Me, of our race the humblest, has He sped,
From thy broad trunk to lop thy impious head,
And through thy armies wasting vengeance spread;-
That all may know, through earth's wide realms abroad,
To trust the righteous cause to Israel's God.
He saves not by the shield, by spears, or swords:-
No more.-Advance-the battle is the Lord's."
With giant-stride the lowering foe draws nigh,
Strength in his arm, and fury in his eye;
In thought, already gives the ruthless wound,
And the scorn'd youth transfixes to the ground.
While David, rapid as the fleetest wing,
Whirls round his head the quick-revolving sling;
Aims, with experienced eye, the avenging blow
At the broad visage of the advancing foe.-
How booms the thong, impatient to be free,
Wing'd with resistless speed, and arm'd with destiny!-
'Tis gone-loud-whizzing flies the ponderous stone!-
That dirge of death-hark! heard ye Dagon groan?
It strikes it crashes through the fractured bone!
Struck in his full career, the giant feels
The bolt of death;-his mountain-body reels-
And nerveless, headlong, thunders to the ground.—
Loud bursts of joy along the vale resound:
Shout! men of Israel, shout-till earth and sky,
With replication loud, re-echo victory!
See, see him now, as, flush'd with honest pride,
He draws the sabre from the giant's side:
Now on the groaning trunk behold him tread,
And from the shoulders lop the ghastly head!
Shout! men of Israel, shout your hero's praise!
Send it immortal down to fature days!
Let farthest Dan his triumph loud proclaim,
And Sheba's springs resound his glorious name:
In Jesse's son, O Bethlehem! rejoice;
And Salem, thou exalt thy grateful voice;
Thy victor hail triumphant in the Lord;
Girt with the grisly spoils, he waves the reeking sword.
Daughters of Israel, loud his praises sing!
With harp and timbrel hail your future king.
By mighty Saul a thousand bite the plain,
But mightier David has ten thousand slain!
How sweet to sleep where all is peace,
Where sorrow cannot reach the breast,
Where all life's idle throbbings cease,
And pain is lull'd to rest;—
Escaped o'er fortune's troubled wave,
To anchor in the silent grave!
That quiet land, where, peril past,
The weary win a long repose;
The bruised spirit finds, at last,
A balm for all its woes;
And lowly grief, and lordly pride,
Lie down, like brothers, side by side.
The breath of slander cannot come
To break the calm that lingers there;
There is no dreaming in the tomb,
Nor waking to despair;
Unkindness cannot wound us more,
And all earth's bitterness is o'er.
There the maiden waits till her lover comes,-
They never more shall part;
And the wounded deer has reach'd her home,
With the arrow in her heart;
And passion's pulse lies hush'd and still,
Beyond the reach of the tempter's skill.
The mother-she has gone to sleep,
With the babe upon her breast;
She has no weary watch to keep
Around her infant's rest:
His slumbers on her bosom fair
Shall never more be broken-there.
How bless'd-how bless'd that home to gain,
And slumber in that soothing sleep,
From which we never rise to pain,
Nor ever wake to weep!
To win our way from the tempest's roar,
And reach with joy that heavenly shore.
Stranger. WHOм are they ushering from the world, with This pageantry and long parade of death?
Townsman. A long parade, indeed, sir, and yet here You see but half; round yonder bend it reaches A furlong farther, carriage behind carriage.
S. 'Tis but a mournful sight, and yet the pomp
Tempts me to stand a gazer.
T. Yonder school-boy,
Who plays the truant, says the proclamation
Of peace was nothing to the show, and even
The chairing of the members at election
Would not have been a finer sight than this;
Only that red and green are prettier colours
Than all this mourning.-There, sir, you behold
One of the red-gown'd worthies of the city,
The envy and the boast of our exchange,
Ay, what was worth, last week, a good half million,
Screw'd down in yonder hearse.
S. Then he was born
Under a lucky planet, who to-day
Puts mourning on for his inheritance.
T. When first I heard his death, that very wish
Leapt to my lips; but now the closing scene
Of the comedy hath waken'd wiser thoughts:
And I bless God, that, when I go to the grave,
There will not be the weight of wealth like his
To sink me down.
S. The camel and the needle,-
mind?
Is gospel wisdom. I would ride the camel,—
Yea, leap him flying, through the needle's eye,
As easily as such a pamper'd soul
Could pass the narrow gate.
But sure this lack of Christian charity
T. Your pardon, too, sir,
Looks not like Christian truth.
If, with this text before me, I should feel
In the preaching mood! But for these barren fig-trees,
With all their flourish and their leafiness,
We have been told their destiny and use,
When the axe is laid unto the root, and they
Cumber the earth no longer.
Stored fraudfully, the spoil of orphans wrong'd,
And widows who had none to plead their right?
T. All honest, open, honourable gains;
Fair legal interests, bonds and mortgages,
Ships to the East and West.
Undone;-for sins, not one of which is mention'd
In the Ten Commandments. He, I warrant him,
Believed no other Gods than those of the Creed:
Bow'd to no idols,-but his money-bags:
Swore no false oaths, except at a custom-house:
Kept the Sabbath idle: built a monument,
To honour his dead father: did no murder:
Was too old-fashion'd for adultery:
Never pick'd pockets: never bore false witness:
And never, with that all-commanding wealth,
Coveted his neighbour's house, nor ox, nor ass.
S. You knew him, then, it seems?
T. As all men know
The virtues of your hundred-thousanders;
They never hide their lights beneath a bushel.
S. Nay, nay, uncharitable sir! for often
Doth bounty, like a streamlet, flow unseen,
Freshening and giving life along its course.
T. We track the streamlet by the brighter green
And livelier growth it gives:-but, as for this-
This was a pool that stagnated and stunk;
The rains of heaven engender'd nothing in it
But slime and foul corruption.
Are reservoirs, whence public charity
Still keeps her channels full.
Upon the point. This man of half a million
Had all these public virtues which you praise.-
But the poor man rung never at his door;
And the old beggar, at the public gate,
Who, all the summer long, stands, hat in hand,
He knew how vain it was to lift an eye
To that hard face. Yet he was always found
Among your ten and twenty pound subscribers,
Your benefactors in the newspapers.
His alms were money put to interest
In the other world,-donations, to keep open
A running charity-account with heaven:-
Retaining fees against the last assizes,
When, for the trusted talents, strict account
Shall be required from all, and the old Arch-Lawyer
Plead his own cause as plaintiff.
Believe you, sir: these are your witnesses,
These mourners here, who from their carriages
Gape at the gaping crowd. A good March wind
Were to be pray'd for now, to lend their eyes
Some decent rheum. The very hireling mute
Bears not a face blanker of all emotion
Than the old servant of the family!
How can this man have lived, that thus his death
Costs not the soiling one white handkerchief!
T. Who should lament for him, sir, in whose heart
Love had no place, nor natural charity?
The parlour spaniel, when she heard his step,
Rose slowly from the hearth, and stole aside
With creeping pace; she never raised her eyes
To woo kind words from him, nor laid her head
Upraised upon his knee, with fondling whine.
How could it be but thus? Arithmetic
Was the sole science he was ever taught.
The multiplication-table was his Creed,
His Pater-noster, and his Decalogue.
When yet he was a boy, and should have breathed
The open air and sunshine of the fields,
To give his blood its natural spring and play;
He, in a close and dusky counting-house,
Smoke-dried and sear'd and shrivell'd up his heart.
So, from the way in which he was train'd up,
His feet departed not; he toil'd and moil'd,
Poor muck-worm! through his threescore years and ten;
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