Classic Poem

— The Sentry . Samaria is fallen, king and princes of Judah!
From the roof see now for yourselves
how hidden in fourfold wings of smoke
the Assyrian bull gores
and stamps the loveliest city of Israel
into pebbles and ashes.
— The King . Why do you all,
priests and captains, prophets and princes, servants, serfs and slaves,
delight in bringing me news
worse and still worse, as if speaking the fear of your cowardly hearts
were enchantment against it —
is there never a hamlet in all Israel to go up in smoke,
never a grove,
but you must hurry here to tell me Samaria itself is fallen?
— The Sentry . Have we not counted the cities of Israel
as a poor man counts the coins that must last him or he starves;
have I not notched the losses of Israel
upon my breastbone, that I am not to know when Samaria falls,
where Samaria burns? If it has been the guilt of my feet
to hurry here with bad news, how swiftly would they have run
to bring you cause for joy and rejoicing!
— One of the Guard . An Israelite is come:
he can talk as yet no more than a gasping fish,
but leans against our wall, breathing deep and quickly
the sweet air of Judah, as if he had nearly lost the trick of breathing.
— The Israelite . The mounds their captives, Israelites among them,
had been building higher and higher
overtopped us —
the swarm of us
who had hurried behind the stout walls, into the rooms of stone,
from the fields, the vineyards, and the pastures;
and they looked down upon Samaria,
as a boy coming upon a habitation of ants
leans over it —
streets and store-rooms, galleries and walls —
the little heap
sand beneath his foot and the lives of its multitude
his.
Then from our lurking places we saw a commotion
in the Assyrian camp and thought it perhaps
such as Saul had once seen among the Philistines
when Jonathan and his armor-bearer climbed among them;
and in broad daylight the Assyrians marched away,
king and captains, soldiers and captives,
and we thought,
Perhaps the Lord has interceded for us at last;
but the host marched towards Egypt,
and left only a single captain and his men to storm the city —
so little was Samaria of the marble palaces for Nineveh,
so small a mouthful Israel and his ten tribes!
The strength of the ants is their multitude,
but Israel is few
and these captives,
to be taken a thousand miles,
beyond the great rivers,
among the cities of the Medes, into the outermost provinces,
lost among multitudes.
As for me, what god was in me —
but as I saw troop after troop of captives,
knotted to each other with rope, whipped along,
marched off in clouds of dust,
I who was among those still untied,
sprang away through the files of bowmen,
among the wheeling chariots and prancing horses,
spears and arrows kicking up dust about me,
hearing the shouts and thinking only,
Let it be death if it must be death,
but if it is life, I am free.
— One of the Princes . An unlucky day it was for you, Joseph,
when your sons shouted, To your tents, Israel,
what share have we in Judah?
when you forsook the holy kingdom of the sons of David,
and, worshipping the golden calves of Jeroboam,
came no more to the temple of our God;
then, as one who goes from his city
and meets in a path a band of thieves
and his throat is cut for his cloak,
as an animal is taken for its hide;
as a child, wandering in its play
beyond the street of its father's house,
caught and trussed and shipped for a silver penny
over leagues of desert or the pathless sea —
so you are lost, Israel.
— Another of the Princes . Let the king command those who are skilled in words,
to make a lament for the tribes of Israel
that shall outlast the monuments of the Assyrians:
let them tell of the glory of Joseph in Egypt;
how Zebulun and Naphtali under Barak and Deborah
fought the kings of Canaan beside the river Kishon
until the river swept them away;
how Menasseh, Naphtali and Asher followed Gideon;
how Japhtah of Gilead fought the Ammonites,
and of Samson the Danite who fought the Philistines;
let them tell of the prophets of Israel:
of Samuel who anointed Saul of Benjamin king,
of Elijah the Tishbite who prophesied against the priests of Baal,
and of Hosea who pleaded with Ephraim.
The wisdom of Deborah and Hosea,
the bravery of Barak and Gideon,
the strength of Samson,
the zeal of Samuel and the saintliness of Elijah
are gone from us to be lost among the cities of the Medes;
Israel and Judah were small among the nations,
small and afraid, but they were brothers,
quarreling and striking at each other,
and holding each other by the hand;
now Israel, the stronger,
whose land was fertile and whose cities numerous,
whose tribes were ten and ours are only two —
lament for Israel, poets of Judah,
as David lamented for his brother Jonathan.
— The King . Let those of you who are magicians and sorcerers
whisper your incantations and answer me;
answer me, you who are priests
and sacrifice the doves, the lambs and rams of our people
upon the altars of our God,
bright with undying fires of perfumed wood;
answer, you who are learned in the wisdom of Egypt,
and you who are wise with the learning of the Chaldeans;
you prophets and you sons of prophets, answer me;
answer, you who are skilled in war,
who are captains of my bands,
tell me what Judah and Jerusalem are to do,
what I am to do now, the anointed of the Lord,
the son of David,
before the Assyrians shout their taunts at our walls
and at our God,
while their captives are building the siege-works above our towers.
— The Chief of the Captains . It is an old saying of our people
that the battle is not always to the strong;
were it otherwise there would be no beasts but the young lions,
no birds but eagles, no fish but Leviathan —
God has given each his life and his strength.
If the Assyrian, like the very locusts for number,
come against us, his horses and his chariots
will ride us down,
and he will take our fenced cities, even Jerusalem.
Now I say to the king, Let us choose men,
even as Gideon when he fought the Midianites
and took the gold moons of their camels,
and make ourselves places in the hills,
even as David on the rocks of ndash-gedi,
as Moses when he fled into the desert,
where no riders can follow and no chariot come;
if the citizens live, what matter that the cities are broken down.
Let the weak die, but the hardy need not fear;
in our strongholds we shall outstay the Assyrians
until, as a wind blows and is still,
their empire is like that of Egypt now,
as the might of the Philistines;
for if the righteous die, so do the wicked;
if death is a tyrant, he also frees.
We must become what we were — soldiers,
no longer watching herds for others to harry,
gathering the summer fruits for others to rob.
— A Prince . Your captain, my lord, has spoken like a soldier,
and cautiously, as a captain should;
but, before a siege, I have heard the herald's speech,
and, I think, we need not fight at the citadel
before the walls are lost.
Because on the hills and in caves,
as our father Jacob became Israel,
we shall become Esaus,
rather than to give up cities and fields,
our vineyards and our olive trees,
let us pay his tribute to the Assyrian.
Let us cut the gold from the pillars of the temple
and take the cups and basins from its treasury,
the candlesticks and shields of gold, of silver, and of brass,
and send them as a present to the Assyrian;
for it is better that we lose this than all,
or even that we lose all than our lives.
— The Prophet . The strength of soldiers, the skill of the captain,
and the wisdom of councillors, cannot save us;
neither arms nor craft will save us
from the multitude of Assyria or the multitudes of Egypt;
the Lord our God alone can save us.
Who is the Lord our God? The God of Righteousness.
The God of Justice will not let the just perish utterly;
the God of Judah hates the wrongdoer:
though he seem to touch the stars with the plume of his helmet,
he shall leave no footprint on the rock
and the wind of morning
shall sweep his tracks from the sand.
Even though your grey hairs go bloody to the grave,
and the chariots press their ruts
across the bodies of your children in the dust,
fear not, you who believe in the Lord:
whether a remnant is hidden in the caves of Judah
or are slaves in the cities of those who speak a language unknown to you,
so long as Jacob remembers his God,
and binds the ordinances of the Lord upon his hand and brow,
hammers them upon the doorpost,
and thinks of them when he rises to work and when he lies down to rest,
Jerusalem is not taken, nor has Judah perished,
neither has the God of Judah become like the idol of a captured city,
that lies, blackened with smoke and blood, fallen from his throne.