Classic Poem

(Recitative.)

Pause in this desert! Here, men say, of old
Belshazzar reigned, and drank from cups of gold;
Here, to his hideous idols, bowed the slave,
And here — God struck him dead!
Where lies his grave?
Tis lost! — His brazen gates? his soaring towers,
From whose dark tops men watched the starry hours?
All to the dust gone down! The desert bare
Scarce yields an echo when we question " Where ? "
The lonely herdsman seeks in vain the spot;
And the black wandering Arab knows it not.
No brick, nor fragment now remains, to tell
Where Babylon, mighty city, rose — and fell!

(Air.)

O City, vast and old!
Where, where is thy grandeur fled?
The stream that around thee rolled,
Still rolls in its ancient bed!
But where, oh, where art T HOU gone?
Oh, Babylon! Oh, Babylon!

The Giant, when he dies,
Still leaveth his bones behind,
To shrink in the winter skies,
And whiten beneath the wind!
But where, oh, where, &c.

Thou liv'st! — for thy name still glows,
A light in the desert skies;
As the fame of the hero grows
Thrice trebled because he dies!
Oh, Babylon! Oh, Babylon!