No pasture clothed the arid mead, nor sheaves
Clustered the iron fields with harvest-wealth.
Over the barren plains and burning soil
The wasted herds wandered with drooping neck,
In bootless search of food; and, finding none,
With mournful lowings filled the echoing air.
Birds, mute and songless, drooped the ruffled plume,
And from their leafy shelter pining sank;
All but the bolder-winged, that soared aloft
To climes more hospitable; or those which fed
On loathsome offal thickly heaped around,
As death their dire provision still purveyed.
Famine and raging thirst maddened each sense,
And blighted every aspect, old and young.
The span-long infant on its mother's breast,
With parched tongue cleaving to the quivering mouth,
Faded and sunk in death; and hapless youth
Sought vainly moisture from the blackened brook;
Turned on its parents wan and livid looks,
And pierced the heart with unavailing plaints.
Man was become man's wreck; a skeleton
And shade, he flitted o'er the blasted soil.
All nature gasped and sunk in dire collapse;
And that fair land, which once as Eden bloomed-
Land of the punctual dews, and teeming showers,
And gushing fountains; where spontaneous sprung
Earth's choicest fruits, and, as a carpet, spread
The verdant herbage o'er her beauteous fields-
Had well-nigh lain a desert waste and bare,
And stretched excoriate and blank around,-
The lonesome sepulchre of beast and man ;—
Had not His hand-who locks the watery stores,
And then re-opens-on that guilt-changed Realm
Once more the vapory sky's sweet influences,
In gracious rains and fertilising dews
Relentingly restored.
The vital impulses; and throbbed the pulse
Of warm existence. Herb and flower-all being-
Leapt to new life rang out from bursting throats
The chorusses of leafy songsters: moans
Of suffering herds subsided: peace and hope
Gilded again Man's aspect; and bright visions
Of coming good danced once more through his breast.
Oh, that the spirit's life had so revived!
Oh, that the dews of heavenly grace had fallen
In healthful influence on the nation's soul!
But there was yet sin's drear sterility;
There idol-worship blighted yet; and there
The filthy rites of Baal yet usurped
Jehovah's rule; and, while fresh verdure clothed
The field, and nature's face bloomed sweet and fair,
Man's heart remained a drear and blasted waste!
Yet had Jehovah's right to Israel's worship Been in their eyes attested, and the claim
Of His base rival weighed and wanting found,
His faithful servant, though alone, had stood
A warning beacon by His altar's side,
Before the recreant people and their king.
Th' approving flame from Heaven, prayer-drawn, had owned
His offering; while the lewd God's Holocaust
Unrecognised, unblest, unfired remained.
That mighty token, like a trumpet's voice,
Had through the land called the backsliding tribes
Back to their fealty. But faith was wanting,
Wanting the willing mind and the pure heart;
And on the throne sat hatred and revenge;
And deadly oaths were sworn, that, with the blood
Of the foul ministers to the usurping fanes,
Should mingle theirs who true to Heaven remained.
'Twas in those days-in the deep wilderness, Beneath a juniper's impervious shade,
And at its root reclined-an aged man
Sought shelter from the mid-noon beams. His garb
Rude, and with travel stained, denoted yet
The Prophet's office; and his pilgrim's staff,
His sandaled feet, and girdle, also told,
One on a long and weary journey bound.
His aspect, worn with toil and seamed with grief,
Bore impress deep of saintly meditation,
And heavenly commerce; while the lofty front,
And the bold eye, showed one who, if uproused
By guilt-whether a nation's, or
A man's-could Heaven's stern threatenings proclaim:
Yet softer traits were mingled, that might joy
To bear the olive-branch of mercy forth,
And the sweet messages of reconcilement ;
While, o'er the form and features, age mature,
Yet still in strength and greenness, threw a grace
And mellowness that younger years excel.
But lo! deep musings and stern conflicts shake
His labouring breast; and in his troubled
eye
Th' unconscious tear lurks stagnant, or takes down
Slowly, and at long intervals, its course
Along the furrowed cheek. And now his glance
Turns upward, and with Heaven communion seeks.
The smouldering fire breaks into lambent flame;
He speaks. And what the gracious 'words, those lips,
That seem so ripe and reverend-to no audience
Mortal, like him, but to his God, address?
Are they of faith unwavering, and meek hope,
And patience under heaven-sent ills, though sore,
And of bright perspectives of good?
Enough!" is all he mourning says;
This life; I am not better than my
And is it he indeed? he who was sent
On Heaven's high embassage to guilty states,
To woo return, or warn persistent sin?
Who bore th' august commission to seal up
The brazen skies; and, when the wrath relaxed,
To open them again in dews and showers?
He, for whose needs the ravening natures stayed
Their instincts, and his punctual food purveyed?
Whose word brought streams perennial from the cruse,
And multiplied, at will, the slender meal?
Who called the severed spirit back, and bade it
Rehabitate its clayey home; and who, so late,
So late, alone, stood like the sea-girt rock;
Breasted the waves of fierce idolatry;
Upheld, unhelped, Jehovah's rule; spoke down
Th' attesting fire upon his altar; and dealt
A stern destruction on his baffled foes?
Alas, and is it he?
And toil have done their office; nature sinks
Bound in sleep's gentle bonds. And, as the dew
Of soft repose falls on the worn aspect
Of that lone, friendless, homeless, foodless saint,
The sterner lines subside; and milder grace
Steals o'er the features, such as once was there,
When life was young, and hope was bright, and love
To Heaven and men unwavering; when the high mission
Of Israel's Prophet, in the perspective,
Seemed a flower-sprinkled path; when joys immortal
Waved, like the victor's wreath, before his view,
And threw glad beams upon his opening way.
|