Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before, Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore,

And still responsive to the trumpet's cry

The priestly sistrum murmured-Victory ?— Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?

Whom come ye forth to combat?-warriors,

[blocks in formation]

These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train

Red from the scourge and recent from the chain? God of the poor, the poor and friendless save. Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave.— North, south, and west the sandy whirlwinds fly, The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.

On earth's last margin throng the weeping train; Their cloudy guide moves on:- And must we swim the main ?'

'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood― Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood

He comes-their leader comes:-the man of

God

O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads. The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.

With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low roofed haunt, are

seen.

Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread :
The beetling waters storm above their head:
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.

Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night.
Still in their van, along that dreadful road,

Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God.

Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave

On the long mirror of the rosy wave :
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek and dance in every eye-
To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain :
Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling sight
confine,

And tenfold darkness broods above their line.
Yet on they fare by reckless vengeance led,

And range unconscious through the ocean's bed.

Till midway now-that strange and fiery form Showed his dread visage lightening through the storm;

With withering splendor blasted all their might, And broke their chariot- wheels, and marred their coursers' flight.

Fly, Misraim, fly :'-The ravenous floods they

see,

And fiercer than the floods, the Deity.

'Fly, Misraim, fly:'-From Edom's coral strand
Again the prophet stretched his dreadful wand :—
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves--a dark and lonely deep--
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast:
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.

O, welcome came the morn, where Israel stood

In trustless wonder by the avenging flood:
O, welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below:
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car-
A few sad relics of a nation's war:
Alas, how few!-Then, soft as Elim's well
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose hardened heart alike had borne

The house of bondage and the oppressor's scorn,
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude-

Till kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound:

And in fierce joy, no more by doubt suppressed,
The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,

Poured on the winds of heaven her wild sweet

harmony.

[ocr errors]

Where now,' she sang, the tall Egyptian spear? On's sunlike shield, and Zoan's chariot, where? Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. Shout, Israel, for the Lord has triumphed.'And every pause between, as Miriam sang, From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,Sbout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed.'

4

LINES

SPOKEN IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD,

ON LORD GRENVILLE'S INSTALLATION

AS CHANCELLOR.

YE viewless guardians of these sacred shades,
Dear dreams of early song, Aonian maids!-
And you, illustrious dead, whose spirits speak
In every flush that tints the student's cheek,
As, wearied with the world, he seeks again
The page of better times and greater men ;
If with pure worship we your steps pursue,
And youth, and health, and rest forget for you,
(Whom most we serve, to whom our lamp burns
bright

Through the long toils of not ingrateful night,)
Yet, yet be present.-Let the worldly train
Mock our cheap joys, and hate our useless strain,
Intent on freighted wealth, or proud to rear
The fleece Iberian or the pampered steer ;-
Let sterner science with unwearied eye
Explore the circling spheres and map the sky;
His long-drawn mole let lordly commerce scan,

« AnteriorContinuar »