Classic Poem

" Morn-rays of Easter down the vale are stealing;
The Lord looks down again from Olivet there;
To greet Him, still no bells, no songs are pealing,
Faint, festal murmurings, only, thrill the air.

Still from all battlements the crescent blazes,
Clear, calm, victorious, as its type on high;
Yet o'er the sepulchre the cross still raises
Its head unharmed, nor do the monks yet fly.

Yet are they, now, no more true Doges, going
As guards around their Master's burial-stone;
But only jackals, each to other showing
Their teeth, and snarling o'er a dead man's bone!

Split into sects fanatical, the raging
Hell-fire of hate, no lamp of peace, light they;
The crescent and the cross were never waging
Such bloody fights, as here brown cowl and gray.

Altar and pulpit now are fortifications,
The church a camp, where, ranged in hostile bands,
The Roman northward, west the Copt, take stations,
Eastward the Greek, and south the Armenian stands.

But for the Pasha's frown and glances wary,
Their blood long since had stained the holiest place;
His rod alone, the dreaded Janizary,
Keeps peace 'mong followers of the Prince of Peace!

Within yon convent garden, now resembling,
With its broad walls, a bristling barricade,
As if the rose and colewort crouched there, trembling
At the approach of siege and fierce blockade;

A hoary monk upon his knees is lying,
His white beard shaken by the morning air,
And, with the radiant roses round him vying
In fervor, gushes up toward heaven his prayer:

" Fair are ye, green Provence's vales and mountains,
Land of my childhood, greeted oft in dreams,
Where down the sunny hills, from purple fountains,
As in a golden cup, the grape-juice streams!

" On whose calm brow the olive-foliage, glistening,
A bright green crown of endless peace appears;
On whose full breast the blue sky broods, and, listening,
The throbbing pulse of hidden fountains hears!

" Ye groves of pomegranate and orange glowing,
Green lawns and meadows where gay flowrets throng!
Thou endless garden-land with harvests flowing,
Thou blissful realm of music and of song!

" Yet fairer are thy vales, O Zion! sleeping,
A hymn of stone, that with mute music rings,
Where, over heaps of dust and tomb-stones sweeping,
The sad death-angel hallelujah sings!

" Ay, fairer are thy sallow fields, forever
A prey to heathen flames and war's iron heel,
Dumb as the anchorite's own lips, whence never
The faintest smile through all his gloom may steal!

" Ay, fair art thou, as a dead mother, sleeping,
Clasped to her heart the cross, still dear as gold!
O'er her pale face a lustrous dream is creeping,
That once her womb the world's big fates did hold!

" And gladly shall my dust, to dust returning,
Sink into thy gray pall, one day, O vale!
Might but my dying glances, heavenward yearning,
High on the battlements the cross-flag hail!

" Wouldst thou once more, crowning the hills with glory,
Lord, let thy oriflamb victorious wave,
And songs of bells and pilgrims hovering o'er me,
Instead of flowers, make sweet my lowly grave!

" True, when I, late, in all thy Godhead's anger
Saw thee in dream, thy thunder-voice cried, " Cease!
Begone, ye graceless sons of strife, nor longer
Pollute and poison here the fount of peace!

" " My fruit-tree, in earth's garden once I set it,
That rich and broad its leafy tent might be;
Into a thousand branches ye have split it,
And now each twig would be itself a tree!

" " When on the cross, I, bleeding, hung, derided,
A hireling crew by lot my raiment shared;
Ye, reckless wretches, have my tomb divided,
And godlessly, to steal and sell it, dared!

" " Ye who, to call a step within my temple,
A gate, — your own, — war's brazen clarion sound;
Know that the Earth's a step-stone to my temple, —
Its gate, the whole wide universe around!

" " Ye blind ones, fighting there till ye are hoary,
About an altar-lamp, in your deep night,
Ye dream not that a world of grace and glory,
Round and above you, beams with God's own light!

" " Still to the crumbling stones, ye worms, be clinging!
There is your place! still gnaw the mouldering bone!
My Word's a well of life, forever springing;
Nor can ye chain it to the dead, cold stone! "

" So spakest thou; yet lo, what I, with streaming
Tears, did implore, has come from thy right hand!
A host of Godfrey's sons, with banners gleaming,
Have pitched their tents within the Pharaoh's land!

" Bright in their eyes the true old battle-fire!
Their heads with the old glory's halo crowned!
In arm and breast the life that nerved their sires!
There, too, may well the good old faith be found!

" Hot glows the sun! yet o'er their heads the twinkling,
Fresh cooling palms of victory fail not now!
The spray-wreathed cataracts of the Nile are sprinkling
The new-found glory's baptism on their brow!

Behold the chief! Think you, the mildly breathing
Hesperia, only, garlands has in store?
O see, how now, as if his head enwreathing,
Sparkles and waves Sahara's sandy floor!

" Thou giv'st him, Lord, a portion of the power
That once made Lebanon's cedars bow their crown!
The Spirit hovers o'er his head this hour,
That once in tongues of living fire came down!

" Not over Murad Bey alone impending,
His sword, a fiery rod, pursues its path!
Not with proud Mamelukes alone contending,
He goes to judgment in his dreadful wrath!

" I know, the desert stretching out before him,
Is but, to Zion's vale, a broad highway;
The Pyramids gigantic towering o'er him
Are but the stepping-stones to Golgotha!

" There shall he stand one day, the cross in glory
Uplifting, at his feet the crescent hurled,
The hoary landscape greets his mantle hoary,
Covering, like that, the grandeur of a world!

" On Golgotha he rests, his eagles checking,
Beneath the cross that won his fairest crown;
Off from his brow all other garlands taking,
Upon the ransomed grave he lays them down!"

So spake the monk; and hark, the mountains, muttering,
Groan, as if brazen armies tramped along;
And hark, o'erhead sweep wings of eagles fluttering,
And clang of distant arms, and battle-song.

Ay, they're his armies! yet, with speed victorious,
In shining ranks, they all sweep by — sweep by!
Ay, they're his eagles! yet their pinions glorious
Aloft, — afar, — go rustling, rushing by!