POETRY. 911 



(lie, cherub-borne, upon the whirlwind rode. 

 And the red mountain like a furnace glow'd:) 

 Let Sinai tell — but who shall dare recite 

 His praise, his power, — eternal, infinite ? — 

 Awe-struck I cease ; nor bid my strains aspire, 

 Or serve liis altar with unhallow'd fire. 



Such were the cares, that watch'd o'er Israel's fate, 

 And such the glories of their infant state. 

 — Triumphant race ! and did your power decay ? 

 Fail'd the bright promise of your early day ? 

 No ; — by that sword, which, red with heathen gore, 

 A giant spoil, the stripling champion bore ; 

 By him, the chief to farthest Ipdia known. 

 The mighty master of the ivory throne ; 

 In heaven's own strength, high towering o'er her foes, 

 Victorious Salem's lion bajiner rose : 

 Before her footstool prostrate nations lay, 

 And vassal tyrants crouch'd beneath her sway. 

 — And he, the warrior sage, whose restless mind, 

 Through nature's mazes wander'd unconfin'd ; 

 Who, every bird and beast, and insect knew, 

 And spoke of every plant that ciuaffs the dew ; 

 To him were known — so Hagar's offspring tell — 

 The powerful sigill and the starry spell ; 

 The midnight call, hell's shadowy legions dread, 

 And sounds that burst the slumbers of the dead. 

 Hence all his might ; for who could these oppose, 

 And Tadmor thus, and Syrian Balbec rose. 

 Yet e'en the works of toiling Genii fall, * 



And Tain was Estakhar's enchanted wall. 

 In frantic converse with the mournful wind. 

 There oft the houseless Santon rests reclin'd ; 

 Strange shapes he views, and drinks with wondering ears 

 The voices of the dead, and songs of other years. 



Such, the faint echo of departed praise. 

 Still sound Arabia's legendary lays ; 

 And thus their fabling bards delight to tell, 

 How lovely were thy tents, O Israel ! 



For thee his ivory load Behemoth bore. 

 And far Sofala teetn'd with golden ore ; 

 Thine all the arts that wait on wealth's increase, 

 Or bask and wanton in the beam of peace. 

 When Tyber sle|)t beneath the cypress gloom, 

 And silence held the lonely woods of Rome ; 



2 Or 



