And Mercy broods above the distant gloom. Thou palsied earth, with noonday night o'erspread,
Thou sickening sun, so dark, so deep, so red,
Ye hov'ring ghosts, that throng the starless air,
Why shakes the earth? why fades the light?
declare.
Are those his limbs, with ruthless scourges torn?
His brows all bleeding with the twisted thorn?
His the pale form, the meek forgiving eye,
Raised from the cross in patient agony ?
-Be dark, thou sun-thou noonday night, arise,
And hide, O hide, the dreadful sacrifice.
Ye faithful few, by bold affection led,
Who round the Saviour's cross your sorrows
Not for his sake your tearful vigils keep ;-
Weep for your country, for your children weep.
-Vengeance, thy fiery wing their race pursued;
Thy thirsty poniard blushed with infant blood.
Roused at thy call, and panting still for game,
The bird of war, the Latian eagle came.
Then Judah raged, by ruffian Discord led,
Drunk with the steamy carnage of the dead :
He saw his sons by dubious slaughter fall,
And war without, and death within the wall.
Wide-wasting Plague, gaunt Famine, mad Despair,
And dire Debate,and clamorous Strife was there:
Love,strong as Death,retained his might no more,
And the pale parent drank her children's gore.
Yet they, who wont to roam th' ensanguined
plain,
And spurn with fell delight their kindred slain;
E'en they, when high above the dusty fight,
Their burning Temple rose in lurid light,
To their loved altars paid a parting groan,
And in their country's woes forgot their own.
As 'mid the cedar courts, and gates of gold,
The trampled ranks in miry carnage rolled,
To save their Temple every hand essayed,
And with cold fingers grasped the feeble blade:
Through their torn veins reviving fury ran,
And life's last anger warmed the dying man.
But heavier far the fettered captive's doom;
To glut with sighs the iron ear of Rome :
To swell, slow pacing by the car's tall side,
The stoic tyrant's philosophic pride;
To flesh the lion's rav'nous jaws, or feel
The sportive fury of the fencer's steel;
Or pant, deep plunged beneath the sultry mine, For the light gales of balmy Palestine.
Ah, fruitful now no more,-an empty coast,
She mourned her sons enslaved, her glories lost.
In her wide streets the lonely raven bred,
There barked the wolf, and dire hyenas fed.
Yet midst her towery fanes, in ruin laid,
The pilgrim saint his murmuring vespers paid.
'Twas his to climb the tufted rocks, and rove
The chequered twilight of the olive grove;
'T was his to bend beneath the sacred gloom,
And wear with many a kiss Messiah's tomb;
While forms celestial filled his tranced eye,
The day-light dreams of pensive piety,
O'er his still breast a tearful fervor stole,
And softer sorrows charmed the mourner's soul.
O, lives there one, who mocks his artless zeal?
Too proud to worship, and too wise to feel?
Be his the soul with wintry Reason blest,
The dull, lethargic sovereign of the breast.
Be his the life that creeps in dead repose,
No joy that sparkles, and no tear that flows.
Far other they who reared yon pompous shrine And bade the rock with Parian marble shine. Then hallowed Peace renewed her wealthy reign,
Then altars smoked, and Sion smiled again. There sculptured gold and costly gems were seen, And all the bounties of the British queen;
There barb'rous kings their sandaled nations led, And steel-clad champions bowed the crested head.
There, when her fiery race the desert poured,
And pale Byzantium feared Medina's sword,
When coward Asia shook in trembling wo,
And bent appalled before the Bactrian bow;
From the moist regions of the western star
The wand'ring hermit waked the storm of war.
Their limbs all iron, and their souls all flame,
A countless host, the red-cross warriors came.
E'en hoary priests the sacred combat wage,
And clothe in steel the palsied arm of age;
While beardless youths and tender maids assume
The weighty morion and the glancing plume.
In sportive pride the warrior damsels wield
The ponderous falchion, and the sunlike shield,
And start to see their armor's iron gleam
Dance with blue lustre in Tabaria's stream.
The blood-red banner floating o'er their van,
All madly blithe the mingled myriads ran.
Impatient Death beheld his destined food,
And hovering vultures snuffed the scent of blood.
Not such the numbers, nor the host so dread,
By Northern Brenn or Scythian Timur led,
Nor such the heart-inspiring zeal that bore
United Greece to Phrygia's reedy shore.
There Gaul's proud knights with boastful mien
advance,
From the long line, and shake the cornel lance;
Here, linked with Thrace, in close battalions
Ausonia's sons, a soft inglorious band;
There the stern Norman joins the Austrian train,
And the dark tribes of late reviving Spain;
Here in black files, advancing firin and slow,
Victorious Albion twangs the deadly bow :-
Albion, still prompt the captive's wrong to aid
And wield in freedom's cause the freeman's gen-
erous blade.
Ye sainted spirits of the warrior dead,
Whose giant force Britannia's armies led,
Whose bickering falchions, foremost in the fight,
Still poured confusion on the Soldan's might;
Lords of the biting axe and beamy spear,
Wide conquering Edward, lion Richard, hear.
At Albion's call your crested pride resume,
And burst the marble slumbers of the tomb.
Your sons behold, in arm, in heart the same,
Still press the footsteps of parental fame,
To Salem still their generous aid supply,
And pluck the palm of Syrian chivalry.
When he, from towery Malta's yielding isle, And the green waters of reluctant Nile, Th'apostate chief,—from Misraim's subject shore To Acre's walls his trophied banners bore; When the pale desert marked his proud array,
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