Loud and long the tempest blew,
Uptackle ran the gallant crew;
The furl'd her sails in haste,
Half yielding to the furious blast.
But mightier powers had rendered vain
The compact of the hellish train.
And soon like eagles scattered far,
By the rude rage of windy war,
The squadrons rallied to their post,
Lining with fate the trembling coast.
Storming with rage, the demon finds
The grey commandress of the winds,
And loud with furious jars assail'd,
Demanding why her magic fail'd.
"Alas!" the Beldam cry'd, and shook
Her sides with laughter as she spoke,
"My friend, you quite mistook my meaning;
Dead fingers from the ocean gleaning,
That hand I meant is active still;
And HE that baffles all our skill,
Defends from ev'ry chance of war,
That member with peculiar care.
But, for the spoils you and your
Gave me, a treasure past belief,
They shall be paid (by hell I vow)
With ten-fold usury below."
A PRIZE POEM. By REGINALD Heber.
EFT of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widow'd queen, forgotten Sion, mourn!
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desart rears its craggy stone?
While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?-
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy view'd?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdu'd?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:
But lawless Force, and meagre Want is there,
And the quick darting eye of restless Fear;
While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid,
Folds his dark wing beneath the ivy shade.
Ye guardian saints! ye warrior sons of heaven,
To whose high care Judæa's state was given !
O wont of old your nightly watch to keep,
A host of gods, on Sion's towery steep!
If e'er your secret footsteps linger still
By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill;
If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell,
And mourn the captive land you lov'd so well;
(For oft, 'tis said, in Kedron's palmy vale,
Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale,
And, blest as balmy dews that Hermon cheer,
Melt in soft cadence on the pilgrim's ear ;)
Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high
Mock the weak notes of mortal minstrelsy!
Yet, might your aid this anxious breast inspire
With one faint spark of Milton's seraph fire,
Then should my Muse ascend with bolder flight,
And wave her cagle-plumes exulting in the light,
Oh happy once in heaven's peculiar love,
Delight of men below, and saints above!
Though, Salem, now the spoiler's ruffian hand
Has loos'd his hell-hounds o'er thy wasted land;
Though weak, and whelm'd beneath the storms of fate,
Thy house is left unto thee desolate ;
Though thy proud stones in cumbrous ruin fall,
And seas of sand o'er-top thy mouldering wall;
Yet shall the Muse to fancy's ardent view
Each shadowy trace of faded pomp renew:
And as the Seer on Pisgah's topmost brow,
With glistening eye beheld the plain below,
With prescient ardour drank the scented gale,
And bade the opening glades of Canaan hail ;
Her eagle eye shall scan the prospect wide,
From Carmel's cliffs to Almotana's tide;
The flinty waste, the cedar-tufted hill,
The liquid health of smooth Ardeni's rill ;
The grot, where, by the watch-fire's evening blaze,
The robber riots, or the hermit prays;
Or, where the tempest rives the hoary stone,
The wintry top of giant Lebanon.
Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold,
Those stormy seas the warrior Druses hold;
From Norman blood their lofty line they trace,
Their lion courage proves their generous race.
They, only they, while all around them kneel
In sullen homage to the Thracian steel,
Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear
The patriot terrors of the mountain spear.
Yes, val'rous chiefs, while yet your sabres shine,
The native guard of feeble Palestine,
O ever thus, by no vain boast dismay'd,
Defend the birthright of the cedar shade!
What though no more for you th' obedient gale
Swells the white bosom of the Tyrian sail ;
Though now no more your glittering marts unfold
Sidonian dyes and Lusitanian gold;
Though not for you the pale and sickly slave
Forgets the light in Ophir's wealthy cave;
Yet your's the lot, in proud contentment blest,
Where cheerful labour leads to tranquil rest.
No robber-rage the ripening harvest knows;
And unrestrain'd the generous vintage flows:
Nor less your sons to manliest deeds aspire,
And Asia's mountains glow with Spartan fire.
So when, deep sinking in the rosy main,
The western Sun forsakes the Syrian plain,
His watery rays refracted lustre shed,
And pour their latest light on Carmel's head.
Yet shines your praise, amid surrounding gloom,
As the lone lamp that trembles in the tomb:
For, few the souls that spurn a tyrant's chain,
And small the bounds of Freedom's scanty reign.
As the poor outcast on the cheerless wild,
Arabia's parent, clasp'd her fainting child,
And wander'd near the roof no more her home,
Forbid to linger, yet afraid to roam:
My sorrowing fancy quits the happier height,
And southward throws her half-averted sight.
For, sad the scenes Judea's plains disclose,
A dreary waste of undistinguish'd woes:
See War untir'd, his crimson pinions spread,
And foul Revenge, that tramples on the dead!
Lo, where from far the guarded fountains shine,
Thy tents, Nebaioth, rise, and Kedar, thine!
'Tis your's the boast to mark the stranger's way,
And spur your headlong chargers on the prey,
Or rouse your nightly numbers from afar,
And on the hamlet pour the waste of war:
Nor spare the hoary head, nor bid your eye
Revere the sacred smile of infancy.
Such now the clans, whose fiery coursers feed
Where waves on Kishon's bank the whispering reed;
And their's the soil, where, curling to the skies,
Smokes on Gerizim's mount Samaria's sacrifice.
While Israel's sons, by scorpion curses driven,
Outcasts of earth, and reprobate of heaven,
Through the wide world in friendless exile stray,
Remorse and Shame sole comrades of their way,
With dumb despair their country's wrongs behold,
And, dead to glory, only burn for gold.
O Thou their Guide, their Father, and their Lord,
Lov'd for thy mercies, for thy power ador'd! ·
If at thy name the waves forgot their force,
And refluent Jordan sought his trembling source;
If at thy name, like sheep, the mountains fled,
And haughty Sirion bow'd his marble head :-
To Israel's woes a pitying ear incline;
And raise from earth thy long-neglected vine!
Her rifled fruits behold the heathen bear,
And wild wood-boars her mangled clusters tear.
Was it for this she stretch'd her peopled reign,
From far Euphrates to the western main ?
For this, o'er many a hill her boughs she threw,
And her wide arms like goodly cedars grew?
For this, proud Edom slept beneath the shade,
And o'er th' Arabian deep her branches play'd?
O feeble boast of transitory power!
Vain, fruitless trust of Judah's happier hour!
Not such their hope, when through the parted main,
The cloudy wonder led the warrior train;
Not such their hope, when through the fields of night,
The torch of heaven diffus'd its friendly light:
Not, when fierce Conquest urg'd the onward war,
And hurl'd stern Canaan from his iron car:
Nor, when five monarch's led to Gibeon's fight,
In rude array, the harness'd Amorite :
Yes-in that hour, by mortal accents stay'd,
The lingering Sun his fiery wheels delay'd;
The Moon, obedient, trembled at the sound!
Curb'd her pale car, and check'd her mazy round!
Let Sinai tell-for she beheld his might,
And God's own darkness veil'd her mystic height:
(He, cherub-borne, upon the whirlwind rode,
And the red mountain like a furnace glow'd:)
Let Sinai tell-but who shall dare recite
His praise, his power,-eternal, infinite?-
Awe-struck I cease; nor bid my strains aspire,
Or serve his altar with unhallow'd fire.
Such were the cares, that watch'd o'er Israel's fate,
And such the glories of their infant state.
-Triumphant race! and did your power decay?
Fail'd the bright promise of your early day?
No;-by that sword, which, red with heathen gore,
A giant spoil, the stripling champion bore;
By him, the chief to farthest India known,
The mighty master of the ivory throne;
In heaven's own strength, high towering o'er her foes,
Victorious Salem's lion banner rose :
Before her footstool prostrate nations lay,
And vassal tyrants crouch'd beneath her sway.
-And he, the warrior sage, whose restless mind,
Through nature's mazes wander'd unconfin'd;
Who, every bird and beast, and insect knew,
And spoke of every plant that quaffs the dew;
To him were known-so Hagar's offspring tell-
The powerful sigill and the starry spell;
The midnight call, hell's shadowy legions dread,
And sounds that burst the slumbers of the dead.
Hence all his might; for who could these oppose,
And Tadmor thus, and Syrian Balbec rose.
Yet e'en the works of toiling Genii fall,
And vain was Estakhar's enchanted wall.
In frantic converse with the mournful wind,
There oft the houseless Santon rests reclin'd;
Strange shapes he views, and drinks with wondering ears
The voices of the dead, and songs of other
Such, the faint echo of departed praise,
Still sound Arabia's legendary lays;
And thus their fabling bards delight to tell,
How lovely were thy tents, O Israel!
For thee his ivory load Behemoth bore,
And far Sofala teem'd with golden ore;
Thine all the arts that wait on wealth's increase,
Or bask and wanton in the beam of peace.
When Tyber slept beneath the cypress gloom,
And silence held the lonely woods of Rome;
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