WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE.

1.

WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, I need not have wander'd from far Galilee :

It was but abjuring my creed to efface

The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race.

'If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee!
If the slave only sin, thou art spotless and free!
If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high,
Live on in thy faith, but in mine I will die.

3.

I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; In his hand is my heart and my hope-and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE,

1.

Он, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading : Ah, couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

2.

And is she dead?-and did they dare
Obey my phrensy's jealous raving?
My wrath but doom'd my own despair:

The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving.-

But thou art cold, my murder'd love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving
For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

3.

She's gone, who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing I swept that flower from Judah's stem Whose leaves for me alone were blooming; And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell, This bosom's desolation dooming;

And I have earn'd those tortures well,

Which unconsumed are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

1.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome
I beheld thee, Oh Sion! when render'd to Rome:
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

2.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fetter'd hands that made vengeance in vain.

3.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.

4.

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!

5.

But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign; And scatter'd and scorn'd as thy people may be, Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.

BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT DOWN AND WEPT.

1.

WE sate down and wept by the waters
Of Babel, and thought of the day
When our foe, in the hue of his slaughters,
Made Salem's high places his prey;
And ye, oh her desolate daughters!
Were scatter'd all weeping away.

2.

While sadly we gazed on the river
Which roll'd on in freedom below,
They demanded the song; but, oh never
That triumph the stranger shall know!
May this right hand be wither'd for ever,
Ere it string our high harp for the foe!

3.

On the willow that harp is suspended,
Oh Salem! its sound should be free,
And the hour when thy glories were ended
But left me that token of thee:

And ne'er shall its soft tones be blended
With the voice of the spoiler by me!

THE DESTRUCTION OF SEM NACHERIB.

1.

THE Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.

2.

Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay wither'd and strown.

3.

For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he pass'd; And the eyes of the sleepers wax'd deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!