And the Poet's song again All its grace and mystery. THE JEWISH CEMETERY AT NEWPORT. How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves, Close by the street of this fair seaport town, Silent beside the never-silent waves, At rest in all this moving up and down! The trees are white with dust, that o'er their sleep While underneath such leafy tents they keep The long, mysterious Exodus of Death. And these sepulchral stones, so old and brown, The very names recorded here are strange, With Abraham and Jacob of old times. "Blessed be God! for He created Death!" The mourners said, "and Death is rest and peace;" Then added, in the certainty of faith, “And giveth Life that never more shall cease.", T Closed are the portals of their Synagogue,.. Gone are the living, but the dead remain, And not neglected; for a hand unseen, Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,, Still keeps their graves and their remembrance green. How came they here? What burst of Christian hate, Drove o'er the sea-that desert desolate- They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure, The life of anguish and the death of fire. All their lives long, with the unleavened bread " Anathema maranatha! was the cryi 997 That rang from town to town, from street to street; At every gate the accursed Mordecai Was mocked and jeered, and spurned by Christian feet. Pride and humiliation hand in hand. Walked with them through the world where'er they went; Trampled and beaten were they as the sand, And yet unshaken as the continent. For in the background figures vague and vast And thus for ever with reverted look The mystic volume of the world they read, Spelling it backward, like a Hebrew book, Till life became a Legend of the Dead. T But ah! what once has been shall be no more! The groaning earth in travail and in pain Brings forth its races, but does not restore, And the dead nations never rise again. armo e ti to robufq? + d¥FW Once a convent, old and brown, Whose sunny gleam Cheers the little Norman town. In that darksome mill of stone, That ancient mill With a splendor of its own. Never feeling of unrest Broke the pleasant dream he dreamed; Only made to be his nest, All the lovely valley seemed; No desire Of soaring higher Stirred or fluttered in his breast. True, his songs were not divine; Were not songs of that high art, Which, as winds do in the pine, But the mirth Of this green earth Laughed and revelled in his line. From the alehouse and the inn, Came the loud, convivial din, That in those days Sang the poet Basselin. In the castle, cased in steel, Knights, who fought at Agincourt, Another clang, Songs that lowlier hearts could feel. In the convent, clad in gray, Found other chimes, Nearer to the earth than they. Gone are all the barons bold, Gone are all the knights and squires, Gone the abbot stern and cold, And the brotherhood of friars; Not a name Remains to fame, From those mouldering days of old! But the poet's memory here Of the landscape makes a part; Like the river, swift and clear, Flows his song through many a heart; |