LIBPtARY OF CONGRESS. AMERICA. Af\m '^.^^^^'^^ro. \^^f^fn. ^^^^^r^mm^^^n^ 'f\r\^N iA^f\f!!\hf\f\f\~ A^^f^Af\f^> AA^Aa aA' A^ylA A A A AA/v WijUr\r\OAAv^: r\Ar>AA/r :^^#^: /vG>n4 ^HAAAA/ »''^'^*v«ia;;;,>^,.^A.V^V^ ^,AAAAAAAA/^A, ,^^^' WAAAaaa/ AAAS^^r^^^rt^^ J{ ^ A^ • • # i # "^^ 'MWW^^fP PMI]LA©E]LFI!li% W^5 MAMS ffl AHIL 1^ (C? . '• lBAiLTllM®KE, J,S,M®1 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY ; mmiLw^iLi iiMM^'ism^^'^mm^ DESIGNED AS A CHRISTMAS AND BIRTH DAY PRESENT MDCCCXXXVII. BY NATHAN C. BROOKS, A. M. PHILADELPHIA: WILLIAM MARSHALL & CO. BALTIMORE : JOHN S. II OR TON. ^^y^-S ^:tT:^}i£tnt^::^'sA^'.^'^^^^^^''^ and thirty-six Maryland E. FRENCH, PRINTER. •wd. TO THE ^ REVEREND JOHN M. DUNCAN, THIS VOLUME IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED. PUBLISHERS' PREFACE. Although the articles, generally, in the Scriptural Anthology, have appeared in two of the most respectable periodicals of the day, the Religious Souvenir and Lady''s Book, their length has prevented their being exten- sively copied, and consequently, they are comparativery little known, except to the readers of the above-mentioned publications. Impressed with the belief that a work blend- ing exalted sentiment and devotional fervour with the enchantments of poetry will be ac- ceptable to the Christian community, we offer them, as a suitable present, the Scriptural Anthology, in a dress, in some degree worthy of the merits of the author, and of the object for which the work is intended. In the paraphrase upon the different sub- publishers' I'RKFACE. jects, a departure from the spirit of the sacred text will rarely be found, except in the " Pas- sage of the Red Sea" and *' Moses ;" in the former of which, for the purpose of amplifica- tion, and in the latter, for greater poetic effect, the author appears to have followed Josephus. While we must claim for him a high degree of poetic excellence, we would by no means insist that our author's productions will be found superior to criticism, as they are mere- ly the relaxation of a scholar, while laborious- ly engaged as superintendant of one of our largest and most respectable literary institu- tions. CONTENTS Bower of Paphos ... 13 Abraham's Sacrifice - - - 43 The Flood 50 Elijah Fed by Ravens 60 Plagues of Egypt 63 Eternity of God ... 68 Destruction of Jerusalem 72 Moses . . . - 81 Beheading of John the Baptist - 96 The Captivity - . . - 103 Destruction of Sodom - - . 107 Raising of the Widow's Son 111 Death of Samson 119 Belshazzar .... 123 Paul before King Agrippa 131 Look not on Wine 137 M-oses Smiting the Rock 139 The Prodigal .... 143 The Resurrection - - - 150 Creation . . . - 153 viii CONTENTS. Sennacherib . 154 Adoration of the Wise Men 163 The Tower of Babel - . - 167 The Crucifixion - . 169 The Heavy-Laden . 170 Decay - 173 EMBELLISHMENTS Presentation Plate . Vignette Title Page Bower of Paphos Painted by- Abraham's Sacrifice do. Seventh Plague of Egypt do. [Moses do iDaughters of Jerusalem Weeping Belshazzar's Feast Painted by Moses Smiting the Rock do. Creation . . do. 'The Tower of Babel do. ( « 1 , 2 Martin 13 Rombouts 43 Martin 63 Poussin 81 Martin 103 West 123 Westall 139 Martin 153 Maitin 167 ( MINOR EMBELLISHMENTS ' npATT-DTT-r'Trc 1 All. Cherub riu.cj!,t 42 Christ Preaching . 72 Elijah Dividing Jordan 93 Harp of Judah ice David and Goliah . 122 The Good Samaritan 14:) The Bible, etc. 152 Finis 180 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. ARGUMENT Chrestogiton, a Cyprian, who had reudered signal service to his native island, and risen to the Archonship, is deposed by Melaco- MAS, a rival, and sent into banishment. Preferring death to exile, he returns to Cyprus; and, meeting with Appianus, a Roman, and 'his daughter, two Christian*^ who had fled from persecution at Antioch, he falls in love with the maid and embraces her religion. Melaco- MAS, struck with the beauty of the young Roman, makes love to her, and being repulsed, dooms her and her father and Chrestogiton to death, by wild beasts in the amphitheatre. Chrestogiton preaches the Christian religion to the Cyprians, and slays the lion which is let into the arena. Triumph of the Christian faith. BOWER OF PAPHOS. Now they ■which were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose about Stephen, travelled as far as Phenice, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word. Acts Ch. xi. v. 19. XftXfa Se Spoaoevra kui f) ixE\i But Chrestogiton's accents broke. Like inspiration wildly forth : " Paphians ! It is not long since here, E'en in this amphitheatre. In which I now a victim stand. Your myriad tongues in joyful cry Hailed me the conqueror whose brand Had lit the path of victory, And freed from tyranny your land ; Then all the eyes that now look down In anger, and the brows that frown SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. So awfully, with smiles were bright ; And every feature wore delight, As pressed my head the laurel crown. My powers e'en from my early youth Were always to my country given j In warm devotedness and truth I ever in her cause have striven, And laboured for the common good — What have I reaped for all my pains But heartless — base ingratitude ? You bound the very limbs with chains That, on your reeking battle plains, Poured the red tribute of their veins ; And hurried him far from your land, To wither in a foreign grave. Upon a wild sea-beaten strand, Whose valour did your country save — And to the man whose perjury Had blackened all my spotless fame. And stamped my name with infamy. His country's blighting curse and shame — Yes ! to the wretch, whose love of sway BOWER OF PAPHOS. 33 Would make his murdered father's neck, To mount to power, a stepping stone, Gave every good I called my own — Fields, power, patrician wealth a prey — The crafty spoiler's name to deck. Smile in thy conscious villainy. Thou demon of the evil eye ! In bitterness of vengeance smile ! With heart far blacker than thy beard. Thou, Melacomas ! roam'st this isle, Glutting thy murd'rous eyes Vv'ith blood, Than whom no deadlier monster reared His bristly crest amid the wood. What hast thou made this happy clime. The loveliest spot beneath the sun 7 A theatre of lust and crime, Where all unholy deeds are done. I can forgive the private wrong. The ills that I have suffered long, My chains and exile pardon all ; But cannot bear to look upon 34 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The shackles of my country's thrall, Her degradation and her fall. Thy virtues are a robe of sin, Assumed to hide the crimes within ; False is thy feigned piety, E'en as the rosy-coloured flush That lights the deadly simoom's blush, A pestilence of blasphemy, Strewing thy darksome way with death. When the foul poison of thy breath. In all its witchery of art, With guilty lust and heathen rites Could not corrupt this maiden's heart, Who bows her face with tears besprent Like a wet rose by tempest bent, — Denied thy sensual delights ; And for thy utter baseness spurned, In all the pungency of ire Thy breast with flame of vengeance burned ; And thou didst doom the maid to die For her unholy blasphemy ; BOWER OF PAPHOS, 35 And 'gainst her hoary-headed sire And me, pronounced the same decree, Gilding thy turpitude and shame And murder, with religion's name ; As if through thee, the gods had sent The delegated punishment. Who, Paphians ! are the deities To whom your thousand altars rise Smoking with victims, flowers and fruits ? Follies and vice personified, And mimic gods with attributes Of wickedness and lust and pride- Monstrous conceptions of weak minds. And hearts impure, that error blinds. These are your gods. Oh Paphians ! these. The deities to which we pay Th' oblation of our blood to-day ; But ere this mangled body lie To bestial fangs a bleeding prey. To her best good, in death e'en true, I would another service do To my poor country ere T die. 3(3 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Your gods are but another name For lust, impurity and shame; Instead of these false deities, I now the one true GOD proclaim, The LORD of heaven, earth, sea and skies- The mighty spirit — the pure sense From centre to circumference Of all creation spreading wide, Pervading and supporting all That woke to being at his chII, "Th' omniscient God, from whose keen eyes The thickest darkness cannot hide ; Before whom every bosom lies Unbarred with all its mysteries. Truth, vice, humility or pride — The God whose justice soon will bring To judgment, every secret thing; And measure out the joy or pain, While vast eternity shall roll. Due to the doings of the soul — The spirit by which we act and think, That subtle and mysterious link, In the great Godhead's mighty chain. BOWER OF PAPHOS. 37 Casting the deities away Of idle superstition, take For guidance and support, the God At whose loud voice and awful nod The mountain tops with terrour quake. He is a jealous God ; his sway, The world shall own, till every shrine Crumble beneath his car divine. And every graven image placed To heathen gods, be overthrown — Their groves a melancholy waste, Their altar-seats with grass o'ergrown. Yield to him now and sweetly prove The conqueror mild a " God of love." Yield nor provoke his burning ire, Till, in a curse, that all mankind Shall dread to look upon, you find Your conqueror, a " consuming fire." Think ye, the innocent blood ye shed. Unseen of him in whom we trust, Shall mix with this arena's dust? These limbs beneath the lion's tread SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Be crushed? — the quivering flesh be riven 1 Our God is looking down ; Oh dread The awful malison of Heaven : For the dark deed of vengeance done, You will, by tears or blood, atone. Dare not his wrath ; can ye outvie The thunders of his panoply ? At a faint whisper of his breath, The messenger of vengeance speeds In his swift car of fiery death, With the winged lightning for his steeds; Or should he bid the earthquake rise The minister of punishment, The solid earth, in pieces rent. Is hurled in atoms to the skies ; Or should he call, upon the shore Rushes the sea with maddening roar, Sweeping before his angry waves Your towers, your proud Acropolis Shrouded in foam to the dark graves That yawn within his deep abyss. BOWER OF PAPHOS. 39 Leaving your Eden of the flood A voiceless ocean-solitude." He ceased, and every bosom there Was pulseless, as his final prayer Rose holily upon the air. Anon the trumpet's piercing clang Sounded the death-note ; and each bar, Grating the ear with its harsh jar, Was drawn ; and forth the lion sprang With threatening foot and naked fang ; A monster huge, of giant strength. As ever from Getulia came, Lashing his sides' tremendous length With his mad tail and flowing mane ; From his tapetimi* living flame Shot streaming like the lightning's train. As o'er the sand he wildly bounded, Uttering his loud and bellowing roar, Like ocean's rush upon the shore. Till the whole theatre resounded. * The concave mirror in the eye of the lion. 40 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And Chrestogiton fearless stood With brow unblanched, couching his lance Its flashes caught the lion's glance : And as his quivering lips reveal The pointed fangs he leaps. The blood Has crimsoned o'er the Christian's steel, And sluices with its coloured rain. The lion's breast and tawny mane. The thunder of his awful cry. That rung through every listener's brain, Equalled the lightning of his eye. As forward did he spring again: Fierce was the shock — deadly the close That on the silent air arose, As on the lion's rock-like teeth Crashed Chrestogiton's heavy steel ; Until, the very force beneath. The angered desert-born did reel. Soon prostrate, bleeding on the sand. Beneath the monster's pressure, lies The Christian, grasping in his hand The iron of his broken lance, — A moment gleams its lightning glance — BOWER OF PAFHOS. 41 Another — and the lion's heart Is pierced by its long barbed dart — The blood spouts forth — he falls — he dies. And on each other's necks the three Unite in thanks to Heaven, while rise From heathen lips in the same hour Praises to the true Deity, The Christians' God of mighty power, Who bids the desert monsters kneel Beneath his followers' nerves of steel. Hid is the temple 'neath the sand, That gleamed on Paphos' golden shore, The pride and wonder of the land ; Her altars flame with flowers no more ; But on her fallen and crumbled shrines The mournful moonbeam palely shines. And other fanes as fair, and grand Have passed away, and every stone That reared their piles is overthrown ; Still onward speeds the truth divine Lighting with its benignant ray, D* 42 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. From either pole unto the line, The regions that in darkness lay ; And every mount and viny plain Is smiling 'neath Messiah's reign. His sceptre shall the nations own, And reverence his almighty word, Till the whole earth, with one accord, Acknowledge his eternal throne ; And every isle that decks the sea. Shout the Redeemer Deity. ABRAHAM'S SACRIFICE. And they came to the place which God had told him of; and Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order, and bound Isaac his son and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife to slay his son. And the^angel of the Lord called unto him out ofheaven, and said, Abra- ham, and he said. Here am I. And he said, Lay not thy hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him : for now I know that thou fear- est God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son — thy only son from me. Gen. XXII. 9, 10, 11, 12. Night trembled on her throne, and furling up Her starry banner, to the conquering sun. Whose car of flame rolled up the eastern hills, Resigned the silver sceptre of her reign. Leaving his couch, while yet in foldings hung The veil of darkness on the face of earth, The patriarch arose, and poured his soul In fervent aspiration to his God — And prayed for grace to stay his fainting heart, In its deep trial. 44 SCRIPTCHAL ANTHOLOGY. Strengthened and composed, With holy resignation on his brow, He left his tent ; and saddliag up his beast Cla^e, in obedience to the word of God, Wood for a holocaubt whereon his son Should, to the Lord, an offering be made : And taking servants, and the fated youth, Sped on his journey to the distant hills Of Mount Moriah. Thiice the golden sun Had from the glowing theatre of earth Rolled up the curtain, bringing on the day ; And now the patriarch beheld, far off. The place appointed. Then the electric flash Of anguish ran, like lightning, down the wires Of strong paternal feeling j and his hand, Palsied with age and grief, smote on his breast In nature's sorrow : yet the gathering shade That clouded o'er his venerable brow, Like shadows chased by sunbeams, fled away And left it cloudless, tranquil and serene. Abraham's sacrifice. 45 Now toiling up the rugged mount's ascent, Oft resting on his statf his hoary head, Ascended Abraham, bearing in his hand The knife and sacred fire for sacrifice — And by his side groaning beneath the wood, Pressed on his victim, staying with his hand The tottering footsteps of his feeble sire. Led on to slaughter, as the unsconscious lamb, Upon his father's face he turned his eye In dove-like innocence, and mildly said, " Behold the wood and fire, my father ! Where Is the burnt offering for the Lord, our God ?" The tender look of confidence, the voice. Soft as the echoes of an angel's hymn. Wakened in sorrow's tone the sleeping chords Of yearning nature ; and the gathering tear Moistened his eyelids, as the patriarch gazed On his devoted son ; yet grace from Heaven, Like oil upon the troubled ocean's waves, Restrained the swelling torrents of his breast ; And calmly he returned : " God will provide 46 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. A victim for an offering, my son !" Now on the appointed mount the altar stood, Waiting its victim. Abraham had prayed Until, within his bosom, every thought And feeling upward rose from earth to heaven, Like sublimated incense j and the glow Of heavenly composure, o'er his face, Threw the calm glories of the mid-day sun, As in obedience to Jehovah's Avord He bound with thongs his son for sacrifice. There is amid the majesty of mounts. Whose towering summits seem to pillar heaven, A sense of solitude — a loneliness Chill and oppressive to the awe-struck soul — And deeply Abraham felt it, as he stood Upon Moriah's heights, and saw around A thousand hills, rearing their azure fronts Above the clouds, flinging back on the plain The lengthened shadows of their giant forms. How awtul and how still was all around ! Hushed was the lip of every echo — voice Abraham's sacrifice. 47 Was not on all the air : no rustling leaf Trembled upon its stem ; amid the boughs Tongue, pennon, plume was still ; the very clouds Poised their bright purple wings, and hovered o'er. The painful breathing of the youth, alone, Stole on his ears ; and as around he gazed, No eye was on him save the Eternal eye, And the broad gleam of the meridian sun, As on the mountain altar of the Lord Curtained with clouds, he stood, to pour the blood Of innocence — his son's — his only son's, In a libation to the most high God. The victim pressed the wood. The waxen neck And ivory wrists were dented with the cords Until the purple blood seemed bursting through The tissue of the pure transparent skin. Glowing in youthful beauty, like a rose — Meek as an uncomplaining lamb he lay ; Yet as he turned his silent eye to Heaven, Upon the beauteous sky and golden sun ; Glories that now would meet his gaze no more, 48 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. His snowy bosom swelled with stifled sighs ; And from his eyelids' silken fringe the tears Rolled down his damask cheeks, like melted pearls. Oh what had severed now those holy ties That sweet as life and strong as death connect The father to his offspring ? — what had changed His faith to thwart the promise of the Lord, By offering up the son in whom that seed Innumerable as the stars that deck The azure dome of heaven, should be called ? Submissively his melting heart resigned Its natural yearnings to the will of Heaven, As he remanded back its precious gift, In full assurance that the self same Lord, Who from the deadness of his loins had raised The son of his old age, could by a breath Reanimate his ashes with new life. Raising the fatal steel, the patriarch stood With eye upturned to God ; and throwing back The curls that clustered round his victim's neck. Aimed the dread blow ; when on his startled ear Abraham's sacrifice. 49 A voice thrilled loudly, " Abraham ! forbear ! Nor stretch thy hand against the boy, to harm." The knife, innocuous, from his palsied grasp Fell suddenly ; and from his aged eyes Gushed the warm tears of overpowering joy, As bending o'er his child he loosed his bands, And pressed his beating bosom to his own, In fervency of gratitude and love. Receiving him, in figure, from the dead An earnest of the resurrection morn — First-born, among his brethren, from the grave. Now on the altar of the Lord, a lamb, A substituted victim, blazed on high, A holocaust ia ruddy spires of flame ; While on the incense wings of sacrifice Wafted arose the prayer of sire and son, A goodly savour to the Lord their God. E THE FLOOD. The earth was corrupt before God ; aud tlie earth was filled with \iO lence. And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them ; and behold I will destroy them with the earth. And behold I, even I, do briug a flood of waters upon the earth to de- stroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under Irearen ; and eve- ry thine that is in the earth shall die. Gen. VI., 11,13, 17, The patriarchs slept, and o'er their virtues stole, Oblivion deep as rested on their graves. Unheeded and forgotten. From the mind The memory of the holy man of prayer, Who taught the pious multitudes to call Upon creation's Lord, beneath the tent Of the blue heaven-spread sky, had passed away, — Pure Enoch's counsellings— his walk with God, And bright ascent in glory's burning car, Were blotted from remembrance : darkly swept The torrent of corruption, and " the sons Of God" were borne along by ruin's tide. THE FLOOD. 51 They lusted after pleasure, and the hours, That erst were spent in prayer and praise to heaven, What time the sun sunk o'er the western hills, And darkness, monitor of death, came on, They dreamed away in listening to the shell Of Jubal's daughters, or beneath the trees In dalliance, or in mazes of the dance, Joined with the jewelled maids of Tubal Cain. By music's witchery charmed, and every sense Drunk with the love of beauty, they forgot Their pious sires ; and in the tents of sin Espoused the daughters of the murderous race. With the hot seal of heaven's displeasure stampt. No weary penitent, with tearful eyes. And feelings like a bruised reed, addressed His sighs to heaven ; nor on the altar laid The bleeding victim: nor did prayer or praise, At morn or evening, to the eternal throne. Rise with the breath of incense ; for the Lord Was not in all their thoughts ; but every heart, E'en in th' imaginations of the mind, Was only evil. 52 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. In the mother's breast Lust maddened like a plague-spot — daughters caught The damning taint, and veiled, in loosened robes Of harlotry, their beauties. Children learned To troll the wanton's carol ; and the lips Of infants, in precocious guilt, were turned To sin, lisping obscenity. Rapine preyed Upon the widow and the orphan : Rage Knitted his brazen brow, and gnashed his teeth ; Pale Envy gnawed her thin and livid lips ; Dark Malice drugged his brother's cup with bane ; Hate struck with piercing eye his victim's soul. And Murder, with envenomed steel, his heart : War trod with iron heel upon the neck Of slaughtered foes, and from his nodding plumes Shook the red dews of death ; and Violence Bid Havoc speed o'er earth, till it became One wide and dread Aceldama of blood. The impious in impiety had grown To fearful greatness, and the perfect few, Who were in better days " the salt of earth," THE FLOOD. 63 Had lost their savour ; and all human flesh, From moral taint, became a putrid mass That to th' Eternal's throne for vengeance called ; Until the end of every living thing Came up before him. Amid this gloom of moral darkness, shone The piety of Noah, like the star That through the rent of heaven-involving clouds, Streams brilliant o'er the sable brow of night j In all his generations pure, he preached The dignity of virtue and her joys. By all the eloquence of a holy life ; And 'mid the scoffings and the jeers of men. Who joyed in blasphemy and blood, proclaimed Truth, righteousness and judgment ; and disclosed As, with prophetic hand, he raised the veil That curtained future time, ih' uplifted arm Of dread Omnipotence for vengeance bared. But on their ears the melting words that broke From his full heart, fell as the idle wind ; And Lust still spread her rosy couch, and Sin PLAGUES OF EGYPT. Ard I -will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my TFonders in the land of Egypt, But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand up- cn Egypt, and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Iirael, out of the land of Egypt, by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from aaiong them. ExoDDS VII., 3, 4, 5. The monarch sat upon his throne Of gold and flashing gem ; And fierce his eye of terrour shone Beneath his diadem ; And hosts stood by, in deeds of death, To do the bidding of his breath. Each soldier seized his ataghan, As through the marbled hall And palace, of an aged man Sounded the loud footfall, 56 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Go down in darkness, and the fiery sword, With threatening blaze, flame round the tree of life ; Sowed on the vital air the seeds of death, With poisons drugged the juices of the earth, Displaced, for thistle and for thorn, the rose, And blasted with sterility the ground. That by the sweat wrung from his weary brow, Man might his bread obtain, until his frame Resolve to earth again — dust unto dust. The primal curse of sin that smote the earth, Was blent with mercy ; but an angry God For ruthless vengeance girdeth now himself, And lifts the arm of chastisement, oh earth ! That thou, throughout all coming time mayst bear, As a memorial of the curse of sin. The cicatrices of the scourge of God, Upon thy giant sides. The sun went down. And murky masses of black heaving clouds, Like undulations of the mighty deep THE FLOOD. 57 Rolled onward by the storm, o'erspread the sky, Darkened the sombre twilight into gloom, In sackcloth veiled the pale and fearful moon, And hid from view the starry eyes of night. Round from the zenith to th' horizon's verge Extends the grim obscure — the funeral robe Of chaos for creation, o'er whose folds The lightning binds its girdle : warring winds. The strong-lunged heralds of the storm, resound The blast of desolation, and the sea And every hill and echoing mountain join The general wail of ruin. On the leaves The pattering raindrops fall, and then the storm In fury bursts, and on the quaking plain Pours down the red artillery of the skies. From pole to pole the thunder booms along The echoing vault — the vivid lightnings flash And rend the ebon reservoirs of heaven. That hold the watery treasures of the clouds. 58 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Down through the opening channels rush amain The " waters from above," upon the ground ; The hidden fountains of the mighty deep Are broken up, and the tumultuous sea, That stretched his boundless arms, and folded earth In close embrace, is maddened into foam — A nd like a bridegroom, in whose ruthless breast Love is exchanged for hate, turns darkly fierce And rends his sorrowing bride. As widely spreads The watery ruin, with the tempest's voice Comes from the tents of Avickedness, a cry Of fearful anguish ; there the tabret's sound — The feast — the dance have ceased ; and o'er the cheeks Flushed with the wine cup and with lust, is thrown An ashy pallor. On the mountain tops Stand awe-struck myriads, and the lightning's glare Reveal their frantic gestures, and their hands Upraised lo heaven for mercy ; but the storm In fury waxes fiercer; — brighter gleam The lurid lightnings — louder roar the winds — THE FLOOD. 59 The torrent thicker pours — the billowy waves Rise higher — o'er their banks the rivers rush With headlong sway — the seas outswell their shores, And surging high o'er hill and mountain top, One shoreless ocean rolls around the globe. But on the bosom of the watery waste, Safe as the infant on its mother's breast Lulled to a gentle sleep, the ark outrides The storm of ruin ; and while vengeance sweeps With besom of destruction o'er the earth, The hand of smiling mercy holds the helm ; And God, so darkly fiercely in wrath, illumes The bosoms of its inmates, with the light Of love and joy divine, until the dove Comes with her olive token, and the bow, Lit by the smiling presence of the Lord, Spans in its arch of mercy, earth and heaven. ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. And the word of the Lord came unto him, saying, Get thee hence and turn thee eastward, and hide thyself by the brook Cherith that is before Jordan. And it shall be that thou shalt drink of the brook ; and I have com- manded the ravens to feed thee there. 1 Kings, xvii., 2, 3, 4. Through Israel's borders Famine high had rear'd Her spectral head, and pale-faced Hunger preyed Upon the vitals of all things that breathed, When to brook Cherith, o'er Judea's hills, The heaven-directed prophet bent his way. It was the time of harvest, but the vale Of sunny Israel 'neath the summer breeze, Curled not in waves of golden wheat. The song Of the glad reapers rose not. The rich grapes Hung not in purple clusters from the vine, That mourned its shrivelled tendrils; and the fruit ELIJAH FED BY RAVENS. 61 Blushed not upon the citron, whose dry leaves Gave to the wi ds the rustle of decay. Slow toiled the weary wanderer ; for his limbs Failed through long fasting, and his fainting head Drooped languidly upon his pilgrim's staff, Beneath the fervours of the mid-day sun, As o'er the desert waste he sought, in vain, Fruit from the bough, or water from the rill. To cool his fevered lips. The myriad stars Glow in the deep blue heaven, and the moon Po^urs from her beamy urn a silver tide Of living rays upon the slumbering earth. The tree-tops glitter ; through their parting boughs, Rocked by the night-breeze to a gentle rest, The moon-beams quiver, and the waves beneath Of the brook Cherith brighten, as they roll. Coding the herbage of the thirsty banks. In g:entle purlings, like the cheerful voice That glads the heart of charity. 62 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Around The weary prophet gazes, and soft sleep Steals o'er him, as he lays his silvered head Upon the mossy pillow, where the trees Outspread the tent appointed of his God, Beneath the night-watch of the sentinel stars. The rays of morning tinged the golden east, And the far-streaming sunlight to his eyes Revealed a sere and blighted region round ; Yei confidence in God who spread the waste With manna; and the cooling fountain poured From the dry rock, sustained his wavering breast^ And fervently his orisons went up. As on the ground with soul and sense entranced, He bowed him down, upon the still air came The rush of pennons, and the promised birds Subdued and tame, the heaven-directed food Laid at the failing prophet's bended knee. I- :^t£=^m W \ IHIk. ArnHHIaBiB ■^^HH|^^^^^bBm^_j^a^ «W •V ' !S^. 1 iS'M i PLAGUES OF EGYPT. And I -will harden Pharaoh's heart, and multiply my signs and my ■venders in the land of Egypt. But Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may lay my hand up- ai Egypt, and bring forth mine armies and my people, the children of Iirael, out of the land of Egypt, by great judgments. And the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord when I stretch forth mine hand upon Egypt, and bring out the children of Israel from aaiong them. ExoDDS VII., 3, 4, 5, The monarch sat upon his throne Of gold and flashing gem ; And fierce his eye of terrour shone Beneath his diadem ; And hosts stood by, in deeds of death. To do the bidding of his breath. Each soldier seized his ataghan, As through the marbled hall And palace, of an aged man Sounded the loud footfall. 64 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. With solemn brow, and beard of snow Upon his bosom sweeping low. Like waves before a gallant prow, Before the man of God, Parted that host with pallid brow. As with uplifted rod, He stood erect — with unbowed knee — "Fear God, oh king! Set Israel free." Then every stream and river-flood That hurried by its shore. Rolled on, in heaving waves of blood, The purple tide of gore ; And fount and standing pool Avere red. The sepulchre of putrid dead. In rain and hail, while lightnings blazed, The tempest stooped from heaven ; Then upward, as his staff he raised. The storm was backward driven ; Stern was the monarch as before. Then burst the clouds with deafening roar. PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 65 O'er earth, with desolating sway, The wild tornado went ; While palaces in ruins lay — With dome and battlement; And navies from the storm-tossed tide. Lay stranded by the river side. Still onward swept the maddening gale — O'er vale and mountain's crown ; And still the rain and driving hail Poured their artillery down ; And fruit and trees and prostrate grain, Like slaughtered heroes, streAved the plain. Yet harder waxed the monarch's heart Against the King of Kings ; Then through the land in every part Was heard the hum of wings — The locust swarm were gathered there, Darkening the earth and summer air. On every shrub and tiow'ret seize, The ministers of wrath ; SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And fruit and leaf that gem the trees, Vanish before their path. Till not a stalk or blade of green Through all the wasted bounds is seen. Up to the sky was raised that rod Which called its judgments down — Heaven shuddered at an angry God, And blackened at his frown ; And darkness o'er the regions fell, Rayless, and thick, and palpable. The earth and sky, that awful dun Enwrapped in funeral fold. Spread sackcloth o'er the radiant sun, And moon-beams' paly gold ;, And veiled from the affrighted sight, The many twinkling eyes of night. The plagues of God o'er every flood Had passed, and every shore ; And every valley, mount and wood, Their awful record bore : PLAGUES OF EGYPT. 67 But sign and judgment were in vain — Still Israel wore the bondman's chain. Then burst on maivs devoted head The vengeance of his ire ; And o'er the bier of first-born dead. Bent each Egyptian sire ; And on the solemn midnight gale Was borne the mother's plaintive wail. Through all the land the corses lie, In palace and in cell ; And groans rose like the night-wind's sigh. The tears like night-dews fell; And Pharaoh groaned, in agony, "Let Israel go! The captive free." Tempt not thy God, oh man in power. By proud imaginings ! For every knee shall bow before The sovereign King of Kings ; And every tongue confess the Lord, In terror feared, or love adored. ETERNITY OF GOD. And thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundation of the earth ; and the heavens are the works of thy hands ; They shall perish, but thou remainest ; and they shall wax old as doth a garment. And as a vesture thou shalt fold theni up and they shall be changed ; but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. Psalms cii., 25, 26, 27. The deep foundations of the earth are thine — Laid by thy hands Almighty, when of old From ancient chaos order rose, and light From darkness — beauty from a shapeless mass. A glorious orb from its Creator's hands It came, in light and loveliness arrayed, Crowned with green emerald mounts tinted with gold, And wearing as a robe the silver sea, Seeded with jewels of resplendent isles. The awful heavens are thine — the liquid sun, That heaves his fiery waves beneath thy eye — ETERNITY OF GOD. 69 The ocean-fount of all the streams of light, That pour their beamy treasures through the wide Illimitable ether, watering with their rays The wide-spread soil, to where the burning sands Of dark immensity, eternal barriers throw Against the flowing ol their crystal streams, Was from the God-head's urn of glory poured. The stars are thine — thy charactery grand, In which, upon the face of awful heaven, Thy hand has traced, in radiant lines, thy grace, Thy glory, thy magnificence and power, For eye of man and angel to behold — And read, and gaze on, worship and adore. These shall grow old — the solid earth with years Shall see her sapless body shrivel up. And her gray mountains crumble piecemeal down Like crypt and pyramid to primal dust. The sea shall labour ; on his hoary head Shall wave his tresses silvered o'er with age — The deep pulsations of his mighty heart, That bids the blood-like fluid circulate 70 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Through every fibre of the earth, shall cease ; And the eternal heavens, in whose bright folds, As in a starry vesture, thou art girt, Shall lose their lustre, and grow old with years ; And as a worn out garment, thou shalt fold Their faded glories, and they shall be changed To vesture bright, immortal as thyself. Yea, the eternal heavens, on whose blue page Thy glory and magnificence are traced, With age shall tarnish, and shall be rolled up As parchment scrolls of abrogated acts. And be deposited in deathless urns, Among the archives of the mighty God. Thou art the same — thy years shall never fail; In glory bright when every star and sun Shall lose their lustre and expire in night, Immortal all, when time and slow decay Imprint their ravages on nature's face ; Triumphantly secure^ when from the tower Of highest heaven's imperial citadel. The bell of nature's dissolution toll; ETERNITY Of GOD. 71 And sun, and star, and planet be dissolved, And the wide drapery of darkness hang A gloomy pall of sable mourning round Dead nature, in the grave of chaos laid. DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. Aud when he was come near the city, he wept over it ; Saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but now they are hid from thine eyes. For the days shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast a trench about thee, and compass thee round, aud keep thee in on every side. And shall lay thee even with the ground, and thy children within thee, and they shall not leave in thee one stone upon another ; because thou knowest not the time of thy visitation. Luke xix., 41, 42, 43, 44. He stood beside the temple. On its domes And garnished capitals the sunlight played, In chequered radiance, like the changeful hues That fleck the dying dolphin. At his feet The "city often thousand colums" lay Basking in marbled beauty — a vast tomb — A whited sepulchre of living death — A hideous Golgotha of dead souls. As from the temple's height his eye looked down Upon the guilty millions, his full breast, DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 73 As a fond mother's o'er an erring child. Yearned o'er the city he had failed to save, Like a devoted Sodom. His mission had been slighted — time there was For mercy and for penitence ; but now The cup of their iniquity was full, And e'en as on her golden pillars gleamed The fading light, the sun of peace went down To rise no more on Salem ; and he stood With pensive face, and mournful, pitying eye ; And as the page of future time unrolled. He read her guilt — her destiny — her fall — And o'er the coming devastation wept : Jerusalem ! Oh ! that to thee the time Of thy blest visitation, had been known, Then thy vast palaces, and lowers sublime, Earth-strewn and lone. Had not become a seat for desolation's throne. 74 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Peace and the things of peace from thee are hid, Removed for ever from thy guilty eyes ; And shrouded hope sleeps 'neath her coffin lid ; Hadst thou been vi^ise Thou hadst not dared the storm of God's dread mys- teries. The sunshine of thy glorious radiance sets In tarnished lustre on thy beauteous home ; And gloom is gathering round thy minarets, In clouds that come To bathe, in fire and blood, gold pinnacle and dome. Foes shall beleaguer thy devoted wall. Thy ramparts fail — thy battlements be riven — The heathen shout amid thy temple's fall ; And fierce be driven The ploughshare o'er thee, of the wrath of heaven. Jerusalem ! how have I sought to bring Thy gates to gladness : Oh ! what have I done DESTRDCTION OF JERUSALEM. 75 To WOO thy children under mercy's wing I Ah, stiff-necked one ! Thou hast despised my love, and art, alas ! undone. Sedition now the reeking blade had sheathed, To lift her blood-stain'd hands in prayer to heaven j And from Judea's distant mounts had poured The living tide of votaries, to swell The pious pageant of the solemn feast. It was the hour of eve — the busy hum Of enterprise had ceased — still was the air. Each drowsy echo slumbered in its cave ; And the vast city's supplication rose In voiceless mockery of prayer, to heaven. Upon the ear of silence stole the sound Of martial music, and the distant tramp Of marching legions. Louder grew the peai And nearer, till the trump of battle rung In blast of death, adown the valley's side, 76 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Startling its echoes ; and upon the top Of Olivet the Roman eagle waved Her wings above embattled legions there, Gleaming, amid a grove of shining spears, In all the golden panoply of war. Then shrunk the timid bosom with dismay. While the roused blood, like lightning, coursed the frame Of Judah's warriors, waking all their ire ; And in the burst of passion, was exchanged Worship for warfare — the soft timbrel's notes For the loud trump — the censer for the sword — And sacrifice for murder. Salem's sons, In garb of battle, mailed proof, arrayed. Stood forth the guardians of the holy towers, Fencing the wall with palisade of spears — Or cooling in the fount of Roman blood Their thirsty falchions in the flying rout. Beneath the walls in wildest horror raged, Making sad havoc, warfare ; while within DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 77 Faction, with torch infernal, lit the fires Of hellish anarchy, and fanned their blaze ; Hate raised the steel against his brother's life, And smote ; — the battlements ran streams of gore ; And corses blackening in the sun, bestrewed The streets, by fratricidal arm struck down. Dire Discord flapped her wings, dripping with blood ; Mad Murder raged. In their paternal halls Children were slaughtered in their parents' view, Parents, before their children ; and the steel. Steeped in the life-fount of the bridegroom's breast, Sluiced with its crimson rain the bride's white robe. Pious and impious fell — the man whose heart Gloried in slaughter and dark deeds of death, Vengeance o'ertook — and the meek worshipper, While at the altar, yielded up his life, E'en with the victim's, he had brought to God — His ephod sheltered not the priest; oppressed, He sunk, profaning with his blood the fires. His hands had kindled up for sacrifice. 73 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The pestilence, from between her livid lips, Blew poison ; and the atmosphere was death ; Gaunt Famine raised her pale and spectral form, And Hunger, with her sharp and skeleton claws, Tore the pained vitals of all things that breathed. Whole families fell by fasting — faint arose The cry for bread, from children, as their tongues Cleaved to their husky palate ; sucklings cooled Their burning lips in their dead mothers' blood ; Parents the morsel from their offspring wrenched, And mothers tore the delicate infant limbs Their wombs had borne, and gorged themselves thereon. All hope — all love — all pity was extinct ; All natural affection had grown cold, Benumbed by the torpedo touch of woe ; And as the fainting thousands fell around, Straining their eyeballs to the holy house^ Their only hope, they called on Israel's God, And mingling prayers and curses, madly died. Gloom and a deadly night hung brooding o'er DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 79 The fated city ; unremitting pealed The thunder of the engines at the wall, Cleaving its rocky side ; fiercely arose The din of battle in the deadly breach. The clash of arms and the victorious shout, As o'er the prostrate battlement the tide Of war rushed headlong ; and the Roman bands Bristling with spears, circled the house of God, Here hope's last anchor rested to the Jew, And in the expiring struggle, fury nerved Each arm with desperation ; fierce around The conflict maddened : from the temple's top. As from a citadel, the deadly shower Of darts streamed widely — and the very priests Poured down, in iron hail, the palisades Uprooted from the roof with impious hands. Then, when the firmness of the rocky wall Defied the engine's iron shock, the torch Raised its dread voice of vengeance, and consigned. To devastation's flames, the holy pile. Within the sacred courts, where, mid the wings 80 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Of Cherubim that veiled the mercy seat, The awfal presence of the Mighty sat In shadowy glory, sacrilegious waved Her plumes, the Roman eagle ; where came down. Upon the sacrifice the hallowed fire Breathing to heaven its savour, rolled on high The heathen brand, its clouds of smoke and flame. And in the holiest holy, where the foot Of priest with no irreverent echo broke The sacred stillness of th' indwelling God, Sounded the heavy tread of bloody feet, And the loud curse of battle. Mute despair Held for a time their senses as entranced ; But as the fiery ruin wider spread. One long loud voice in wildness pierced the air ; Mount Perea's distant tops and Olivet, In awful echoes uttered back the sound— And the insensate dying ope'd their eyes. Gazed wildly on the scene — summoned their strength DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM. 81 Into a desperate effort — shrieked and died ! Fierce blazed the temple's dome — its pinnacles Towered up to heaven in pyramids of flame, Till the heaved pillars from their bases reeled, And the vast house of God in thunder came, Strewing the earth with ruins. Fire and sword Sped onward, till, of all that holy pile, On whose high capitals the clouds reposed, Whose pillars, with rich garnishing of gems. Poured back the sunlight in a stream of fire — Not e'en a solitary stone remained To mark the desolation. MOSES. And when she could no longer hide him, she took for him an ark of bulrushes and daubed it with slime and with pitch, and put the child therein. And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river ; and her maidens walked along by the river's side ; and when she saw the ark among the flags, she sent her maids to fetch it. And when she had opened it, she saw the child ; and behold thft babe wept. And she had compassion on him, and said, This is one of the Hebrew's children. Exodus ii., 3, 5, 6. Darkness still held her empire, but the morn, With rosy fingers, from the orient hills, Lifted the star-embroidered veil of night. That hung in sombre foldings. The pale stars Grew dim with watching, but oppressive sleep Weighed not the eyelids of maternal love, Keeping its holy vigils. O'er the couch Of infancy a Hebrew mother bent Her head in silent anguish — her full heart, In that deep fervency where utterance fails, Sent up its aspirations ; and the tears E^ %.'^( m MOSES. 83 Dripped from her silken lashes, and like pearls Gleamed on the tresses, that in molten gold Bathed the fair ivory of the sleeper's neck. She pressed the soft lips of her beauteous boy," And as the dimples o'er his cherub face. Circled in rosy eddies of delight, And his warm breath, like a rich moss rose, came j Upon her cheek, of all his infant smiles, I Hoarded within a mother's heart, she thought — And of the brilliance of his deep blue eyes, t When she had gazed into the lustrous orbs, I -Thinking to search the crystal depths of mind ; I And felt how very cruel was the fate ^ That rent the tendrils of a mother's love, And left the wounded sympathies to bleed. The last caress is over — ihe fair child Wrapt closely in his infantile attire, With his transparent eyelids sealed in sleep, Within the crib of plaited rushes lies, In helpless innocence. The mother's soul 8b SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. In pity o'er the beauties of a form So delicately tender. Though the blood Of a stern sire, whose ruthless hand has poured From infant breasts the purple tide of life, Thermuthis in her gentle bosom hides The sympathies of woman, pure as dew; And o'er thy young devoted head shall fold The soft wing of protection. With a heart, Where love and gratitude for utterance strove, The mother folded in a long embrace Her rescued darling — and the boy revived From his faint thirstiness, and nestled close To the soft pillow of his mother's neck ; And, twining in the ringlets of her hair His waxen fingers, raised his tearful eyes, And with a smile of playful archness gazed, In stealthy glances, on her beaming face. PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thy hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chari- ots and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth liis hand over the sea, and the sea return- ed to his strength when the morning appeared ; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots and the horsemen and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them ; there re- mained not so much as one of them. ExoDDS XIV., 26, 27, 28. Day's glories are expiring. In the west The sun has canopied his sapphire throne With clouds of paly gold, whose billowy folds, Softened in shadow, far o'er ether blend With the gray tapestry of early night. Beneath his parting smile, the tranquil sea Glows like the cheek of beauty ; and his rays Burnish the towers of Migdol, and incinct, As Avith a crown of gold, the giant head 88 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Of Pihahiroth, that looks grimly down, Like a gray sentinel upon the sea. In the deep shadow, like a mantle flung, At the broad mountain's base, the weary tribes Of Israel repose their aching heads — Or in the plashing cascade cool the limbs Red with the Egyptian scourge, and with the breath Of the hot sunbeams fevered, as their feet Traced with the trickling blood the desert sands. There is a sabbath stillness on the air, Sacred to holy thought and to repose ; And those that slumber, wander in sweet dreams By living fountains, where the oil and vine Wed their enamoured boughs— while in the hearts Of those, whose sturdier sinews had not sunk Into oblivious rest, the fount of joy Was gushing, as their solemn, voiceless prayer Went fervent up to heaven. Hark ! a sound Comes lumbering on the air — 'tis not the crash Of meeting pines upon the mountain's top. PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 89 The rage of warring winds, nor the loud rush Of maddened waters 'gainst the rock-ribbed shore. Rise, Israel ! from your slumbers rise ! The foe I Comes with his hosts to battle. Far and wide, From either mountain, wildly down the vak The martial tide is sweeping, with a voice Tumultuous as the sea — chariots and horse, I And spearmen in the panoply of war. Where is your succour, Israel ? Darkly lower • Baalzephon's battlements and Migdol down, , Fenced with a triple palisade of spears ! \ Above you the precipitous mountain crags Throw their eternal barriers — the mad sea, I Before you, lashes into foam its waves ; , While, in the rear, the oppressor's falchion gleams, 1 Bared for promiscuous murder ; till each limb That erst bedewed with sweat Egyptia's soil, j Pour forth th' enriching treasure of its blood. I I Night has assumed her sceptre. The pale stars ( Are in their silent watch-towers, and the moon Is gazing down, in sadness, through a veil H* 90 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Of cloudy sackcloth, like a new-made bride Arrayed in widow's weeds, as on the air Of the still evening comes the rushing sound Of wild destruction's wings. Upon a rock That overlooked the sea, with brow unblanched And calm as summer evening, Moses stood, While stone and curse assailed him, and the shout Of the advancing foemen louder pealed. And when the aspirations of his heart Mounted to heaven upon the wings of faith, He stretched his rod upon the heaving sea, And with th' Eternal's delegated power. Issued his mandate to th' obedient waves. Now Israel's murmurs cease, and every eye Is turned upon the ocean, where the deep Is cleft asunder to its rocky bed, And the vast waters curl on either side Back on themselves, like parchment scrolls, and stand Immoveable as adamantine walls, Guarding some palace of the far down sea. PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 91 The fiery column, on whose shaft were graved The hieroglyphics of the terrible God, Moving in solemn majesty, aspires To heaven betwixt the hosts — a battlement Reared by th' Almighty's hands, from which his smile In radiance beams on Israel, and his frown Falls on their foes in darkness, like the folds Of the broad ebon bannerets of death. Deep awe has sealed in silence every lip, And filled each heart with reverence, and with step Slow-paced and solemn, Israel's host descend Into the chambers of the mighty deep, Lit by th' Almighty's watch-fire ; and impress 'Mid gems and rosy shells, the print of feet Upon the sanded pavements of the sea. Onward they move — still onward, in a line Long and continuous, till the stars of night Are weary in their places, and their light, Like beauty's eyes, with watching, has grown dim ; And on the mountain-tops the sober gray 92 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Of morn hangs like a veil — then comes a sound Loud as the voice of thunders — 'tis the shout Of Egypt's hosts pursuing, and the roar Of their dread chariots down the rocky vale. Upon the further shore now Israel stood, And saw advancing through the sea defile Egyptia's warriors, like the locust swarms That darken all her borders. Lo ! the clouds Are sweeping wildly through the upper heaven, And float their sable banners to enlist The elements to battle. The pale stars. And the wan moon have muffled in dark robes Their fearful faces ; while in thunder peals The knell of desolation, and the sea In acclamation, utters back the sound. The hour of retribution now has come ! Howl for thy crimes, oh Egypt ! For the tears Of childless mothers, and the smoking blood Of murdered sucklings, to the throne of heaven Have called aloud for vengeance. Smite thy breast PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 93 A bow thy head in terror, impious king ! For never from thy palace towers, thy eye, In pride, again, shall wander o'er the vale The dark Nile waters. And, ye warriors ! howl. Who thirst for blood like tigers ; for no more Shall ye behold the inmates of your homes ; Nor by their dark-eyed mothers' side, at eve, Drink in the music of your children's laugh In gambol on the cottage-shaded turf — The day of doom is dawning — ere the sun Mount to his throne meridian, shall the pride Of armies perish, and the shades of death Despoil the gleam of diadem and spear. From the dark foldings of the tempest's robe, Chequered with stripes of living flame, the storm Streams in wild fury ; while along the vault Of echoing heaven, in deep thunder rolls The Almighty's car of vengeance, with red steeds Winged with the fiery lightning. The loud winds Have waked their strength to battle, and they seize The giant billows' samson locks — the sea 94 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Leaps upward from its caverns, till the foam Falls like a silver tissue o'er the clouds — With swelling volume booms the fearful sound. As tempest-driven the roaring waves approach Each other o'er the watery defiles. Arching the way of death, and then recede In wild disorder. Fiercely came a cry Above the wind, — above the water's roar — Above the thunder's peal, — that awful voice Of anguish went to heaven, as the deep Resumed her wonted empire, and engorged In her tremendous jaws the myriad hosts, Polluting, with unbidden tread, her halls. Sunlight is on the hills. The beaming smile Of Deity upon the morning clouds Has painted blushes — the soft wooing winds Sport with the waves in dalliance — the green groves Wave their glad wings in joyance ; and the vales With their bright streams, and every element By which th' Almighty had rebuked the race, Stiff-necked and stubborn, look complacent on PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA. 95 The floating bodies, darkening o'er the sea Like the strewed planks of shipwreck. Now o'er the ocean waters swelled the sound Of harp and timbrel, while the solid earth Was trembling 'neath the far-resounding peal Of myriad voices, as they lifted up The song of triumph to the mighty God, Whose eye had marked each burning tear that fell In all their bondage, — who, with arm of power, Had led them out, and had in anger broke In pieces the oppressor, when the depths Engulphed both horse and rider in the sea. BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. And she came in straightway with haste unto the king, and asked, saying, I will that thou give me, by and by, in a charger, the head of John the Baptist. And immediately the king sent an executioner, and commanded his head to be brought, and he went and beheaded him in prison. And brought his head in a charger and gave it to the damsel, and the damsel gave it to her mother, Mark vi., 25, 26, 27. Night with her holy calm hung brooding. Stars, Like angel eyes, gazing upon the earth, Through heaven's broad tapestry of cloudless blue, Were pouring down their showers of silver light, And the fair moon rode in her flashing car Up the Empyrean steep, a queen triumphing ; While not a breeze fanned the soft cheek of night, . And all the busy bustling hum of day Had died away into Sabbatic rest. BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 97 How holy is the hour, and full of awe, When in the vault of heaven's high temple burn The starry vesper lamps ; and from the earth Ascends the spicy incense ; while with lip Hushed into silent reverence, nature bows In adoration, passing utterance all. Oh ! then the blessed light of heaven falls Upon the feverish breast like drops of dew Upon parched flowers ; and the exulting soul, Pluming its eagle pinions, soars from earth And basks in rays ineffably sublime ; Faith reads immortal truth on starry page, And hears sweet music from the liviDg wires Of rolling spheres swept by the mighty hand Of vast Omnipotence. Yet grovelling man, Unconscious of the "glory unobscured ;" Dead to the living beauties, and unmoved By the inspiring holiness, when stars Shine out in radiance, and the vesper hymn Of nature's adoration peals, will fly The converse of a smiling God, and bow I 98 - SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Amid the haunts of men, in revelry, His sky-born spirit to polluted shrines. Profaning night's deep-brooding holiness. And wounding her chaste ear, arose the sound Of bacchanalian mirth within the halls Of princely Herod. Gorgeously arrayed In royal robes, upon their damask beds Reclined the Chief Estates of Galilee, At the full board, resplendent with the glare Of polished silver; and while flashing wine Purpled their goblets, and the merry laugh Rung, echoing through the vaulted corridors, And music's fingers woke to extacy. The bosom's thrilling chords, a virgin came Bounding in lightness to the viol's sound. Like a bright dream of magic. She was rich In all youth's loveliness. Her jewelled hair Hung o'er the marble throne of thought in folds Of graceful drapery, or cloud -like waved In curls upon her alabaster neck. BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 99 From out the fringes of the snowy lid Her intellectual eye its radiance sent, And lit with living flame her blooming cheek, Where smiling love amid the roses played ; And, parting o'er a string of pearls, her lips. Arching and curved, shone like the coral bow Whence Cupid points his darts. Her graceful form Its fair proportions, through her robe, revealed. In sylph-like beauty; and as in the dance She threaded the wild maze, her presence bound With magic spell, while 'neath her eye's bright ray, The fioodtide of each bosom gushed amain, As heaves the sea beneath the silver moon. Then broke the strain of rapture from the lips Of royalty — and tender of a boon Large, full and free, even unto the half Of his fair kingdom, sanctioned by an oath. His word — his oath, the chiefs of Gallilee That heard it — all constrained him ; and the king Sent forth the bloody mandate with the sword. 100 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Along the prison hall, with silent tread The headsman stole, and ope'd the ponderous door That hid his victim. There the Baptist lay In peaceful slumber on his couch of straw, With coat of skins mantling in hairy folds His giant form. Over his mighty brow Parted the treasure of his unshorn locks, Gracing his brawny shoulders ; and his beard, Like sackcloth vestment, veiled his heaving chest. In strength herculean lay the powerful man, With holy smile softening each lineament, As if the soul held converse with its God, And mounted on the eagle wing of prayer Up to the starry throne of the Eternal In reverential awe the headsman stood, With weapon bared, nor yet essayed to strike. Till o'er the sleeper's cheek the colour came And flushed his moving lips; then, lest the eye, Potent in terror, and the deep-toned voice, That shook Judea's mountains, should unman BEHEADING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. 101 His wavering courage, fell the Hashing stroke Upon the sleeping Baptist, and unsealed The purple fountain of the tide of life. The man of blood bore in the gory head On reeking platter, while the pallid lips With life still quivered, and the blanching cheek, — And o'er his dying eyes the lids were drawn Like faded violets. In the gasp of death — In all its lividness — in all its writhe Of mortal agony — with gouts of blood Stiffening the beard — clotting the mangled locks, The youthful maiden, with complacent smile And step of triumph, bore the bleeding head Unto her mother. Oh ! woman ! in thy tender breast we seek The fount of pity ; those soft sympathies That vibrate like a treinbling chord, beneath The touch of woe. Beside the bed of pain Thou art an angel; when with pitying eye And noiseless tread, thy light and fairy feet, 102 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Ministering to woe, " like golden apples shine In silvery pictures ;" and thy soothing voice, Like oil upon the ocean-billows, calms The tempest of the soul. But when thy heart. Estranged to tenderness, becomes a sea Of selfishness, icy and frozen, where Pity's magnetic needle trembles not ; And sorrow's wail falls lightly on thy ear ; And misery's garb unheeded meets thy sight — And deeds of horror — and the guilt of blood ! — Thou art a monster ! Though thy speaking eye Outflash the sun, thy cheek outblush the rose. Thy voice outswell the spheres — thy golden hair Outgleam the sunlight ; and, although thy step Be prouder than th' ungovernable sea ; And though thy mind with jewelled thoughts be rich As heaven, with all its garniture of stars, Tliou art a monster — to thy sex, thy name, Thy nature, and thy God. THE CAPTIVITY. By the rivers of Babylon we sat down ; yea we wept when we remein bered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song ; and they that wasted us, required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion, Psalm cxxxvii,, 1, -2, 3. The reign of day was ended, and the night Succeeded to her empire — not with eye Of peerless lustre, and a cheek all smiles ; But wan and sickly, with embrowning shades Darkening the radiance of her starry cheek, As sombre musings cloud the pensive face Of uncomplaining beauty, when the heart Is crushed with woe, and memory's busy hand Perturbs the slumbering waves of sorrows past. As o'er proud Babel's domes and heaven-piled tower 104 SCRIPTUHAL ANTHOLOGY. The clouds hung like a pall, and shadowy fell The melancholy light upon the waves, In which the willows steeped their weeping boughs. Like drooping mourners with dishevelled hair, The weary captives felt congenial gloom, And in their bosoms every trembling chord, In unison with nature, was attuned To sorrow's low and melancholy plaint. Upon the breeze of evening came the sound Of mirth and gladness from their heathen foes. Who revelled in their palaces of pride ; While Zion, by their cruel hate despoiled. Was left in ruins, and her daughters borne Far from her soft and sunny clime, bedew ed The bitter bread of slavery with their tears. Beside Euphrates' turbid stream they sat, A band of wanderers, with their aching brows Supported on their pale and wasted hands — While their neglected tresses, like a veil Of mourning, fell in folds around their necks ; And as the thoughts of home and former joys Came crowding up, they poured the lay of woe, THE CAPTIVITY. 105 While on the willow boughs their unstrung harps, Swept by the fingers oi the breeze of night, Symphonious echoed to the mournful sound. The foes that compassed Salem's fall, And laid her altars low ; That hurried into foreign thrall Her daughters, steeped in woe: E'en while the tears of anguish flow, Add mockery to our slavish wrongs. And call for one of Zion's songs. Can we, when heathen tongues demand. The songs of gladness raise. We chanted in our fathers' land, ^ Unto Jehovah's praise ? Or waken into tuneful lays Our slumbering harps, with chords unstrung, Upon the mournful willows hung ? If I, Jerusalem ! forget Thy sorrows and thy cruel wrong. Until the sun of memory set; 106 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Or swell, for heathen mirth, the song, Then withered be the arm that long Has swept the echoing chords with skill : — Be sealed my tongue in silence still. Remember Edom's sons, oh Lord, Who rased thy temple to the ground; Let Babel reap her just reward. And weep her sucklings slaughtered round ; Then shall our tuneful harps resound The joyful triumph of the free, And swell for Salem and for thee. DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. The sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the plain, and all the inhabit- ants of those cities, and that which grew upon the ground. Genesis xix., 23, 24, 25. Night's death-like reign was o'er — its pulseless sleep, And streams of light, like purple currents, flushed With a new life, the morning's cold, pale cheek j The sun rode up the orient, and the hills, To herald in the king of day, had lit Their thousand beacons — the fair sky unfurled Her cloudy bannerets of rosy folds — The dewy earth arrayed herself in gems To greet his coming ; and upon the air, Rich with the perfumes which the spicy flowers Shook from their crimson censers, rose the peal i ^ 108 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Of nature's anthem ; while each mount and stream That met his glance, reflected back his smiles. Outstretched in loveliness, the fertile plain Of Sodom lay, with many a laughing stream, Like merry children, sporting o'er its glade j And Jordan, with its mass of living waves, The forms of queenly cities mirroring — Encircled with their crowns of golden towers, All smiling in security, while earth And silent heaven were slowly marshalling Their myrmidons of ruin, to descend. With storm of war, and blot with fire and blood, From nature's page, the guilty realm where reigned. Bloated with crime. Pollution, on his throne Of darkness seated. From the couch of lust. Mad with the wine-cup and the night's debauch, Came forth the sons of pleasure ; and their songs, And obscene paeans, rose on heaven's pure air, Like pestilence, hailing in another day DESTRUCTION OF SODOM. 109 Of guilty dalliance — as if death were sleep, And life a giddy dreani of guilty joy : And that, because the night still smiled with stars, The day with sunlight, and the plains with fruits. The eye of God looked not in anger down, Nor registered their calendar of crimes. But soon the slumbering breeze awoke, and shook Its sounding pinions ; — trembling Jordan shrunk Into his inmost caves — the pallid sun, Behind his veil of sable clouds, withdrew. And desolation's darkness brooded o'er. Anon, the clouds shook from their ebon plumes Dew-drops of flame; the baleful lightning rained Its lurid hail of brimstone and of fire, In ceaseless storm, and heaven's artillery poured Its storm of thunder on the smoking plain ; And city — forest — shrub, and e'en the ground, In the great censer of the wrath of God, Went up to heaven in flame ; The earthquake raised His voice of fury, and the trembling hills Came toppling from their rocky pedestals j K 110 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And then a crash was heard, as if the ribs Of earth were crushed beneath the iron car In which Jehovah rolled, in fury, by ; And as the thunder boomed a funeral knell O'er the dark grave the giant earthquake dug, Shrouded in winding sheet of fire, went down The flaming city, with its blazing towers, To endless Tophet. Slowly rolled away The sulphurous canopy of clouds, that hung. Like desolation's wings, stretched o'er the plain- Herbless and treeless — manless was the vale Of fertile Sodom ; — all a watery waste — A dark, leihean lake of guilt and blood, Whose turbid waters, like the troubled breasts Of its vile denizens, that ceaseless stirred The sediments of sin, pollute the shores With darkness and the lurid filth of pitch. RAISING OF THE WIDOW'S SON. Now when he came nigh to the gate of the citj" there was a dead man carried out, the only sou of his mother, and she was a widow ; and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her he had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And he came and touched the bier ; and they that bare him stood still. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, rise. And he that was dead sat up and began to speak ; and he delivered him to his mother. Luke vii., 12, 13, 14, 15. The moon was up, and bathed in splendour bright High gilded dome, and battlement and tower, And rained her light, like silver, on the waves. That calmly slept, of Galilee's blue sea. The balmy breeze, laden with fragrance, bland From myrrhine shrubbery and citron groves, And exhalations of the spicy earth, Came in refreshing waves to bathe the limbs, And feast the sense with odorous perfume. Immersed in gloomy thought the widow sat, Nor saw the splendours of the vaulted sky, 112 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Nor felt upon her burning brow the breeze, That, whispering through the tendrils of the vines, Clustering, around its lattice, came to cool And vivify her sorrow-shaken frame. A dimly burning lamp threw its pale light Upon the paler features of her child — Her son, the comfort of her widowed years, Sole pledge of mutual love, lay on his couch, The gathering tears slow- rolling from his eyes O'er which the death-film gathered for the fate Of her who gave him being — who had watched His helpless infancy with anxious eye, And whose infirmities demanded, now, A kindlier care than the grudged charities Of a cold, harsh, unsympathetic world. " Mother !" " My son !" And o'er his couch she stood, In infinite despair. The glassy eye, The pupil o'er its orb distending wide, The painful breathings of his brawny chest, RAISING OF THE WlDOW's SON. 113 And the mysterious liridness of death Brooding upon his features pale, proclaimed The mournful hour of dissolution near. Her withered arms the weeping widow threw Around the neck of her departing son, And mourned in agony, while heavy sobs Shook every fibre of her tottering frame ; And he essayed, while in the lamp of life The light still flickered, with a soothing voice, Her wounded spirit to bind up and heal. " God stay thy sorrows, mother ! and raise up A friend unto thee, who, with filial care. Shall cherish thee, and smooth life's rugged path. Till thou shalt slumber in the peaceful tomb." As o'er his dying couch the widow stood. She pressed her shrivelled lips to his, and felt Them cold and clammy — saw his soft blue eyes, That oft had beamed so fondly on her, closed In death's deep slumber, ne'er to open more — And heard the bursting of that tender heart, Whose every pulse beat warm with filial love. K* 114 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Youth is life's springtide ; and although its hopes Be crushed beneath the iron heel of woe. They germ again, and the bruised spirit stands, From elasticity, erect and firm. Not so with age : The wintry storm of woe Shakes the last leaf from hope's lone arid bough ; And then the wounded soul, brooding in tears O'er utter desolation, falls alone. She was alone, childless and friendless ; and she bent Her head in sorrow ; and the passionate wail Of lamentation rose upon the air. " Art thou, my beautiful ! forever gone. Who stanched the current of my widowed tears; Who shed a light, life's wintry storms upon. And stood the pillar of my failing years 7 Oh ! art thou gone ! thou gentle-hearted one ! My first — my last — my loved, my only son ! Yes, thou art gone ! and as a princely prize, Is won thy manly beauty by the grave ; RAISING OF THE WIDOW's SON. 115 And sealed forever are thy death-glazed eyes. O'er which the golden tresses gently wave ; Gone are the roses from thy forehead fair, And paleness reigns, and deathly dampness there. Oh, I had hoped that thou, my son ! wouldst close These dying eyes, and weep my final doom; When this lone widowed heart, oppressed by woes, Be gathered to its resting place — the tomb ; And sometimes visit the sequestered spot, Where sleeps thy mother's dust, by all the world forgot. But like unripened fruit, before its time, Thou art hoarded in the granary of death ; Fallen in thy beauty ere thy manhood's prime — How would I joy to yield this labouring breath, And lay beneath the turf my weary head, With thee, my son ! amid the silent dead." Morn broke, and with it came the glorious sun, Flushed, as it were, with vigour from repose ; 116 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. His fiery axle on the mountain tops Shed its red beams, illumining in gold, In purple, and in crimson, the fair clouds Floating like banners opened to the breeze, And studding, as with gems, the dewy shrubs That spread their painted petals to his rays. The purling streams, meandering through sweet groves, Seem'd, with their borders of rich green enclosed, Like silvery pictures edged with velvet round ; Amid the dew-bespangled boughs, the birds Of golden plumage glanced their wings, and tuned Their throats to melody. The earth, the sky, Shrub, flower and tree, and every insect smiled With a redundancy of life and joy. Dark to the mourner was the glorious morn, With its bright sunshine and prismatic hues ; Dreary and void the wide and fertile earth, With its gay prospects — herbage, fruits, and flowers. The light that cheered her darksome soul was out ; The sun that gave its light and hues to all RAISING OF THE WlDOw's SON. 117 Earth's fairy prospects, had forever set ; And destitute and lonely, wrapt in grief, She looked upon the features of the dead With earnest gaze, before the funeral shroud Enwrapt him from her, and her cherished one Be carried out to his eternal home. The corpse is shrouded, and is borne along, In slow procession, to the city gate. The sorrowing mother, bent beneath the weight Of years and woe, in sable garments clad, Follows with mournful step the moving bier, And as, at every tread, the heart-wrung tears Course down the channel of her furrowed cheeks, A voice of melody steals on her ear, Thrilling each shattered nerve — "Woman! weep not !" The bier stood still ; the widow's eyes grew Sight, strength, sensation left her; to the ground The mourner sunk, bewildered and amazed. Sensation came. Her son, clothed with his shroud, 118 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY, Bent over her — and the Eternal God, Who holds the keys of hell and death — With smiles Of heavenly sweetness beaming on his face. He changed the fount of tears to one of joy, Presenting to her, her lamented son Restored to life — to her embrace maternal. Weep not, oh widowed mothers I when the pall Of death is round your offspring, and the barbed And rankling iron enters in the soul ; For he who at the gates of Nain beheld And stanched the flowings of a mother's heart, Is pitiful of nature, and will wipe The tear-drops from the eyes, and calm the grief Of those who lean upon his loving arm — And will restore their children to a life Of better promise, in that goodly land Where sorrows cease and death is all unknown. DEATH OF SAMSON. Now the house was full of men and women; and all the lords of the fiilistines were there ; and there were upon the roof about three thou- nd men and women, that beheld while Samson made sport. And Samson called upon the Lord, and said, Oh, Lord God ! remem- ;r me, I pray thee, only this once, oh God ! that I may be at once enged of the Philistines for my two eyes. And Samson took hold of the two middle pillars upon which the house 3od, and on which it was borne up, of the one with his right hand, and the other with his left. And Samson said. Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed him- If with all his might ; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all e people that were therein. Judges xvi., 27, 28, 29, 30. Within Philistia's princely hall, Is held a glorious festival ; And on the fluctuant ether floats, The music of the timbrel's notes, While living waves of voices gush — Echoing among the distant hills, Like an impetuous torrent's rush, When swollen by a thousand rills. 120 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The stripling and the man of years, Warriors with twice ten thousand spears, Peasants and slaves and husbandmen — The shepherd of the mountain glen, Vassal and chief, arrayed in gold And purple robes — Philistia all Are drawn together, to behold Their mighty foeman held in thrall. Loud pealed the accents of the horn Upon the air of that clear morn ; And deafening rose the mingled shout, Cleaving the air, from that wild rout ; As guarded by a cavalcade, The illustrious prisoner appeared ; And 'mid the grove the thick spears made, His forehead like a tall oak reared. He stood with brawny shoulders bare, And tossed his nervous arms in air ; Chains, leathern thongs, and brazen bands. Parted like wool within his hands : DEATH OF SAMSON. 121 And giant trunks of gnarled oak Splintered and into ribands rent ; Or by his iron sinews broke, Increased the people's wonderment. The amphitheatre, where stood Gazing the mighty multitude, Rested its long and gilded walls Upon two pillars' capitals. His withered arms with labour spent. He threw around the pillars there j And to the deep blue firmament Lifted his sightless orbs in prayer. Anon the columns move — they shake, Totter and vacillate, and quake; And, wrenched by giant force, come down, Like a disrupted mountain's crown, With cornice, frieze and chapitre — Girder and gilded dome and wall, Ceiling of gold and roof of fir. Crumbled in mighty ruin all. L 122 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Down came the structure ; on the air Uprose in wildest shrieks, despair, Rolling in echoes loud and long, As sent from that crushed myriad throng; And Samson, with the heaps of dead, Priest — vassal — chief, in ruin blent, Piled over his victorious head His sepulchre and monument. BELSHAZZAR'S FEAST. Then they brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the house of God that was at Jerusalem ; and the king and his princes, his wives and his concubines drank in them. They drank wine and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon tfie plaster of the wall of the king's palace ; and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Daniel v., 3, 4, 5. 'TwAs night, and Babylonia's waters slept In silent beauty, mirroring the beams That poured like molten silver from the urn Of white-robed Cynthia. Not a breath of air Stirred the soft foliage of the leafy reeds, Or the long willow boughs, that graceful hung, Like weeping mourners, o'er the moonlit waves. The golden fish that gambolled in the stream, Plashing the silvery spray like tiny gems, Had all retired within their watery cells ; No sound was heard of all the insect train, 124 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Whose golden-tinted wings had glanced in life And joyance through the summer air, and wheeled, In mazy round, from tempting flower to flower ; The bell and petals of the flowers themselves Were folded up in nature*s soft repose, Like the fair wings that fluttered round their sweets, All — all was still — save man, the reveller. From the high dome of Babylonia's king A thousand golden lamps flamed radiantly. Illumining the high arabesque roof, Studded with sparkling brilliants and rich gems, The porphyry fluted pillars, and the urns Of gold-specked porcelain, rife with choicest flowers, And gods of gold, of silver, iron, brass, And wood and stone, that sat in marble niche, Each god on consecrated tripod placed. Before the statues festive spice-rods burned. Rolling the incense in great dusky spires. That filled the house with odorous perfume. To the gay pageant musick lent its charms : belshazzar's feast. 125 Flute, sackbut, tabret, dulcimer and harp Mingled their notes in soft, mellifluous strain, As the light sandals of the liveried page Slid o'er the marble pavement, in the dance. Wheeling in mazy circle to the gaze Of the proud king, his thousand lords and wives. Amid the hall the festive board was spread, The silver platter and the golden vase, With delicacies piled and choicest viands ; And round it, on their damask couches raised, The bacchants — higher than the rest, Belshazzar ; And as in lordly state pre-eminent — E'en so in boisterous revelry r.nd mirth : " Bring forth the vessels of the Jewish shrine, Judea's God shall bow for once to-night ; Fill high with wine the consecrated cups, Drink full libations to the mighty gods Of old Assyria." To the skies a shout Rose wildly, as the sacred cups were brimmed With the unholy wine to heathen gods ; 126 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And as Belshazzar impiously proclaimed The full libation — on the opponent wall Came forth the fingers of a giant hand, And wrote upon the solid, stuccoed wall, As if on sand, strange characters. Like curdled blood, his phrensied eye beheld The purple juice; and from his nerveless hand, As lightning-struck, the sacred goblet fell j His loins were loosened, and his palsied knees Each other smote, in horror and dismay; And with a feeble, faltering voice, he cried, " Bring in the Chaldee sage, the men of lore, The astrologer, and deep-read magi bring." And soon the venerable men appeared, The men of lore, upon whose aged busts The snowy beard, like a long mantle, flowed. Diverse their garments : Some, a flowing robe Of black, wore loose, a golden sun emblazed ; Some, robes of white with hieroglyphics traced Of hidden lore — the mysteries of years; While some a mantle girt of yellow hue, belshazzar's feast. 127 Three eyes embossed, whose different vision scans The distant future,-n-present and the past. The silver wand of dark astrologer, Some bore, and some, three sacred globes of gold ; The ophite had his serpent : some had crypts. Upon the furrowed lineaments of all Sat awful wisdom — on their foreheads stamped. Indelibly, the seal of powerful mind. Upon the dread, mysterious hand their eyes Were rivetted, and on the awful lines. Whence radiated light like lightning's blaze — But darker grew the mystery, as they gazed, Until their thought-strained eyes dilated grew — But vain : the golden globe had lost its power, The silver wand its impotence confessed ; The white-robed magi waved their golden snakes. And waved in vain. Confounded all — the men Of hidden mystery and profound research Shrunk back aghast and viewed the portent dread. 128 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And Daniel spoke : — " Thy many gifts, oh king ! Be poured upon another, though my tongue. Lit by the fire of prophecy, unfold The fearful mystery of the awful lines. Know then, oh ! kind, the most high God did give The king, thy father, majesty and power, Before which tongues and nations from afar, Trembled with awe, and deepest reverence gave ; And whom he would his power doomed to death : The men, he would exalt, like cedars rose. Gracing the front of lofty Lebanon, And whom he would put down, he swept from earth With the wild whirlwind of his furious breath ; But when his soul was lifted up — his mind Hardened in pride against the living God — Entirely prone to evil ; from his throne Forth was he driven — all his glory gone; The coronet no more his brows adorned — His bust, the purple ; and his royal hand The regal sceptre grasped no more, in pride. From the sons of men forth was he driven To the desert fields — his heart the heart of beasts — belshazzar's feast. 129 His dwelling, theirs. With the wild mountain ass He made his lair, and on the grassy plain Browsed with the oxen ; and the vocal dell Rung with their lowings, mingled with his moan. Above his head the pitiless tempest howled j His hoary hairs bristled with the cold frost, And with the rain and dews of heaven were drenched, Until he knew that God the highest ruled Supreme in heaven, and chiefest in the earth. And thou, his son, Belshazzarl knewest this. And hast not humbled thee before the Lord, But lifted up thy heart against his power — And brought the vessels of his holy house For thee, thy lords, thy concubines and wives, With heathen wine most impiously to pollute ; And praised the gods of silver, gold and brass, Which see not, hear not, know not — and the God In whose hands is thy breath — who seeth thy ways, Thou hast not glorified, but spurned and dared. Hear now the interpretation of the words That he has traced against thee, impious king ! Mene, thy kingdom, God, in fearful wrath. 130 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Hath numbered, and forever hath destroyed. TekeLj thy soul is weighed and wanting found; The grave yawns for thee, justice draws her sword. Peres, thy empire's parted — o'er thy walls The Mede shall float his banner to the breeze, And on thy jewelled throne the Persian sit, And sway the rod of empire o'er thy realm ; While thou, pierced by his sword, of all bereft, Thy kingdom, life and glory, give to earth, Thy delicate body and thy naked soul, Distained in guilt, to the eternal streams That rain forever, from the awful vials Of fiery vengeance of a God incensed." Thus spake the prophet; and before the domes Of Babylonia's palace flashed with light, Its halls with blood were reeking, and around The midnight revellers were strewed; while he. Who gloried in the wantoness of crime. And had, in sacrilegious mirth, defied The Omnipotent, had gone to his reward. PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Thou art permitted 'to speak for thy- self. Then Paul stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself. Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Chris- tian. Acts xxvi., 1,28. Before the judgment seat, circled with spears Of grim-faced warriors, see the man of God ! Although the scrutinizing eye of kings Searches each lineament, as if to scan The workings of his soul, he calmly stands, Like some colossal column, which the clouds, Darkened with thunder, lower upon in vain. Upon his festered wrists the galling chains Of persecution sound ; yet from his eye And from his radiant features breathes a soul Undaunted — unsubdued and free — A spirit strong in conscious innocence. 132 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And truth divine, girded with holy hope. While high upraised his scornful judges sat, Anxious to hear "the founder of strange Gods." With reverent obeisance, and with grace Of utterance and diction, the accused " Stretched forth the hand, and answered for himself.'^ In simple phrase, he sketched his pious youth ; How zealous of the duties of the law — Its rites and ceremonies — he had lived " A Pharisee after the strictest sect ;" And how, in after years, when growing thought Had ripened into judgment, he had stood At the renowned Gamaliel's feet, and conned The Talmud scroll, and the mysterious lore Of ancient doctors, with unwearied mind. Spinning a lengthened line of years of thought, The depth to fathom of the mighty pool Of moral science. Then, as the tears stole o'er his flushing cheek, He spoke of his enthusiasm wild ; PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 133 How of traditions zealous, he opposed The name of Jesus, — him of Nazareth — And his meek followers pursued with death And persecution unto cities strange — How he had seen the purple life-blood spout Up from the thousand fountains, made by stones Cast by the murderous multitude — his voice Giving against them — sealing their dark doom ; And how, when journeying to Damascus, sent With full commission from the bloody priests To bind and scourge and torture, that a light From the clear heaven, above the noonday sun. Gleamed 'round him and his iron-mailed band, Like lightning, suddenly, and strewed the earth With horse and rider; while a solemn voice. From high Empyrean, broke upon his ear : " Why dost thou persecute me, Paul ? why dare The heavy bosses of Jehovah's shield With puny shaft ? Rise, stand upon thy feet ! I, Jesus, whom thou persecutest, send Thee to the Gentiles, to unseal their eyes, Turn them to light from darkness, and to God M 134 SOBIPTUBAL ANTHOLOGY, From serving Satan, that they may receive Forgiveness of their sins through faith in me." And as he spoke of Jesus, his warm heart Swelled with delight unutterably full ; His kindling eye shone with unearthly light ; And eloquence, strong as a torrent stream, His glowing features lit with living flame. His sonorous voice rung through the vaulted hall Like music, as he dwelt upon the hope Of promise to the ancient patriarchs made, And drew forth, link by link, of that gold chain Prophetic, which unbroken, downf from man Primeval, stretched to Jesus, in the heap Of types and shadows hid, and with the dust Of ages long gone by, obscured and dim; And, by resistless demonstration, proved Jesus the Christ in very deed ; the hope Of Israel, and the Saviour of the world ; " Counsellor Wonderful" — " The Prince of Peace"- " The Eternal Father"—" The Almighty God !" And as he traced him from his bed of straw, PAUL BEFORE AGRIPPA. 135 Curtained by angel wings, up to his cross, O'er which, shrouded in black, the heavens hung, Glorious in all his acts, Godlike and grand, Healing the sick — making the maimed, the lame Leap with returning action—- pouring light Upon the sightless eyeballs of the blind — And bidding life reanimate the dead : The Gentile king caught from his hallowed lips The glow of admiration of the might And majesty of Jesus ; and his heart, On which the light of heaven began to dawn, Forgot his heathen idols in the God Omnipotent, proclaimed in mighty truth ; And while the resurrection and ascension came, Sanctioned by reason, opening up the gates Of life eternal and the joys of heaven, In the o'erflowings of a wounded heart. Subdued in every thing, except its pride — He cried — " Thou hast almost persuaded me To be a Christian." 136 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The voice of the accused now died away ; And silence reigned amid the judgment hall ; They who had come to listen to the sound Of babbling nonsense, or the maniac rant Of mad enthusiasm, stood confused, And gazed upon each other vacantly, As men bewildered, while they, one and all, Read in his features, in his words and tone, His innocence ; and deep conviction felt. As with meek step and uncomplaining eye, He sought again the dungeon, he had done Nothing that merited or death or bonds. Oh I blessed Faith, that in this world of woe Refreshes, with an ante past of heaven. The fainting spirit ; and infuses peace Amid the turmoil of lifes's wintry winds. And confidence and triumph, when the rack And chains array their terrors ; and the torch Of persecution lights her demon lire. LOOK NOT ON WINE. Look not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its colour in the cup. Proverbs xxiii., 31. Look not on wine ; although the cup Be crimsoned with its ruby stain ; Look not— 'tis filled with wormwood up. And blood, and burning tears of pain: — Its flash is as the red bolt's glow, Lighting the paths of death and woe. Look not on wine : Circean spell Is breathed upon the purple grape ; Changing to phantoms horrible The godlike mind, the godlike shape, And dooming with its poisonous breath The soul to everlasting death. M* 138 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Look not on wine : its rainbow glow Reflected is from falling tears ; But ah ! it is no peaceful bow Of promise, in life's storms and fears — But is a messenger of wrath, A fiery meteor on life's path. Look not on wine ! Oh, who can tell The victims of its Moloch shrine ; Or speak the soul-destroying spell That mantles o'er the clustered vine — The withered hearts — the glories fled — The tears — the blood, that it has shed. Look not on wine ! Your ruddy youth. Oh ! barter not, and spotless fame, And conscious dignity and truth. For premature old age and shame — And heaven, and hope, and all that's thine, For short-lived joys. Look not on wine ! M[©i]Eg iMniiriiM'®- irisii isi©®iEo MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. Aud wherefore have ye made iis to come up out of Egypt, to bring us unto this evil place ? It is no place of seed, or of figs, or of vines, or of pomegranates ; neither is there any water to drink. And Moses and Aaron gathered the congregation together before the rock, and he said unto them, Hear now, ye rebels ; must I fetch you wa- ter out of this rock ? And Moses lifted up his hand, and with his rod he smote the rock twice ; and the water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, aud their beasts also. IVOMBERS XX., 5, 10, 11. No former miracles that shed Upon the desert, streams and bread, Inspired with confidence or grace The faithless and the wicked race. Oppressed with thirst, with hunger faint, They vented murmur and complaint. " Why bring ye, to this barren coast Of heat and sand, our weary host; Where neither fruit nor golden grain, Appears through all the desert plain—- 140 SCHII'TURAL ANTHOLOGY. No bough on which pomegranates shine, Nor figSj nor clusters of the vine ; Where sparkles neither fount nor pool The thirst to slake — the brow to cool. Why bring us to this land to die 1 Egypt had graves wherein to lie." Their leaders, then, in anguish, bowed Their faces down, and mourned aloud, Until, from out the light that broke Around, the voice of God thus spoke: " Smite with the rod : the flinty rock Shall pour its streams for man and flock." Then with the consecrated rod. Which curse or blessing brought from God, Toiled Moses up the pathless wild Of rocks, in sullen grandeur piled, While all the host was gathered round, By hope or fear in silence bound. " Why will ye murmur ? Has the ear Grown heavy that was wont to hear ; Or shortened is the mighty hand, MOSES SMITING THE ROCK. 141 That brought you from oppression's land ? That manna o'er the desert spread, And streams of living waters shed ? Why tempt the Lord ? Lift up your eyes ! The self-same hand your want supplies: The bounty of his grace receive — Behold ! ye rebels, and believe ; Behold !" and fell with jarring shock, Th' uplifted rod upon the rock ; And inwardly was heard the rush Of prisoned waves, in gurgling gush, Impatient to escape their bound, And wander free, the plains around. With pleasure tingles every ear. As the refreshing sound they hear ; And every upraised eye is bright, And laughing with hope's pure delight. The rod again descends — the rock Its portal opens at the shock ; The stream leaps from its mountain home. With voice of rage and crest all foam, 142 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And thunders down the precipice In cataracts, that part and hiss. And murmur ; and, in shining rills, Slow winding, sigh among the hills. As broke the waters forth, amazed. The eye and voice to heaven some raised j Others with folded arms stood dumb, In speechless gratitude ; while some, In extacy of rapture, laughed, As with delirious joy they quaffed The bubbling streams the fountain poured, Which fainting man and beast, restored. Ye wanderers through this wilderness, Bowed down with sorrow and distress, Go, when the head is sick— when faint The heart breathes out its mournful plaint 5 And fevered with earth's cares and strife, Is panting for the streams of life-— To the great Archetypal fount Of that which flowed in Horeb's mount, And in the wilderness of Zin j And drink till all is heaven within. THE PRODIGAL. And when he came to himself he said, How many hired servants of my father's have bread enougli and to spare, and I perish with hunger ! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee : And am no more worthy to be called thy son ; make me as one of thy hired servants. And he arose and came to his father. But when he was a great way off, his father saw him and had eompajsion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. LuKEXv., 17, 18, 19,20, The noontide air was sultry, and the sun Poured down in flame his burning vertical rays, The flowrets hung their fainting heads, and shrubs Drooped 'neath his radiance ; and each withered bough ; — And birds, beasts, insects — every living thing Sought shelter from the fierce meridian heat. ■ak The Prodigal was weary ; he had toiled Amid the desert sands, with hunger faint, 144 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And with that feverishness of soul that comes From deep misfortunes joined with conscious guilt. Weighing with weariness the spirit down. Beneath the spreading branches thrown at large, Oblivion stole upon him; and in sleep He wanderr d to his far, far distant home, Dear to hi .eart by twice ten thousand ties. There is a magic in the name of home Felt in the spirit's yearning : man may roam Careering on his wild and thoughtless way. Like the mad, untamed comet from the sun ; Yet, in his wanderings, is still within Th' attractive influence of that sunny spot. The Prodigal awoke, and thoughts of home Swelled his full breast ; and penitential tears, As sudden waters from the desert rock. Flowed from his flinty, sorrow-smitten heart Adown his pale, and famine-blanched cheeks ; And in his soul impartial conscience held The mirror of reflection, and displayed His guilt nd folly, to repentance true j THE PRODIGAL. 145 And godly sorrow and impressions pure, And holy resolution nerved his frame — And he exclaimed, " I will arise and go Unto my father, and my guilt confess." The sun was verging to the distant west, Flinging his golden radiance on the mounts That girded, as with emerald zones, the plains Of his own happy regions ; and he longed For speed like his that he might soar away, As if on wings of eagles, and behold His father's house — his long forgotten home. His feet were sandalled, and his loosened loins Girded for journeying, and in his hand A pilgrim's staff, and in his bosom thoughts And yearning aspirations, that had nerved With vigour every fibre of his frame. Onward he journeyed, with unfaltering step Beneath the silent canopy of night With famine faint, and sleepless, though the stars Were tired with watching, and the wearied light N 14(5 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Semed to lie down upon the mountain's couch — Onward, still onward sped he, night and day, With pace unslackened and unwearied feet. Day broke in beauty on the rosy earth ; Upon the purple clouds the yellow hair Of Phcebus floated, like a web of gold The mountain tops like smoking altars sent Their cloudy incense to the smiling heaven, And slow revealing through the silver mist, Their sparkling plain of waters, creek and rill Rolled on their way trilling a song of glee : The variegated carpeting of earth Glowed with the embroidered flowers of nature's loom, The velvet foliage of the trees and shrubs Was studded with the dewy gems of morn, The flowrets bowed their purple coronets. And from the thousand throats of gay plumed birds Arose the woodland anthem on the air ; All nature seemed rejoicing in new life, As if conspiring to his ancient home To bid him welcome. THE PRODIGAL. 147 On a little mount He stood, and down a sloping vale beheld His father's halls that rose in pillared pride. High in the sunlight. The rill whose purlings had amused his youth, The copse, the glade, and ancient-looking trees. The scenes of childish sport were still the same ; And with familiar, and with smiling face Greeted his coming. Now the dread of change Stole o'er the Prodigal — his father's house ! Had sickness and decay wrought changes there 1 Would a kind father's voice and mother's tears, In nature's speechless eloquence, receive Their guilty, wandering, and unworthy child 1 Or would they coldly scrutinize his form. The wreck of dissipation, and his rags, The tatters of his wretchedness and shame 1 Did they yet live, or had their hoary hairs Gone down with weight of sorrow to the grave, For the low fall of their unhappy son? Oppressed with thought, he carefully composed 14S SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The shredded garments on his shrivelled form, And as he went, moistened each step with tears. Far off a venerable man appeared, With locks and beard of snow, sweeping his bust *, And in his step and mien, the Prodigal His father recognised ; and hastening bowed Him prostrate in humility of soul, And deep abasement, while he kissed his feet, And craved a place of service in the hall^ That gave him being, once his happy home. Silent and solemn all the father stood. No pardon spake, no word of joy or love ; Yet from his aged eyes, the gushing tears Fell on the trembling hands that clasped his knees ; And ever'and anon, a heavy sob Convulsed his bosom ; and as nature gave Strength to his joy-stunned intellect, he raised The suppliant wanderer, and to his breast Strained him in all the fervency of love, Mingled with pity,— to his errors gave THE PRODIGAL. 149 A free and willing pardon, and restored The mourner lo his home and all the joys Of peace and innocence, that chase the clouds Of godly sorrow, and repentance dark, And pour bright sunshine on the smiling soul. 152 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. From out the gloomy portal of the grave, Arrayed in his sepulchral robes of white, Triumphant came th' Almighty King, who led Captive captivity. His countenance Was mild as when he smiles upon the storm, And the wild rage of warring heaven serenes. The eye of him that pierced him quailed; the knees Of the stout soldiers, each the other smote. And like men dead, upon the ground they fell. Loud, through his hollow caverns, murmured Death ; Dire wailings filled th' infernal regions Avide ; While with triumphant hallelujahs rung The joyous courts of high empyrean heaven. CREATION. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Genesis i., 3. Eternity's predestined moment came, When countless ages, now, had ta'en their flight, To break the fetters of chaotic night, And bid the shining universe proclaim, The power and glory of Jehovah's name: Then earth and heaven rose at his word of might. But dark and lustreless : " Let there be light !" The Almighty said, and lo ! the living flame. That, wrapped in chaos' sable mantle, lay. From out the darkened depths, all-glorious sprang. The lightning's blaze — the comet's milder ray, — The moon, the night — the sun to rule the day ; And all the morning stars together sang, Till heaven's high dome with the full chorus rang. SENNACHERIB. And it cnmfe to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thou- sand ; and when they arose early in the morning, behold they were all corpses. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammekch and Sharezer, his sonsj smote him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Arminia. 2 Kings, xix., 33, 35, 37. On Kishon's ancient water gleams The full-orbed moon, like silver bright j The reedy shores beneath her beams, Are clothed in robes of living light, And the white tents, in long array, That dot its banks, clear, and half hid Amid the trees that skirt the bay, Flash like a silver pyramid ; And brazen chariots armed for war, Are ranged around the spacious field, And silver spear and burnished shield SENNACHERIB. 155 Send their bright radiance from afar, While high above the banner spreads Its guardian wings above their heads. They sleep — Assyria's warlike pride, Their dreams upon the coming dawn, When their proud king shall lead them on To death and devastation wide ; When the tall cedar trees, that gem, Like emeralds, the diadem Of hoary Carmel, all shall bow Their towering heads beneath the stroke, And Lebanon's tall fir and oak. Their branching honours laid full low — A highway open for the roar Of brazen chariots fiercely driven, Where late the grove its ringlets hoar. Waved proudly to the winds of heaven ; A highway, where the Assyrian band. Its myriads may roll, like sand Innumerable, to surround Jerusalem's high citadel. 156 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. With mining ditch and hostile monnd, To lay its walls low with the ground, And leave a smouldering pile to tell Where priests the sacred pavements trod- How, 'neath th' invader's engine fell, The city of the living God. 'Twas midnight — all siill and serene — No sound o'er all the battle plain — The winds, as if held by a chain, Stirred not the wild-wood's foliage green ; And the meridian moon that rode Jn her celestial pathway high, With the pale clouds that round her flowed Like drapery, veiled her fearful eye ; 'Twas still, like nature, held her breath, To look upon a work of death. And silent all, an angel stood — An angel by th' Almighty sent, For daring guilt's high punishment ; SENNACHERIB. 1^7 The avenger of a nation's blood. And poured upon the midnight blast, Destruction, as it slowly past. Above the thousands slumbering there, In vengeance swept the poisoned air, Each particle replete w^ith death — The groan, the gathering of the breath, The ashy lip and pale face tell That death has sped his errand well ; The vital currents languid flowed. And where the healthful crimson glowed, The bounding life-tide stilly stood, A putrid lake of stagnant blood ; And then the deep, deep sleep came on. The night for which there was no dawn. And morning broke ; and on the air Arose the trumpet's matin sound. In piercing notes, loud, shrill and clear, Yet few the eyes that wake around. Extended lifeless on the ground, The pride of all Assyria lay, 153 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Their corpses blackening in the air, Beneath the glaring eye of day. Fear fell on all ; from man to man, A cold, electric shiver ran, Withering the sense and aching sight, As their dilating pupils grew. At the dread slaughter of the night, By hands unseen to mortal view, Made in omnipotence of night. And Sennacherib stood amazed, Amidst the heaps of ghastly dead; And horror and dismay, and dread Stole o'er him as he wildly gazed. To him the field of death had been, With millions slain, strewed Air and wide, A common and a tranquil scene, Viewed with complacence and with pride — He had seen embattled legions rush To the wild conflict ; and the bhjod From sword and spear, in currents gush. And had his warlike chariot driven SENNACHERIB. 159 Through the firm phalanx, broke and riven By flaming quadrupeds, that trade Beneath their iron hoofs, the souls Of thousands, as his chariot rolls — Had seen the battle plain with dead And dying strewed — the trunk, the head And shattered limbs, — the arms, the feet, Mangled and crushed, with carnage red, Like some vast grove, the shady seat Of royal cedar, mountain oak, By the red lightning's scathing stroke, With giant limbs and trunks strewn o'er; Or by the wild tornado riven. Whose furious breath outswells the roar Of the four warring winds of heaven : Yet Avhat were fields of slaughtered dead, And blood by men in combat shed. To the thick ranks that pressed the ground, Slain by th' Almighty's furious breath, Unstained by blood, unmarked by wound. And blackening in the hues of death? 160 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. He looked on Salem, where the sun Shed down the glory of his fires Upon the holy city's spires And hung upon the eastern sky, O'er the great temple, like the eye Watchful, of the Eternal One : He looked upon the dead, that lay Around him, withering on the heath — And the deep curse he durst not breathe. Muttered in heart against the God Of Judah, who had blocked his way, With thousands blasted at his nod. Within the idol Nisroch's fane, In honour of that heathen god, Arose the sacred sackbut's strain ; And incense in thick volumes rolled, Up to the roof of burnished gold, As royal Sennacherib trod The porphry pavement, to the shrine Where gems and jewels gorgeous shine- SENNACHERIB. 161 And at the sacred footstool bowed, In low obeisance down, and prayed To Nisroch, as he cursed the God Of Judah, and in anger laid His sword upon the shrine, and vowed Vengeance against the Jewish crowd. Light sandals slid the pavement o'er. Unheard by him who lowly bent, Breathing, like pestilence, curse and prayer Before the smoking altar there ; And two dark forms, whose faces bore The impress of their dark intent, A moment by the monarch stood : Anon the silver ataghan, Flashed from its sheath in radiance bright; Like lightning fell the stroke ; and blood Spouted and o'er the altar ran, duenching, in crimson shower, its light. The royal Sennacherib lay. By parricidal hands struck down, ]fi2 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Upon the tesselated floor, With death-glazed eyes, weltering in gore- His glittering, though blood-stained crown Destined, a curse, to shine upon The brow of murderer and son. ADORATION OF THE WISE MEN. Now when Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem. Saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, and arc come to worship him. Matthew ii., 1, 2. From airy mount — from pyramid, To gaze on midnight skies. When sleep, with rosy hand, the lid Had sealed of other eyes — Theirs was the task, and well they knew Each orb that gemmed night's throne of blue. But now a star of brighter sheen Illumed the orient o'er, Than eye of magus e'er had seen, With all his ancient lore — And mocked, with its mysterious light, The star-read chroniclers of night. 364 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. It Streamed not wildly through the air, A meteor from afar ; It shook not from its lurid hair The light of plague and war; But mildly, brightly beamed above, The morning-star of peace and love. They gird their loins, and on their feet The pilgrim's sandals bind ; And tempt the desert sand and heat. The royal babe to find : And worship then, with one accord, The King — appointed of the Lord. O'er many an arid waste they passed. And many a verdant plain ; But on the starry herald cast The brightness of its train O'er swelling stream — o'er storied fount- O'er ancient tower, and sacred mount. Till o'er Judea's hills it stood, A silent sentinel ; ADORATION OF THE WISE MEN. 165 And on the grove and flashing flood Its sacred watchlight fell. The magi gazed ; and awe intense, And wonder, wrapt the soul and sense. No hoary tower was standing by ; No golden-cinctured dome, In pillared pride, aspired on high, A prince's royal home — No lordly pile, that wealth and fame Had deigned to honour with their name. The infant King of Kings they found — His palace was a stall ; His mother all the court around — The hay his royal pall : His sceptre, straw — his diadem, The star that shone o'er Bethlehem. Clothed in his own humility, There lay the promised light, " That kings and priests desired to see, Yet died without the sight." ibG SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The brightness of the father's grace, And image of his glorious face. And from their treasury they poured Myrrh, frankincense and goJd ; And as the willing knee adored, That gift of price untold — Made to the king in humble guise, The reverent bosom's sacrifice. The humble king — Creation's heir — Whose everlasting throne, In heaven — in hell — in earth — in air — The universe shall own. When empires fall — when sceptres rust- And kinsrs and diadems are dust. THE TOWER OF BABEL. And they said. Go to, let us build us a City, and a tower whose icrp liiay reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a name, lest we be scatter- ed abroad upon the fare of the earth. And tlie Lord said, Behold, the people is one; and they have all one language ; and this they begin to do ; and now nothing will be restrain- ed from them which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. Genesis iv., 6,7. When judgments thicken, from the hand of God, And desolation's blast of fury blows, Man, like a bulrush, boweth down his head Beneath the tempest, and, wath humble voice. Confesses the supremacy of heaven : But when the hand of mercy strews his path With blessings, and around him all is peace. He lifteth up the haughty head of pride — With voice presumptuous, asks. Who is the Lord 7 And takes the holy name of God in vain. Remembrance of the goodness of the Lord, Which, from the devastation of the flood. Preserved their fathers, and his sacred pledge, 168 SCRIPTUHAL ANTHOLOGY. Were blotted from their memories ; and, in pride Of heart and self-sufficiency of power, They boasted, " Let us build a city up, And tower whose lofty top may reach to heaven, That, when a deluge shall o'erspread the earth. We may, amid its billowy terrors, laugh. They toiled ; and high above the clouds went up The work of pride and folly, till the sun Turned, first, his eye upon it when he rose. And paused to ponder on it ere he set : But God went down in anger, mid thick clouds And lightnings ; and the thunder-stricken pile Rocked to its mighty base ; while all around Fear fell upon the crowds, as, to and fro, They hurried in despair ; and uttered cries. Strange cries of terror ; and astonished heard The altered speech of their companions' tongues ; But wondered rather at the sudden change Their own had undergone, as barbarous tones Jarred harshly in their bosoms ; and their lips Were trembling with the utterance of strange sounds. THE CRUCIFIXION. The morning sun, In splendour bright, Gilt Salem's towers With living light ; And streaked the fair ethereal blue With tints of gold and purple hue ; Earth bloomed in loveliness and grace, And robed in smiles was Nature's face ; But soon the fading sun grows pale , Quenched are his beams o'er tower and vale. The quaking earth Is sunder rent — The rocky hills — The battlement ; — The bursting tombs Disclose their dead; The saints forsake Their earthly bed ; And midnight gloom Veils earth and skies, For, " Lo ! the God Of Nature dies!" P THE HEAVY-LADEN. "When I looked for good , then evil came upon me ; and when I watch- ed for light, there came darkness. Oh, that I had wings like a dove, for then I would flee away and be at rest. Psalm lv., 3, 6. I SAW her when a sunny-hearted child. Her step elastic as the mountain roe ; Her eyes like the gazelle's, piercing and wild ; Her voice's flow. Like the sweet gush of music, soft and mild. Her tresses waved above an ivory brow In darksome beauty, like a raven's wing, Folded upon a ridge of virgin snow ; The rose in spring Was not so crimson as her cheeks' pure glow. I saw her in her maiden prime ; the girl Merged in the matron, when each beauty shone THE HEAVY-LADEN. 171 Pure and resplendent as the snowy pearl That gems the zone Of southern Peri, 'neath the billowy whirl. Her heart was like a crystal fount, whence came The streams of feeling and affection pure — Her mind a sun, whose flashings were as flame, Too bright t' endure ; And shed a halo round her matchless name. I saAV her on her bridal morn — the rose Upon her dimpled cheek ; and on her brow Hope's signet set, a talisman to woes — Her nuptial vow A rainbow tint o'er all her beauties throws. Bright grew her eyes, as to her spouse she spoke, And shed a radiance o'er her features fair ; And as the utterance from her full heart broke, It told, how there. The gushing feelings of affection woke. I saw her sallow cheek with hectic flushed; T he brilliance of her eye was quenched and gone ; 172 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. The mellow voice that once, like music gushed, Had lost its tone — Her tender heart was by th' intemperate crushed. Her hopes were blighted ; he who was her all, Revelling in vice, in harlotry, and wine. Cast o'er life's prospects all, a gloomy pall — Bowed to their shrine, And poured for her the wormwood and the gall. I saw her when upon her forehead fair. The death-damps gathered, and the icy chill j No soothing spouse with kindly voice was there, Her fears to still — Her crushed heart broke. Where is her spirit? v/here ? I saw the broken-hearted in her shroud, Coffined and borne to tenant the cold ground ; While he, with blood-shot eyes and aspect proud, Stared careless round — The only tearless eyes I saw among the crowd. DECAY. As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth and drieth up ; So man lieth down and rise th not ; till the heavens be no more they sliall not awake nor be raised out of sleep. And surely the mountain falling cometh to nought, and the rock is re- moved out of his place. The waters wear the stones; thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth ; and thou destroyest the hope of man. Job XIX., 11, 19, 20. Time's tireless current ever bears along The bright, the beautiful, the gay, the strong ; Till broken on Oblivion's livid shore, Their glories vanish and are seen no more. Decay has stamped indelibly her name, On every thing through nature's general frame ; And, in time's lapse, to vast creation's throne Shall vindicate her right, and claim her own ; And wave her dusky banner wide unfurled. O'er the gray atoms of a crumbled world. 374 scRinuRAL anthology. Then mourn not, man I that 'neath th' eternal sun, Thy race, thy destiny, shall soon be run, And thou, no more amid the mantling flush Of blooming nature — or her music's gush — Or in her solemn solitudes, be found ; But, " dust to dust," be mingled with the ground. Thine is the fate of ea^h created thing — Transient and perishable. Lo ! the spring, That waves o'er field and velvet mead, her wand, And scatters flowers and fragrance o'er the land, Is evanescent ; and her leaves, that gem The forest with an emerald diadem, Sapless and faded, by the winds of heaven, To moulder with the kindred earth, are driven* The tinted petals of the vernal flowers, That deck with chrysolite the sunny bowers. Or grassy sward or forest-cinctured dells, With the rich lustre of their silken bells — The reddening fruit that like the sapphire gleams, Or on the bough, in golden globules, beams. Languish and wither, and their charms decayed. Are in earth's common cemetery laid. DECAY. 175 And all the insect tribe, whose glossy wings Of gold and azure, sport in flutterings Amid the sunshine or the balmy breeze, Or flowery arbours of embowering trees — Like tlie untimely flowers— are swept away, Round which they wanton in the sunny ray. Nor insects only, — all that wing the plain — From the vain jay, spreading 'mid flowers his train, To the strong-pinioned eagle, that, sublime. Soars through the regions of th' ethereal clime, And bathes his buoyant bosom in the rays Of the red sun, and gazes on his blaze — And the innumerable bestial train, That range the field or forest's wide domain : The strong-lunged lion, whose tremendous roar Outswells the dash of ocean on his shore — The giant elephant, whose mighty tread Shakes the firm earth like thunders overhead, Whose massy trunk whole forests hurls to heaven, Uprooted, writhed, as if by whirlwinds driven; And the leviathan of fearful mass. With skin of iron and with bones of brass, 176 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Dread prince of all that dwell in ocean's caves. Spouting in cataracts her troubled waves ; — Shorn of their strength and glory by decay, Are decompounded and return to clay. Nor these alone fate's dust and darkness share : The mighty of the earth — heroes, who bear The banner stiffened with life's crimson flood, O'er devastated realms and seas of blood, And with th' ensanguined sabre write their name, High on the imperishable scroll of fame : And purple kings, upon whose awful brows The glittering coronet of empire glows — Who, o'er wide realms the ruling sceptre sway. And bid the nations tremble and obey — And patriot statesmen, men of mighty mind. Who, to no sordid policy confined, Exert their giant efforts in the cause Of equal rights, and liberties and laws — These, too, shall perish — All the patriot band. Who framed the freedom of our native land. And on the ruined base of tyranny, 177 A glorious temple reared to liberty — Are now no more ! — The land that gave them birth Is rendered holy by their sacred earth. And they, on whom their sacred mantles fall. Who now, amid the legislative hall, Still keep in all their fervency, the fires That warmed the bosoms of their patriot sires — Must leave to other hands their mighty trust, And bow their heads full-honoured to the dust. All works of art tend to oblivion lone, Tower, palace, battlement, and funeral stone — The apex of the eternal pyramid Crumbles, and 'neath the rolling sands is hid ; And populous cities : — Where are now the halls, The marble fanes, within Palmyra's walls ? Strewed with the ground, a monumental pile, O'er which decay and envious ruin smile. Where once above the clouds rose purple Tyre, With gilded dome and battlement and spire, The sea-waves dash the angry foam and fret, And sea-worn fishers dry the dripping net- — 1'78 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. And centi-portal Thebes, that, like a rock, Stood war's firm engines and their iron shock- Fell 'neath the slow yet steady stroke of fate. Each wall in dust, and battered down each gate. Where are the splendours of imperial Rome, Her statues, temples, capitolian dome, To which the victor, in triumphal car, Dragged earth's remotest kings taken in war ; While "Ho triumphe" from the myriad train Rolled down the Tiber to the purple main. Where once the palace of the Caesars' rose, The newt, the lizard, and the toad repose ; And the lone owl hoots where the senate rung With the loud eloquence of Tully's tongue. Nor cities only sink amid the rush Of time's eternal torrent, — empires crush, Totter and tumble into dread decay. And, robed in dust, forever pass away. The earth herself shall fail in lapse of time. Her hills shall crumble, and her mounts sublime ; DECAY. 179 The genial juices of her body fail, Her head grow hoary and her features pale ; Her decompounded lirabs to ashes turn. And be laid in the macrocosm's urn. The mother Ocean, too, that ceaseless smiles Upon the features of her purple isles. And sings her lullaby to soothe to rest The offspring pillowed on her snowy breast — Must fall beneath time's scythe, and every isle Be gathered round her dark funereal pile. The sun shall fade, the mighty sun, the urn, Whence pour the beams of all the stars that burn; Whose ocean-tide rolls on the waves of light, To every star that gilds the gloom of night ; Yea, he shall perish, every planet fall, And shrouded be in darknesss ebon pall ; The adamantine pillars of high heaven Be, from their everlasting bases, riven — And dark oblivion wave her flag unfurled, O'er the gray ruins of a crumbled world. Then mourn not, man, th' inevitable doom. The dust, the darkness, of the common tomb ; 180 SCRIPTURAL ANTHOLOGY. Let truth gird up thy loins, and virtue's ray Illume thy footsteps in their downward way To the dim vale of shades, the spirit land, Where silent sleep earth's sons, a mighty band : And when the night of ages rolls away. Before the bursting beams of endless day, From out its dusty tenement shall rise, Thy renovated body to the skies — And shine in splendour as the golden sun, When robed in glory on his burning throne ; In deathless bloom forever live and smile. O'er earth and sun and systems' smouldering pile. ^'^*./^,^A^fMa ^^^^.nm^^ [^^^^m^fs ^^f^rll r^nnjYj 'W '^ ' /^U; A ^ ^^^aM^A/ ^Aaaa kAAAA^^AAArN aAAa:-.'/s, 'f^fSf^K m^'^ mm iRt^mmmmm ^^^^n^^^i