THE PLAGUE STAYED. AND HE STOOD BETWEEN THE DEAD AND THE LIVINGAND THE PLAGUE WAS STAYED. Numbers xvi. 48. He stood between the living and the dead!— Halting for noontide rest upon the heath, O'erwearied with the morning's travel long; But from the peopled plain there came no breath No stir-no voice-they slept the long last sleep of death. Yet lurked unquenched the signs of living passion On knitted brow, in fixed and glassy eye, Of wrath or pride, that scorned in death to die; Had burst in curses;-'twas a fearful sight, And strange as fearful; for no foe was nigh: None saw the uplifted arm,-none heard it smite :And yet an host lay felled beneath its shadowy might. Yes-he who stood beside the scattered dead Had seen the grim destroyer:-seen it come Even from Jehovah's presence :-on it sped Travelling in dust and darkness;-and the bloom Withered in Nature's cheek, as if the tomb Had breathed upon it,-herb and tree and flower Shrivelled and drooped beneath the hot Simoom, And all was sad and silent in that hour, The verdure of the field,-the music of the bower. He saw it enter the tumultuous camp, And strike such sudden stillness, as doth brood Over the Northern Ocean, when the cramp Of frost is on its billows.-He had sued To Israel's God, before whose shrine he stood Strong in the might of innocence alone, Appealing from the rebel multitude: The appeal was heard;-God had avenged his own; And there he gazed secure upon his foes o'erthrown. He was their Priest;-1 upon his breast he bare Their names before his God,-and morn and even Poured forth for them the glowing breath of prayer, Winning down blessings from propitious heaven: -But Envy with her serpent arts had striven To warp the vulgar mind, that round and round, Like feather upon faction's gale, is driven,— And now would hurl the mitre to the ground Which erst Jehovah's self on Aaron's brow had bound. Unfaithful multitude !-but where the fool E'er dreamed of faithful multitudes,-nor knew That echo of all lies, the base-born tool Of all who stoop to use them? But to few Shewed they such change of their cameleon hue As to the brother-chiefs, whose pastoral hand Had led them safe their life-long wanderings through, To the fair confines of yon flowery land, That ever smiled like Hope across those fields of sand. They strove against the delegates of Him Who wrapped in clouds to Sinai's summit came, Riding upon the fire-winged Seraphim, And the huge mountain's adamantine frame Shook while the thunder-clap pronounced His name. They strove-vain reptiles! one indignant glance 2 Looked them to ashes from that eye of flame,One touch of that dread finger from its stance Unfixed the rooted rock, and burst the earthquake's trance. |