But lawless Force, and meagre Want are there, And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear, While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid, Folds his dank wing beneath the ivy shade. Ye guardian saints! ye warrior sons of Heaven, To whose high care Judæa's state was given! O wont of old your nightly watch to keep, A host of gods, on Sion's towery steep! By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill; If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell, Yet, might your aid this anxious breast inspire Then should my Muse ascend with bolder flight, O happy once in Heaven's peculiar love, Though, Salem, now the spoiler's ruffian hand Has loos'd his hell-hounds o'er thy wasted land; Though weak, and whelm'd beneath the storms of fate, Thy house is left unto thee desolate; Though thy proud stones in cumbrous ruin fall, And seas of sand o'ertop thy mould'ring wall; Yet shall the Muse to Fancy's ardent view Each shadowy trace of faded pomp renew: The liquid health of smooth Ardeni's rill; The grot, where, by the watch-fire's evening blaze, The robber riots, or the hermit prays; Or where the tempest rives the hoary stone, The wintry top of giant Lebanon. Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold, Those stormy seats the warrior Druses hold; From Norman blood their lofty line they trace, They, only they, while all around them kneel Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear The patriot terrors of the mountain spear. Yes, valorous chiefs, while yet your sabres shine, The native guard of feeble Palestine, O, ever thus, by no vain boast dismay'd, Defend the birthright of the cedar shade! What though no more for you th' obedient gale Swells the white bosom of the Tyrian sail; Though now no more your glitt'ring marts unfold Sidonian dyes and Lusitanian gold; Though not for you the pale and sickly slave Forgets the light in Ophir's wealthy cave; And pour their latest light on Carmel's head. Yet shines your praise, amid surrounding gloom, As the lone lamp that trembles in the tomb: For few the souls that spurn a tyrant's chain, As the poor outcast on the cheerless wild, Arabia's parent, clasp'd her fainting child, And wander'd near the roof, no more her home, Forbid to linger, yet afraid to roam; My sorrowing Fancy quits the happier height, And southward throws her half-averted sight. For sad the scenes Judæa's plains disclose, A dreary waste of undistinguish'd woes: Lo, where from far the guarded fountains shine, And on the hamlet pour the waste of war; Nor spare the hoary head, nor bid your eye Revere the sacred smile of infancy. Such now the clans, whose fiery coursers feed Where waves on Kishon's bank the whisp'ring reed; And theirs the soil, where, curling to the skies, Outcasts of earth, and reprobate of heaven, |