WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING CLAY. I. WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. By steps each planet's heavenly way? II. Eternal, boundless, undecay'd, III. Before Creation peopled earth, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; And where the furthest heaven had birth, The spirit trace its rising track. And where the future mars or makes, Its glance dilate o'er all to be, While sun is quench'd or system breaks, IV. Above or Love, Hope, Hate, or Fear, Its years as moments shall endure. O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die. VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. I. THE King was on his throne, In Judah deem'd divine- The godless Heathen's wine. II. In that same hour and hall, And wrote as if on sand: The fingers of a man ;— Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. III. The monarch saw, and shook, IV. 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. VI. "Belshazzar's grave is made, The Mede is at his gate! The Persian on his throne!" SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star! WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE. I. WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race. II. If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! III. I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign. HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. (1) I. OH, Mariamne! now for thee The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony, And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou? Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading: Ah! couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. (1) [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. MILLMAN.] |