Classic Poem

BY JOHN B. DILLON .

Where fell the palm-tree's clustering shade,
The aged and weary Prophet lay,
And o'er his fevered temples played
The freshness of the primal day.
He slept — and on his spirit fell
A vision of the flight of Time —
He saw upon the future dwell
A dark'ning cloud of sin and crime.

Gone were the spirits that lingered near
The world in its early bloom,
And Hope's pure light, that was wont to cheer,
Grew dim in the gathering gloom;
And Love from Earth was hurl'd —
And a mandate came,
In a breath of flame,
To scourge a sinful world.

" Let the sword go forth! " — and forth it went,
And gleamed o'er tower and battlement,
And glanced in the tented field;
And helms were cleft, and shields were broke,
And breasts were bared to the battle stroke,
Only in the death to yield:
The warriors met — but not to part —
And the sun glared redly on the scene;
And the broken sword, and the trampled heart,
Might tell where the battle steed had been.
Dark and still, by the moon's pale beam,
Lay mouldering heaps of slaughtered men —
The fountain of a sanguine stream —
Earth drank the blood of her offspring then.

" Go forth Disease! " — and at the word,
The groans of a stricken world were heard,
And the voice of woe rose high —
And myriads yielded up their breath,
As the haggard form of the tyrant Death
On the rotten breeze swept by.
And the lovely green that overspread
The world in its guiltless day,
Grew as deeply dark, and sear'd, and dead,
As the parched earth, where it lay.
With lifeless limbs the livid trees
Stood locked in the arms of Death,
Save one, that still to the withering breeze
Could lend its poisonous breath.
Deeply the world, in that drear time,
Felt the deadly curse of sin and crime.

" Famine go forth! " — and at the name,
Rose a feeble shriek, and a fearful laugh,
And a tottering, fleshless monster came,
The lingering stream of life to quaff —
And he stalk'd o'er the earth, and the languid crowds
Were crush'd to the dust in their mildew'd shrouds:
Then rose the last of human groans,
As the shrivelled skin hung loose on the bones,
And the stream of life was gone.
And Death expired on that awful day,
Where his slaughtered millions round him lay,
For his fearful task was done.

Old Earth was lone — for her offspring lay
Mouldering dark on her bosom of clay —
All tones of life were hushed —
And the brazen tombs of sepulchred men,
That battled the might of Time till then,
Atom by atom were crushed —
And desolate round in its orbit whirl'd
The peopleless wreck of a worn-out world.

*****

The dreamer woke, and the glorious day
Broke calmly on his dream —
And the joyous birds from each green spray
Caroll'd their morning hymn —
The Earth still moved in beauty there,
With its clustering groves and emerald plains,
And the pure breeze bore the Prophet's prayer
To the throne where the Rock of Ages reigns.