Classic Poem

D ANIEL AND Captive J EWS .

Dan. Parent of life and light! sole Source of good!
Whose tender mercies through the tide of time,
In long successive order, have sustain'd,
And sav'd the sons of Israel! Thou, whose pow'r
Deliver'd righteous Noah from the flood,
The whelming flood, the grave of human kind!
Oh Thou, whose guardian care and outstretch'd hand
Rescued young Isaac from the lifted arm,
Rais'd at thy bidding, to devote a son,
An only son, doom'd by his sire to die:
(O saving faith, by such obedience prov'd!
O blest obedience, hallow'd thus by faith!)
Thou, who in mercy sav'dst the chosen race
In the wild desert, and didst there sustain them
By wonder-working love, though they rehell'd
And murmur'd at the miracles that sav'd them!
Oh hear thy servant Daniel! hear and help!
Thou, whose almighty pow'r did after raise
Successive leaders to defend our race:
Who sentest valiant Joshua to the field,
Thy people's champion, to the conquering field,
Where the revolving planet of the night,
Suspended in her radiant round, was stay'd;
And the bright sun, arrested in his course,
Stupendously stood still!

Chorus OF J EWS .

I.

What ailed thee, that thou stood'st still,
O sun nor did thy flaming orb decline!
And thou, O moon! in Ajalon's low vale,
Why didst thou long before thy period shine!

II.

Was it at Joshua's dread command,
The leader of the Israelltish band?
Yes — at a mortal's bidding both stood still:
'Twas Joshua's word, but 'twas Jehovah's will.

III.

What all-controlling hand had force
To stop eternal nature's constant course?
The wand'ring moon to one fix'd spot confine,
But His whose fiat gave them first to shine?

Dan. O Thou! who, when thy discontented host,
Tired of Jehovah's rule, desir'd a king,
In anger gav'st them Saul; and then again
Didst wrest the regid sceptre from his hand
To give it David — David, best belov'd!
Illustrious David! poet, prophet, king;
Thou who didst suffer Solomon the wise
To build a glorious temple to thy name, —
O hear thy servants, and forgive us too!
If, by severe necessity compell'd,
We worship here — we have no temple now:
Altar or sanctuary, none is left.

Chorus OF J EWS .

O Judah! let thy captive sons deplore
Thy far-fam'd temple's now no more!
Fall'n is thy sacred fane, thy glory gone!
Fall'n is thy temple, Solomon!
Ne'er did barbaric kings behold,
With all their shining gems, their burnish'd gold,
A fane so perfect, bright, and fair;
For God himself was wont t' inhabit there.
Between the cherubim his glory stood,
While the high-priest alone the dazzling splendour view'd.

How fondly did the Tyrian artist strive
His name to intest time should live!
Such wealth the stranger wonder'd to behold:
Gold were the tablets, and the vases gold.
Of cedar such an ample store,
Exhausted Lebanon could yield no more.
Bending before the Ruler of the sky,
Well might the royal founder cry,
Fill'd with an holy dread, a reverent fear,
Will God in very deed inhabit here?
The heaven of heavens beneath his feet,
Is for the bright inhabitant unmeet:
Archangels prostrate wait his high commands,
And will he deign to dwell in temples made with hands?

Dan. Yes, thou art ever present, Pow'r Supreme!
Not circumscrib'd by time, not fix'd to space,
Confin'd to altars, nor to temples bound.
In wealth, in want, in freedom, or in chains,
In dungeons or on thrones, the faithful find thee!
E'en in the burning cauldron thou wast near
To Shadrach and the holy brotherhood:
The unhurt martyrs bless'd thee in the flames;
They sought and found Thee; call'd, and Thou wast there.
First Jaw . How chang'd our state! Judah, thy glory's fallen!
Thy joys for hard captivity exchang'd!
And thy sad sons breathe the polluted air
Of Babylon, where deities obscene
Insult the living God; and to his servants,
The priests of wretched idols made with hands,
Show contumelious scorn.
Dan. 'Tis heaven's high will.
Second Jew . If I forget thee, O Jerusalem!
If I not fondly cherish thy lov'd image,
E'en in the giddy hour of thoughtless mirth;
If I not rather view thy prostrate walls
Than haughty Babylon's imperial towers,
Then may my tongue refuse to frame the strains
Of sweetest harmony; my rude right hand
Forget, with sounds symphonious, to accord
The harp of Jesse's son to Sion's songs.
First Jew . Oft on Euphrates' ever verdant banks,
Where drooping willows form a mournful shade,
With all the pride which prosp'rous fortunes give,
And all th' unfeeling mirth of happy men,
Th' insulting Babylonians ask a song;
Such songs as erst in better days were sung
By Korah's sons, or heaven-taught Asaph, set
To loftiest measures; then our bursting hearts
Feel all their woes afresh; the galling chain
Of bandage crushes then the free-born soul
With writhing anguish; from the trembling lip
Th' unfinish'd cadence falls; and the big tear,
While it relieves, betrays the wo-fraught soul,
For who can view Euphrates pleasant stream,
Its drooping willows, and its verdant banks,
And not to wounded memory recall
The piny groves of fertile Palestine,
The vales of Solymn, and Jordan's stream!
Dan. Firm faith and deep submission to high Heaven
Will teach us to endure, without a murmur,
What seems so hard. Think what the holy host
Of patriarchs, saints, and prophets have sustain'd
In the blest cause of truth! And shall not we,
O men of Judah, dare what these have dared,
And boldly pass through the refining fire
Of fierce affliction? Yes, be witness, Heaven!
Old as I am, I will not shrink at death,
Come in what shape he may, if God so will,
By peril to confirm and prove my faith.
Oh! I would dare yon den of hungry Ilons,
Rather than pause to fill the task assign'd
By wisdom infinite. Nor think I boast:
Not in myself, but in thy strength I trust,
Spirit of God!
First Jew. Prophet, thy words support,
And raise our sinking souls.
Dan. Behold yon palace;
There proud Belshazzar keeps his wanton court!
I knew it once beneath another lord,
His grandsire, who subdued Jehoinchin,
And hither brought sad Judah's captive tribes;
And with them brought the rich and precious relics
Of our famed temple; all the holy treasure,
The golden vases, and the sacred cups,
Which graced, in happier times, the sanctuary.
Second Jew. May H E , to whose blest use they were devoted,
Preserve them from pollution; and once more,
In his own gracious time, restore the temple!
Dan. I, with some favour'd youths of Jewish race,
Was lodg'd in the king's palace, and instructed
In all the various learning of the east:
But H E , on whose great name our fathers call'd,
Preserv'd us from the perils of a court,
Warn'd us to guard our youthful appetites,
And still with holy fortitude reject
The pamp'ring viands luxury presented;
Fell luxury! more perilous to youth
Than storms or quicksands, poverty or chains.
Second Jew. He who can guard 'gainst the low baits of sense,
Will find temptation's arrows hurtless strike
Against the brazen shield of temperance.
For 'tis th' inferior appetites enthral
The man, and quench th' immortal light within him;
The senses take the soul an easy prey,
And sink th' imprison'd spirit into brute.
Dan. Twice, by the Spirit of God, did I expound
The visions of the king; his soul was touch'd,
And twice did he repeat, and prostrate fall
Before the God of Daniel: yet again,
Power, flattery, and prosperity undid him.
When from the lofty ramparts of his palace
He view'd the splendours of the royal city,
That magazine of wealth, which proud Euphrates
Wafts from each distant corner of the earth;
When he beheld the adamantine towers,
The brazen gates, the bulwarks of his strength,
The pendant gardens, art's stupendous work,
The wonder of the world! the proud Chaldean,
Mad with th' intoxicating fumes which rise
When uncontroll'd ambition grasps at once
Dominion absolute and boundless wealth,
Forgot he was a man, forgot his God!
" This mighty Babylon is mine, " he cried;
" My wondrous power, my godlike arm achiev'd it.
" I scorn submission; own no Delty
" Above my own. " While the blasphemer spoke,
The wrath of Heaven inflicted instant vengeance.
Stripp'd him of that bright reason he abused,
And drove him from the cheerful haunts of men,
A naked, wretched, helpless, senseless thing;
Companion of the brutes, his equals now.
First Jew. Nor does his impious grandson, proud Belshazzar,
Fall short of his offences? nay, he wants
The valiant spirit and the active soul
Of his progenitor; for pleasure's slave,
Though bound in silken chains, and only tied
In flowery fetters, seeming light and loose,
Is more subdued than the rash casual victim
Of anger or ambition: these indeed
Burn with a fiercer but a short-lived fire;
While pleasure with a constant flame consumes.
War slays her thousands, but destructive pleasure,
More fell, more fatal, her ten thousands slays:
The young luxurious king she fondly woos
In every shape of am'rous blandishment;
With adulation smooth ensnares his soul;
With love betrays him, and with wine inflames.
She straws her magic poppies o'er his couch,
And with delicious opiates charms him down,
In fatal slumbers bound. Though Babylon
Is now invested by the warlike troops
Of royal Cyrus, Persia's valiant prince;
Who, in conjunction with the Median king.
Darius, famed for conquest, now prepares
To storm the city; not th' impending horrors
Which ever wait a siege have power to wake
To thought or sense th' intoxicated king.
Dan. E'en in this night of universal dread,
A mighty army threat'ning at the gates;
This very night, as if in scorn of danger,
The dissolute Belshazzar holds a feast
Magnificently impious, meant to honour
Belus, the favourite Babylonish idol,
Lewd parasites compose his wanton court,
Whose impious fintt'ries soothe his monstrous crimes.
They justify his vices, and extol
His boastful phrase, as if he were some god.
Whate'er he says, they say; what he commands,
Implicitly they do; they echo back
His blasphemies with shouts of loud acclaim;
And when he wounds the tortur'd ear of virtue,
They cry " All hail! Belshazzar, live for ever! "
To-night a thousand nobles fill his hall,
Princes, and all the dames who grace the court;
All but his virtuous mother, sage Nitocris:
Ah! how unlike the impious king her son!
She never mingles in the midnight fray,
Nor crowns the guilty banquet with her presence.
The royal fair is rich in ev'ry virtue
Which can adorn the queen, or grace the woman;
But for the wisdom of her prudent counsels
This wretched empire had been long undone.
Not fam'd Semiramis, Assyria's pride,
Could boast a brighter mind or firmer soul;
Beneath the gentle reign of Merodach,
Her royal lord, our nation tasted peace.
Our captive monarch, sad Jehoinchin,
Grown grey in a close prison's horrid gloom,
He freed from bondage; brought the heary king
To taste once more the long-forgotten sweets
Of liberty and light, sustain'd his age,
Pour'd in his wounds the lenient baim of kindness,
And blest his setting hour of life with peace.
First Jew. That sound proclaims the banquet is began.
Second Jew. Hark! the licentious uproar grows more loud,
The vaulted roof resounds with shouts of mirth,
And the firm palace shakes! Retire, my friends;
This madness is not meat for sober ears.
If any of our race were found so near,
'Twould but expose us to the rude attack
Of ribahiry obscene and impious jests
From these mad sons of Belial, more inflam'd
To deeds of riot by the wanton feast.
Dan. Here part we then! but when again to meet
Who knows, save Heav'n? Yet, O my friends! I feel
An impulse more than human stir my breast.
Rapt in prophetic vision, I behold
Things hid as yet from mortal sight. I see
The dart of vengeance tremble in the air,
Ere long to pierce the impious king. E'en now
The desolating angel stalks abroad,
And brandishes aloft the two-edg'd sword
Of retribution keen; he soon will strike,
And Babylon shall weep as Sion wept.
Pass but a little while, and yon shall see
This queen of cities prostrate on the earth.
This haughty mistress of the kneeling world,
How shall she sit dishonour'd in the dust,
In tarnish'd pomp and solitary wo!
How shall she shroud her glories in the dark,
And in opprobrious silence hide her head!
Lament, O virgin daughter of Chaldea!
For thou shalt fall! imperial queen, shalt fall!
No more Sidonian robes shall grace thy limbs.
To purple garmants, sackcloth shall succeed;
And sordid dust and ashes shall supply
The od'rous nard and cassia, Thou, who saidst
I' AM , and there is none besides me: thou,
E'en thou, imperial Babylon, shalt fall!
Thy glory quite eclips'd! The pleasant sound
Of viol and of harp shall charm no more!
Nor song of Syrian damsols shall be heard,
Responsive to the lute's luxurious note:
But the loud bittern's cry, the raven's crank,
Tho bat's fall scream, the lonely owl's dull plaint,
And ev'ry hideous bird, with ominous shriek,
Shall scare affrighted silence from thy walls:
While desolation, snatching from the hand
Of time the scythe of ruin, sits aloft,
Or stalks in dreadful majesty abroad,
I see th' exterminating fiend advance,
Ev'n now I see her glare with horrid joy,
See towers imperial mould'ring at her touch;
She glances on the broken battlement,
She eyes the crumbling column, and enjoys
The work of ages prostrate in the dust —
Then, pointing to the mischiefs she has made,
Exulting cries, This once was Babylon!