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But, two beside the sleeping pilgrim stand,
Like cherub-kings, with lifted mighty plume,
Fixed, sun-bright eyes, and looks of high command;
They tell the Patriarch of his glorious doom;
Father of countless myriads that shall come,
Sweeping the land like billows of the sea,
Bright as the stars of heaven from twilight's gloom,
Till He is given whom angels long to see,
And Israel's splendid line is crowned with Deity.

HENRY HART MILMAN,

A Clergyman of the Established Church, and the late Professor of Poetry in the University of Oxford, is, like Campbell, a classical poet, and has formed his style on the models of the great poets of antiquity. He does not possess the fire and energy of some of his contemporaries; but he is also free from their extravagances; his descriptions are full of truth and beauty, and though they rarely stimulate the passions, they have an irresistible claim upon the affections.

HYMN OF THE CAPTIVE JEWS.

From BELSHAZZAR.

GOD of the thunder! from whose cloudy seat
The fiery winds of desolation flow:
Father of vengeance! that with purple feet,
Like a full wine-press, treadst the world below:
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till Thou the guilty land hast sealed for woe.
God of the rainbow! at whose gracious sign
The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
Father of mercies! at one word of thine

An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness!
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens' glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillared temples rise Thy name to bless.
O'er Judah's land Thy thunders broke, O Lord!
The chariots rattled o'er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian sword,
E'en her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive's garb of shame,
Her temple sank amid the smouldering flame,

For Thou didst ride the tempest-cloud of fate.

O'er Judah's Land Thy rainbow, Lord, shall beam,
And the sad city lift her crownless head;
And songs shall wake, and dancing footsteps gleam,

Where broods o'er fallen streets the silence of the dead.
The sun shall shine on Salem's gilded towers,
On Carmel's side our maidens cull the flowers,
To deck, at blushing eve, their bridal bowers,
And angel-feet the glittering Sion tread.
Thy vengeance gave us to the stranger's hand,
And Abraham's children were led forth for slaves;
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,

Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The stranger's bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
'Neath the mute midnight we steal forth to weep,
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates' waves.
The born in sorrow shall bring forth in joy;

Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead Thy children home;
He that went forth a tender yearling boy,

Yet, ere he die, to Salem's streets shall come. And Canaan's vines for us their fruits shall bear, And Hermon's bees their honied stores prepare; And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,

Where, o'er the cherub-seated God, full blazed the irradiate dome.

THE SUMMONS OF THE DESTROYING ANGEL TO THE CITY OF BABYLON.

THE hour is come! the hour is come!

With voice

Heard in thy inmost soul, I summon thee,
Cyrus', the Lord's anointed! And thou river,
That flowest exulting in thy proud approach
To Babylon, beneath whose shadowy walls,
And brazen gates, and gilded palaces,
And groves, that gleam with marble obelisks,
Thy azure bosom shall repose, with lights
Fretted and chequered like the starry heavens:
I do arrest thee in thy stately course,

By Him, that poured thee from thine ancient fountain,
And sent thee forth, even at the birth of time,

One of His holy streams, to lave the mounts

Of Paradise. Thou hear'st me: thou dost check
Abrupt thy waters, as the Arab chief

1 Cyrus, the king of Persia, by whom Babylon was stormed.

His headlong squadrons. Where the unobserved,
Yet toiling Persian breaks the ruining mound,
I see thee gather thy tumultuous strength;
And, through the deep and roaring Nahamalcha
Roll on, as proudly conscious of fulfilling
The omnipotent command! While, far away,
The lake, that slept but now so calm, nor moved,
Save by the rippling moonshine, heaves on high
Its foaming surface, like a whirlpool-gulf,
And boils and whitens with the unwonted tide.
But, silent as thy billows used to flow,
And terrible, the hosts of Elam2 move,

Winding their darksome way profound, where man
Ne'er trod, nor light e'er shone, nor air from heaven
Breathed. Oh! ye secret and unfathomed depths,
How are ye now a smooth and royal way
For the army of God's vengeance! Fellow-slaves
And ministers of the Eternal purpose,
Not guided by the treacherous, injured sons
Of Babylon, but by my mightier arm,

Ye come, and spread your banners, and display
Your glittering arms as ye advance, all white
Beneath the admiring moon. Come on! the gates
Are open-not for banqueters in blood
Like you. I see on either side o'erflow
The living deluge of armed men, and cry
Begin, begin! with fire and sword begin

The work of wrath. Upon my shadowy wings
pause and float a little while, to see

I

Mine human instruments fulfil my task

of final ruin. Then I mount, I fly,

And sing my proud song as I ride the clouds,

That stars may hear, and all the hosts of worlds,
That live along the interminable space,
Take up Jehovah's everlasting triumph!

THE FALL OF JERUSALEM.

HYMN.

EVEN thus, amid thy pride and luxury,
O Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee,
That secret coming of the Son of Man.
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan,

2 Elam, the Scriptural name of Persia

Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away:
Still to the noontide of that nightless day,

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain.
Along the busy mart and crowded street,
The buyer and the seller still shall meet,

And marriage feasts begin their jocund strain:
Still to the pouring out the cup of woe;
Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro,

And mountains molten by His burning feet,

And heaven His presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated cities then,

The towers and temples, named of men
Eternal and the thrones of kings;
The gilded summer-palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,

Where still the bird of pleasure sings;
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go, gaze on fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll,

'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is unfurled,
The skies are shrivelled like a burning scroll,
And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world.

Oh! who shall then survive?
Oh! who shall stand and live?
When all that hath been is no more:
When for the round earth hung in air,
With all its constellations fair

In the sky's azure canopy;
When all the breathing earth, and sparkling sea,
Is but a fiery deluge without shore,
Heaving along the abyss profound and dark,
A fiery deluge, and without an ark.

Lord of all power, when Thou art there alone,
On Thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne,
That in its high meridian noon

Needs not the perished sun nor moon:

When Thou art there in Thy presiding state,
Wide-sceptred monarch o'er the realm of doom

When from the sea-depths, from earth's darkest womb, The dead of all the ages round Thee wait;

And when the tribes of wickedness are strown,

Like forest-leaves, in the autumn of Thine ire: Faithful and true! Thou still wilt save Thine own! The Saints shall dwell within th' unharming fire,

Each white robe spotless, blooming every palm,
Even safe as we by this still fountain side,

So shall the Church, Thy bright and mystic Bride,
Sit on the stormy gulf a halcyon bird of calm.
Yes, 'mid yon angry and destroying signs,
O'er us the rainbow of Thy mercy shines,
We hail, we bless the covenant of its beam,
Almighty to avenge, Almightiest to redeem!

CHORAL HYMN OF THE JEWISH MAIDENS.

From the SIEGE OF JERUSALEM.

KING of kings! and Lord of Lords!
Thus we move, our sad steps timing,
To our cymbal's feeblest chiming,
Where thy house its rest accords.
Chased and wounded birds are we,
Through the dark air fled to Thee;
To the shadow of thy wings,
Lord of lords! and King of kings!
Behold, O Lord! the heathen tread
The branches of thy fruitful vine,
That its luxurious tendrils spread
O'er all the hills of Palestine.

And now the wild boar comes to waste
Even us, the greenest boughs and last
That, drinking of thy choicest dew,
On Zion's hill in beauty grew.
No! by the marvels of thine hand,
Thou still wilt save thy chosen land,
By all thine ancient mercies shown,
By all our fathers' foes o'erthrown;
By the Egyptian's car-borne host,
Scattered on the Red-Sea coast;
By that wide and bloodless slaughter
Underneath the drowning water.
Like us in utter helplessness,
In their last and worst distress,→→→→
On the sand and sea-weed lying,
Israel poured her doleful sighing;
While before the deep sea flowed,
And behind fierce Egypt rode-
To their fathers' God they prayed,
To the Lord of Hosts for aid.

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