Classic Poem

The golden king Belshazzar
Was full of joy and boast
Because his walls and warriors
Withstood the Persian host
" Behold, " he cried, " my people,
Your God hath served you well;
So keep ye fair and debonair
The feast of Marduk Bel. "

Then all the Chaldees triumphed
With pipe and dance and song;
From golden wine to golden shrine
They reeled in bacchant throng;
The captains o'er the turrets
Were daft with drink and mirth;
The warders 'neath the portals
Lay prone along the earth.

Belshazzar also reveled
Within his marble hall;
He gathered there his damozels,
His queen, his sons and all.
A hundred score of nobles
Caroused before his face,
While dancers wheeled and cornets pealed
And incense filled the place.

And when his heart was merry
With song and jest and tale,
And when his magians anthemed
" O Lord Merodach, hail! "
He bade to bring each holy thing
That Zion used of old,
The candlesticks and vessels
Of argent, bronze and gold.

He bade to fill the goblets
In honor of the fanes
Where Babel's myriads worshipped
And Judah served in chains
They brought the sacred beakers,
They brimmed them and they quaffed
While priest and knave and lord and slave
Exalted Bel and laughed.

But even while they jested
The king beheld a hand
Against the stone above his throne
Where ghost alone might stand; —
A hand! no other presence!
An awful hand! alone!
That scored the alabaster
With writing all unknown.

He saw it bright and blinding,
He saw the fingers gleam;
They traced their mystic message
And vanished like a dream;
But there, distinct, unfading,
Remained the occult words
Above the king's pavilion-rings,
Where none might reach but birds.

Then changed Belshazzar's visage;
It shook from chin to hair.
His lips were dry and ashen,
His eyes were all a-stare.
And like to him his nobles
Uplifted brows of gloom,
For well they spied those lines abide,
And guessed a coming doom.

" Ye priests, ye seers, ye sages! "
The monarch shrieked at last;
" Ye dolts who search the welkins,
Why sit ye there aghast?
Whatever man may open
This secret thing, shall hold
The third high place of royal grace
And wear the chain of gold. "

Yet none divined the writing,
They stared with stifled breath;
And there was such a silence
As chills the caves of death,
Until the queen stood forward
Where crouched the king in fear,
And calmly said, " Be comforted!
The man ye need is here. "

" Hast thou forgotten Daniel,
The seer of ancient fame
Who sate before thy father's door
And sentenced in his name?
His God hath made him cunning
In omen, dream and sign;
So let thy heralds call him
To read the mystic line. "

Thereon the holy prophet
Was brought, and thus the king:
" The gods are with thee, Daniel,
To teach thee everything;
They give thee magian wisdom
To render dreams and seize
The hidden light of second sight
And show the dark decrees.

" And now behold this message
Which came, I know not whence.
If thou hast power to solve it
And tell its fearful sense,
Then shalt thou wear the scarlet
In Marduk's wide domain
And ride in state from gate to gate
And bear the golden chain. "

" O king, " replied the Hebrew,
" To others be thy meed.
Yet will I read the riddle
And show the things decreed.
O king! the king, the mighty king,
Thy father, ruled the earth
Until he turned from Yahveh
Who gave him birth and worth.

" Then Yahveh veiled his glory,
And drave him forth from men
To herd with humble cattle
And share their food and pen,
Until he knew his error
In lowliness and tears
And worshipped One who rules alone,
Enthroned upon the years.

" But thou hast scoffed at warning
And walked in froward ways;
To Him who gave thee empire
Thou hast not given praise;
And now, behold, thou bringest
The spoils of Zion's shrine
To pour therein for Baals of sin
Thine offerings of wine.

" Therefore the Lord appointed
This hand to write thy fate;
The words are words of number,
Of measure and of weight
Thy sceptred years are counted,
Thy merit strikes the beam,
Thy fair domain is torn in twain,
The Persian comes supreme. "

Then said the king, " O princes,
This Hebrew bodeth ill;
But lo, my word is given,
And kings their word fulfill
Put on the golden girdle,
Put on the scarlet gown,
Proclaim him third in Babel's herd
And lead him through the town. "

Now if he spake in earnest,
Or wrath, or mirthful scorn,
What man could tell who liveth,
Or ever yet was born?
For even while he mumbled
The bacchant words ye know,
He slept the sleep that bibbers keep,
Nor ever babbled moe.

For El deboshed our tyrants,
The king and all his sons,
The princes, lords and magians,
The chiefs, the mighty ones;
He gave them wine of slumber
That they might drowse and die;
That none might rise, or ope his eyes
Till shouting death were nigh.

No warder hears a larum,
No captain lifts his head,
The while a Persian army
Descends the river bed;
And when they wake, their vision
Is dim with trickling gore,
And through the maze of Babel's ways
Dart foemen smiting sore.

Hot herald runs to herald,
Post panteth on to post,
To wake the fated monarch
Who dreams amid his host;
Through many streets their panic fleets,
Through spacious courts they wend
To tell him that his city
Is taken at one end;

To tell him that his warriors
Are palsied with affright,
And all the postern outlets
Are stopped against his flight;
To bid him break from slumber
And rise in lion mood
To crush the foe, or fighting go
To death, as monarchs should.

But vainly rode the heralds;
The chasers followed nigh,
And king Belshazzar started
From dreaming but to die
Great Babylon was hurtled
Like Lucifer to Hell;
Her Nebo bowed in ruin loud
Beside her fallen Bel.

The spoilers were upon her,
They breached her mountain walls,
They brake her brazen portals,
They burned her ivory halls.
In vain her dwellers labored
To quench her funeral pyre;
Her anguish rose in tossing throes
Of all-including fire.

A scream of woman's terror,
A howl of man's despair,
Fulfilled the golden city
From blazing square to square;
The slain of many peoples
Ensanguined all her ways
And redly dyed her arrowy tide
For woful days and days.

Thus God repaid to Babel
The havoc she had hurled
Against our lovely Zion,
The jewel of His world;

And ever may His fury
Remain upon the spot
Till Babel's might is wrapped in night,
And Babel's name forgot.