HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. OH, Mariamne! now for thee The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony, And wild remorse to rage succeeding Oh, Mariamne! where art thou? Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading: Ah, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. And is she dead? — and did they dare My wrath but doomed my own despair: The sword that smote her's o'er me waving. But thou art cold, my murdered love! And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above, And leaves my soul unworthy saving. She's gone, who shared my diadem; She sunk, with her my joys entombing; I swept that flower from Judah's stem Whose leaves for me alone were blooming, And mine's the guilt and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming; And I have earned those tortures well, Which unconsumed are still consuming! VISION OF BELSHAZZAR. THE King was on his throne, The godless Heathen's wine! In that same hour and hall, And wrote as if on sand: A solitary hand Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. The monarch saw, and shook, Which mar our royal mirth." Chaldea's seers are good, But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age Are wise and deep in lore, But now they were not sage, They saw but knew no more. A captive in the land, A stranger and a youth, "Belshazzar's grave is made, His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate, The Persian on his throne." 18* OH! SNATCHED AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM. OH! snatched away in beauty's bloom, Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And oft by yon blue gushing stream, Away! we know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress. Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. THY DAYS ARE DONE. THY days are done, thy fame begun ; The slaughters of his sword! Though thou art fall'n, while we are free, The generous blood that flowed from thee Thy name, our charging hosts along, Thy fall, the theme of choral song To weep would do thy glory wrong; |