Classic Poem

In Eastern lands where — as two children playing
Peep with their ruddy cheeks from blooming bowers
The fairy legend and the wise old saying
Spring up in rosy woods among the flowers;

There many a simple herdsman tells the story,
How Jesus Christ, a pilgrim, walks unseen,
Clothed in his resurrection-robes of glory,
Each Easter morn, on Olivet's heights of green;

Down on his former earthly pathway gazing,
Where cross and shroud once rose before his view;
Where Zion sate, in golden splendor blazing,
Bulwark of granite, which his curse o'erthrew! —

And Easter now had come; the Lord stood musing
O'er a bald landscape, desolate and gray,
Where, far as eye could see, the scene confusing,
Ruins and rubbish, dust and ashes lay!

Well knows he, these are but the clods, loose lying,
Of the upturned and fresh-ploughed tillage land,
Where waves of grain one day shall roll, and, vying
With crowns of gold, the yellow sheaves shall stand!

He sees therefrom the new religion springing,
With a deep root, a giant trunk up-tower,
Arching o'er land and sea and widely flinging
Its shade and fruit, its healing, quickening power!

Death o'er these grounds his triumph-march has taken,
No trace of human footstep can be seen!
Murmurs no song of bird, no leaf, wind-shaken,
Quivers no blade, no grain-field glistens green!

But, doubly high the conqueror Death enthroning,
One slender show of life yet lingers here:
Where down its rocky path brook Kedron, moaning,
Whispers, like poet's dirge, in Fancy's ear:

" Complacently I once these limbs extended,
Pillowed on blossoms, silver sand my bed,
Till from Moriah's height the storm that rended
Its temple, rolled the ruins on my head!

" From stone to stone I drag my limbs, now, weeping,
Ineeds must groan aloud for grief and wrath;
Wounded and sore by rock and ruin creeping,
Red, as if bleeding, is my current's path!

" That current, like a glass, once held enchanted
The tower of kings, the temple-courts of God,
Mountains, wall-garlanded and palace-planted,
By men, once worthy of such splendors, trod!

" Oh, that the rocks had shattered first the mirror
That imaged once this beauty, power and pride,
Ere it had borne these shapes of death and terror,
These bare and blasted scenes on every side!

" Scenes that beheld, all drunk with blood and power,
That best of men, great Titus, prowl for prey!
Whispered one trickling tear at evening hour:
Has not enough of good been done to-day?

" As, mad with spoils, his brandished axe was flashing,
Did no foreboding make his hand to shake,
That once his mother Rome should come down crashing,
With Zion's ruins piled upon her neck?

" Ah no! For then the sea of desolation
Had haply heard the strong command: " Thus far! "
Not then had he, Neptune of devastation,
Through blood-waves urged his storm-compelling car!

" Ha! how like words of God's own curse, are lying
Rocks, corpses, in this vale's great, unclosed grave!
See Rome's victorious eagle, o'er them flying,
As burial-raven, his dark pinion wave!

" There, Queen of Cities, once in state she rested;
Four hills, gold posts, upheld her royal bed,
Thereon, in robes of sunny radiance vested,
The giant woman laid her lofty head.

" Ranged round the bed, like vases full of flowers,
There at her feet lay gardens broad and fair,
And near her, palm-hills, from their waving bowers,
With great, green fans sent coolness through the air.

" The golden temple's dome, in beauty shining,
A holy crown, her brow encircling graced;
The only crown, o'er royal forehead twining!
God's only temple in the world's wide space!

" Her sons and daughters — whosoe'er had seen them,
Had seen her two dark eyes of fiery light;
Who might apportion beauty's prize between them?
Who say which glowed more fair, more dazzling bright?

" That noble build of royal limbs confining,
A threefold bulwark strongly spanned her round,
As if of gold and brass a bodice shining;
And I round all as diamond girdle wound.

" Greatest of corpses, there she lies — behold her!
Her crown is dashed to pieces on the stones!
The ruined walls that lie around and moulder,
These are her body's crushed and crumbling bones!

" The tombs that in the rock she hewed — they only,
Unharmed by all the shocks of time, live on;
They cluster round this grave-yard, vast and lonely,
Like termite-hills around Mount Lebanon!

" And when the mighty structure came down crashing,
Far flew the giant dust-cloud, turning pale
The landscape once so green, in sunlight flashing,
And flung o'er grayest moss a grayer veil

" The remnant of the people fled, live corpses,
Dead without temple, statute, fatherland!
And tree and bush, both withering at life's sources,
Sank on their pallid faces in the sand!

" Forth from their haunts the nightingales went rushing,
And all the birds, across the distant wave;
Unfitly would their jocund strains be gushing
Where all is sad and silent as the grave.

" And, following them, forth flew the cloud of roses,
Till the blue sea cried, Halt! your flight give o'er!
There, now, their bloom to fancy's eye discloses
A flowery dawn along the rich green shore!

" Then forth the circle of the seasons fleeted;
There is no spring where shoots no spear of green;
No autumn smile the naked landscape greeted, —
For nought can fade where bloom is never seen.

" All sounds, all colors, from the landscape banished!
And all, all life constrained far hence to fly!
Myself alone, still lingering, all else vanished,
Hang as a tear in Desolation's eye."