While love's bequests, and soft remembrances,
Told him yet lingering over earth's sweet ties;
And holy words from his young lips that flowed
To all around, his gentle longings showed,
That they should share the joys which in his bosom glowed;
And while the gilded courtiers fluttered by,
And the Court-pageants rolled their clarions high;
Then Angel-forms clustered those silent walls,
And Angel-voices whispered homeward calls;
Then Faith's rapt eye beheld the white-robed band,
The Blest, that round th' Eternal Presence stand;
And her rapt ear drank in the songs of praise,
Which, with their golden harps, to Heavenly love they raise!
He slept in peace; and to a peaceful tomb
Was borne; the last bright ray amid the gloom,
That wrapt the guilty owner of the Throne,
And guilty State, which made his sin its own.
Then upon both, the irrevocable doom,
With progress slow but sure was seen to come.
The Monarch-his career tempestuous run-
Th' enfeebled realm left to a feeble son.
His brief and unrepenting sway o'erthrown
By violence, the murderer seized the throne;
And in the helpless and attainted blood
Of the whole race his ruthless hands imbrued.
He, like his victims, heavenly vengeance dared,
And, with his house, like retribution shared :
Then others gained a brief and fitful sway,
And passed by anarchy and strife away:
While the sole record, blood-inscribed, remained,
They reigned, reigned not—and then another reigned !" Last, Ahab rose! He culminated all
Th' apostate nation's flagrance till its fall;
Nor his own guilt sufficed; (when man is bent.
On ruin, woman, bold and bad, is lent
To haste him to his fall;) then Jezebel,
The heathen-queen, brought her huge share, to swell
The fatal hecatomb and deadly pile,
Zidonian altars, Baal's orgies vile.
His Temples overspread the land; his Priests
Quaffed their lewd cups, and heaped their sensuous feasts;
Hurled to the dust Jehovah's worship chaste,
And with the rites of infamy replaced.
And while the Rulers thus the heavens defied,
Their subjects were their dearest rights denied;
And rapine, subornation, perjury, blood,
Swept o'er the groaning nation like a flood.
Then their long-suffering God called to the skies
The foul revolt and treason to chastise;
Enlisted peaceful Nature in the strife;
Arrested at their source the springs of life;
Armed in His cause each angry element,
And wrenched the genial seasons from their bent.
The Sun, the Moon, a baleful influence shed;
Earth, water, air, unwholesome vapours bred;
Stars, in their course malignant, sternly rushed
To the grim fight, and fruit and increase crushed.
On the doomed State in guilt and luxury lapped,
But by the frowning pile volcanic capped,
The wrath, in its fell entrails slowly stored,
With sudden burst in fiery torrents poured;
From its fair bosom, health, ease, beauty chased,
And left behind a bare and blasted waste!
O'er the rich land, once Heaven's supreme delight,
He hurled sterility, and dearth, and blight;
And taught, when grace and favours influence lose,
He knows the terrors of His arm to use.
FAMINE and drought held in their iron grasp The idol-loving land, and swift purveyed Death's grim repasts. Herb, fruit, the tender grass, The life-sustaining grain, filled first his glut ; Then beast, bird, insect-life; Man, last and best, Heaped his insatiate feast. Each dwelling was A charnel-house; the lowly tenement, Whence rose the hum of industry, was mute; And gilded halls, which rung erewhile with shout Of mirth and revelry, now from their domes, And stately porticoes, sent forth death-groans And funeral-wails.
Yet some there were, e'en then,
Who, midst the nation's self-inflicted woes,
Found shelter and protection. For the poor,
The meek, the friendless, oft the slender food
Seemed, as by unseen hands, extenuated,
Or nature's cravings slackened; and the frail hold
Of life, beleaguered and assaulted sore,
Who Baal's altars spurned-by faithfulness
And love (yet found in station high, and braving
E'en courtly wrath) were nourished and concealed ;—
Concealed, oh shame! of whom this earth not worthy,
Yet plunged within its murky caves! and fed—
Who should its amplest stores have bidden—on food
To guilt or abject penury assigned!
But one there was-the chosen Messenger,
And Herald of Heaven's slow-raised chastisements-
For whom (all help else failing) was reserved
A muniment and aid, fitting a God
To give, and His own servant to receive.
Who realizes utter poverty?
A destitution total and entire ?
Behold it here! See one, whose mighty prayer
Had closed the liquid skies; and was again,
By the same Heaven-compelling agency,
To draw to earth their streams; who bore within
A power (Heaven-delegated) that could raise
From the parched sand a palace for his dwelling;
And, with a word, o'erspread with delicates
His lavish board; now-save the sordid garb
That clad him, but perchance defended ill
From the day's burning beams, or night's chill blast—
Called, in the wide creation, nought his own;
Nor found on earth, besides the little space
His footsteps pressed, shelter, or food, or rest!
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