejection and gloom they descry:
For he breathes, as he moves, all the ardour of youth,
The high soul of freedom, the courage of truth.
See! o'er his warm features and round his fair head.
A glory divine seems its radiance to shed;
And that eye's coruscation, so rapid and bright,
Shoots deep to the soul, like an arrow of light;
Not even the monarch its frenzy can brook,
But he bows to the prophet, averting his look:
For the Spirit of God on that prophet is shed,
The page of the future before him is spread;
In his high-panting heart what rapt fervour he feels,
While the truths that inspire him his language reveals!
"Thy gifts, king, I reck not; now, now is the hour, When the spoiler shall come-when the sword must devour!
Oh, why have cursed idols of wood and of stone
Gained thy homage—the right of Jehovah alone?
Why yet glows thy heart with idolatrous fire,
Untaught by the judgments that humbled thy sire,
When driven to herd with the beasts of the wild,
Till his pride was subdued and his spirit grew mild?
Now call on thy idols thy arms to prepare-
They see not thy peril, they hear not thy prayer.
Where now is thy Belus, when Babylon calls,
To scathe the proud foes that beleaguer thy walls? Consumed by that breath which all might can confound, His shrines and his temples now smoke on the ground: While thy haughty blasphemings against the Most High Invoke an avenger; and, lo! he is nigh.
This night-nay, this hour-the last sand in thy glass
Away with thy life and thy kingdom shall pass.
In that writing behold the eternal decree,—
The sentence of God on thy empire and thee:
Thou art weighed in the balance of Justice supreme,
And light art thou found as the dust on the beam;
The wind of destruction to empty thy land,
And the fanners, to fan her with fire, are at hand.
Afar from thy ramparts, Euphrates aside,
In the lake of the Queen, is now rolling his tide;
And through his dried channel the keen Persian lance,
With the red torch of ruin, and Cyrus advance.
E'en now shouts of triumph are rending the air,
The revels of joy turn to shrieks of despair.
Hark! the din at the gates of the hostile array!
The fierce axe of battle is hewing its way;
Thy captains and nobles are falling in gore
And thy reign and thy life, hapless monarch, are o'er!"
XVI.-THE CAVES OF DAHRA; OR, "VIVE LA GUERRE."
A WAR-SONG FOR THE FRENCH IN ALGIERS.
For explanation see Prose Extracts, pp. 26 and 70.
DAHRA's caverns hidden hide the Arabs, and delay
To yield when they are bidden: so cries brave Pelissier,— Bring fagots of fierce fuel! Frenchmen checked by Arab slaves!
We'll have a vengeance cruel! Roast them in their sacred
We'll make their fond trust falter! Cast in fagots! Let them flare,
Till vengeance hath an altar fitly furnished! Vive la Guerre!”
Rush the sparks in rapid fountains up abroad into the sky! From the bases of the mountains leap the forked flames mountains high!
The flames,-like devils thirsting, like the wind, when crack
Wage hellish warfare, worsting all the still, astonished stars! Ply the furnace, fling the fagots! lo, the flames writhe, rush, and tear!
And a thousand writhe like maggots in among them! Vive la Guerre!
A mighty wind is blowing t'wards the cavern's gaping mouth;
The clear, hot flames are flowing in and out, to glut its drouth;
Flames with winds roar, rave, and battle-wildly battle, rave, and roar ;
And cries of men and cattle through the turmoil sadly soar. We are pale! What! Shall a trifle, a sad sound, our bold hearts scare?
"Tis long before they stifle! Bring more fagots! Vive la Guerre!
With night began the burning; look where yonder comes the day!
Hark! signals for adjourning our brave sport. We must obey.
But be sure the slaves are weary !—as the short and sob-like sigh
Of gusts on moorlands dreary float their sinking voices by ;— No sound comes now of shrieking;-let us show what Frenchmen dare!
Force the caves, through vapours reeking like a kitchen! Vive la Guerre!
What's this-and this? Pah! sick'ning, whether woman, man, or beast.
The fumes are thick'ning!-here's that hath shape at least.
How its horny eyes are staring on that infant seeking food From its broad brown breast, still bearing smoke-dried stains of milk and blood!
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