A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the king's command,
He saw that writing's truth:
The lamps around were bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night,-
The morrow proved it true.
"Belshazzar's grave is made,
His kingdom passed away;
He, in the balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay.
The shroud his robe of state,
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne !"
Ex. LXXX.-THE BURIAL OF ARNG LD.*
YE'VE gathered to your place of prayer,
With slow and measured tread:
Your ranks are full, your mates all there—
But the soul of one has fled.
He was the proudest in his strength,
The manliest of ye
Why lies he at that fearful length,
And ye around his pall?
Ye reckon it in days, since he
Strode up that foot-worn aisle,
With his dark eye flashing gloriously,
And his lip wreathed with a smile.
Oh! had it been but told you then,
To mark whose lamp was dim,
From out yon rank of fresh-lipped men,
Would ye have singled him?
Whose was the sinewy arm, which flung
Defiance to the ring?
* A member of the Senior Class in Yale College.
Whose laugh of victory loudest rung,
Yet not for glorying?
Whose heart, in generous deed and thought,
No rivalry might brook,
And yet distinction claiming not?
There lies he-go and look!
On now-his requiem is done;
The last deep prayer is said;-
On to his burial, comrades-on,
With the noblest of the dead!
Slow-for it presses heavily ;-
It is a man ye bear!
Slow-for our thoughts dwell wearily
On the noble sleeper there.
Tread lightly, comrades!-ye have laid
His dark locks on his brow-
Like life- -save deeper light and shade:-
We'll not disturb them now.
Tread lightly--for 'tis beautiful,
That blue veined eyelid's sleep,
Hiding the eye death left so dull,—
Its slumber we will keep.
Rest now!-his journeying is done,-
Your feet are on his sod ;-
Death's chain is on your champion—
He waiteth here his God!
Ay,-turn and weep,-'tis manliness
To be heart-broken here,—
For the grave of earth's best nobleness
Is watered by the tear.
Ex. LXXXI-PROCLIVIOR. (A slight Variation on LONGFELLOW'S "EXCELSIOR.")
THE shades of night were falling fast,
As tow'rd the Haymarket there passed
A youth, whose look told in a trice
That his taste chose the queer device-
PROCLIVIOR!
His hat, a wide-awake; beneath
He tapped a cane against his teeth;
His eye was bloodshot, and there rung,
Midst scraps of slang, in unknown tongue,
PROCLIVIOR!
In calm first-floors he saw the light
Of circles cosy for the night;
But far ahead the gas-lamps glow;
He turned his head, and murmured "Slow." PROCLIVIOR!
"Come early home," his uncle said,
"We all are early off to bed;
The family blame you far and wide ;"
But loud that noisy youth replied-
Stay," said his aunt, come home to sup; Early retire-get early up."
A wink half quivered in his eye;
He answered to the old dame's sigh-
PROCLIVIOR!
"Mind how you meddle with that lamp!
And mind the pavement, for it's damp!"
Such was the peeler's last good-night.
A faint voice stuttered out "All right.”
PROCLIVIOR!
At break of day, as far west-ward
A cab rolled o'er the highways hard,
The early mover stopped to stare
At the wild shouting of the fair—
PROCLIVIOR!
And by the bailiff's faithful hound,
At breakfast-time, a youth was found,
Upon three chairs, with aspect nice,
True to his young life's queer device,
PROCLIVIOR!
Thence, on a dull and muggy day,
They bore him to the bench away,
And there for several months he lay,
While friends speak gravely as they say-
PROCLIVIOR!
MANY a year hath passed away,
Many a dark and dismal year,
Since last I roamed in the lights of day,
Or mingled my own with another's tear:
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!
Here have I watched in this dungeon cell,
Longer than memory's tongue can tell;
Here have I shrieked in my wild despair,
When the damnéd fiends from their prison came, Sported and gamboled, and mocked me here,
With their eyes of fire, and their tongues of flame
Shouting for ever and aye my name!
Woe to the daughters and sons of men-
Woe to them all when I roam again!
How long I have been in this dungeon here,
Little I know, and nothing I care:
What to me is the day, or night,
Summer's heat or autumn sere,
Springtide flowers, or winter's blight, Pleasure's smile, or sorrow's tear?
Time! what care I for thy flight?
Joy! I spurn thee with disdain:
Nothing love I but this clanking chain.
Once I broke from its iron hold:
Nothing I said, but silent and bold,
Like the shepherd that watches his gentle fold,
Like the tiger that crouches in mountain lair,
Hours upon hours, so watched I here;
Till one of the fiends that had come to bring
Herbs from the valley, and drink from the spring,
Stalked through my dungeon entrance in!
Ha! how he shrieked to see me free!
Ho! how he trembled and knelt to me,
He who had mocked me many a day,
And barred me out from its cheerful ray!
Gods! how I shouted to see him pray!
I wreathed my hand in the demon's hair,
And choked his breath in its muttered prayer,
And danced I then in wild delight,
To see the trembling wretch's fright.
Gods! how I crushed his hated bones
'Gainst the jagged wall, and the dungeon stones; And plunged my arm a-down his throat,
And dragged to life his beating heart,
And held it up that I might gloat
To see its quivering fibers start!
Ho! how I drank of the purple flood,
I quafféd and quafféd again of blood,
Till my brain grew dark, and I knew no more,
Till I found myself on this dungeon floor,
Fettered and held by this iron chain!
Ho! when I break its links again,
Ha! when I break its links again,
Woe to the daughters and sons of men!
My frame is shrunk, and my soul is sad,
And devils mock and call me mad.
Many a dark and fearful sight
Haunts me here in the gloom of night:
Mortal smile or human tear
Never cheers or soothes me here:
The spider shrinks from my grasp away,
Though he's known my form for many a day;
The slimy toad, with her diamond eye,
Watches afar, but comes not nigh:
The craven rat, with his filthy brood,
Pilfers and gnaws my scanty food;
But when I strive to make her play,
Snaps at my hands, and flees away:
Light of day, or ray of sun,
Friend or hope, I've none-I've none !
They called me mad: they left me here
To my burning thoughts, and the fiend's despair, Never, ah! never to see again,
Earth, or sky, or sea, or plain;
Doomed through life, if life it be,
To helpless, hopeless misery.
Oh, if a single ray of light
Had pierced the gloom of this endless night;
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