Straight in his hand the well-proved sling he took,
And in his scrip five pebbles from the brook-
These all his earthly arms; but o'er his head
Had faith divine her sheltering ægis spread.
His bosom beats with generous ardour high,
And new-born glories kindle in his eye;
Swift o'er the field he bounds with vigour light,
Marks the gigantic foe, and claims the fight.
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 scorned 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,
Winged with resistless speed, and armed 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 flushed 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 future days!
Let furthest 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.
The king was faint with battle; and he stood
With weary face and garments rolled in blood,
An exile from the city of his God.
The heat and burden of the day were sore,
And he must see, with hope deferred once more,
The sunshine fade from every hill and dale,
And twilight fold his land of Israel.
His captains stood around him; but the king
Forgot the clangour and the glittering
Of sword and spear, and all the pomp of war.
Toward the sunset stood the low gray hill
Of Bethlehem afar.
He saw a vision of the old sweet days,
When, as the custom is in Israel,
His mother went along the shady ways
By moonlight to the well :
Even in the desert hot and desolate,
He felt again the touch of that sweet breeze;
He heard the murmur of the olive-trees
That wave beside the gate.
Fair vision this, for warrior of might,
Athirst and weary from the headlong fight;
Above him fiery heavens, and beneath
The bitter waters of the sea of death.
And 'Oh! that one would bring to me,' he said,
'Or e'er it be too late,
Of the water from the well of Bethlehem,
Which is beside the gate!'
Three mighty men, full armèd for the fight,
Burst through the foemen with resistless might,
And brought unto the king,
What time the night fell late,
Of the water from the well of Bethlehem,
Which is beside the gate.
The king once more beside his captains stood,
And to the mighty men he bent his head :-
'My warriors do great things for me,' he said,
'But this cup I do hold for these men's blood-
1 may not drink-I pour it out to God.'
David's Lament for Absalom.
The pall was settled. He who slept beneath
Was straightened for the grave; and, as the folds
Sunk to the still proportions, they betrayed
The matchless symmetry of Absalom.
His hair was yet unshorn, and silken curls
Were floating round the tassels as they swayed
To the admitted air, as glossy now
As when, in hours of gentle dalliance, bathing
The snowy fingers of Judea's girls.
His helm was at his feet; his banner, soiled
With trailing through Jerusalem, was laid,
Reversed, beside him; and the jewelled hilt,
Whose diamonds lit the passage of his blade,
Rested, like mockery, on his covered brow.
The soldiers of the king trod to and fro,
Clad in the garb of battle; and their chief,
The mighty Joab, stood beside the bier,
And gazed upon the dark pall steadfastly,
As if he feared the slumberer might stir.
A slow step startled him. He grasped his blade,
As if a trumpet rang; but the bent form
Of David entered, and he gave command,
In a low tone, to his few followers,
And left him with his dead. The king stood still
Till the last echo died; then throwing off
The sackcloth from his brow, and laying back
The pall from the still features of his child,
He bowed his head upon him, and broke forth
In the resistless eloquence of woe.
Vision of Belshazzar.
The king was on his throne,
The satraps thronged the hall;
A thousand bright lamps shone
O'er that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine-
Jehovah's vessels hold
The godless heathen's wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Came forth against the wall,
And wrote as if on sand:
A solitary hand-
Along the letters ran,
And traced them like a wand.
The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
'Let the men of lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of fear
Which mar our royal mirth.'
Chaldea's seers are good,
But here they have no skill,
And the unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel's men of age
Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage -
They saw-but knew no more.
A captive in the land,-
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command-
He saw that writing's truth.
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view,
He read it on that night-
The morrow proved it true.
'Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away :
He in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay :
The shroud his robe of state-
His canopy in stone;
The Mede is at his gate-
The Persian on his throne !'
Clime of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was freedom's home, or glory's grave!
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven, crouching slave:
Say, is not this Thermopyla?
These waters blue that round you lave,
O servile offspring of the free,
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis !
These scenes, their story not unknown,
Arise and make again your own:
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires;
And he who in the strife expires,
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope-a fame—
They too will rather die than shame :
For freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid;
Thy heroes, though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command-
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy muse to stranger's eye
The graves of those that cannot die.
"Twere long to tell and sad to trace
Each step from splendour to disgrace :
Enough- -no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell;
Yes! self-abasement paved the way
To villain bonds and despot sway.
Satan's Survey of Greece.
Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,
Westward, much nearer by south-west, behold,
Where on the Ægean shore a city stands,
Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,—
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence, native to famous wits
Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,
City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive grove of Academe,
Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird
Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long:
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