BOOK THE SECOND.

Oh for a view, as from that cloudless height

Where the great Patriarch gazed upon the world,

His offspring's future seat, back on the vale

Of years departed! We might then behold

Thebes, from her sleep of ages, awful rise,

Like an imperial shadow, from the Nile,

To airy harpings;and with lifted torch

Scatter the darkness through the labyrinths

Of death, where rest her kings, without a name,

And light the winding caves and pyramids

In the long night of years! We might behold

Edom, in towery strength, majestic rise,

And awe the Erithræan, to the plains

Where Migdol frowned, and Baal-zephon stood,

Before whose naval shrine the Memphian host

And Pharaoh's pomp were shattered! As her fleets

From Ezion went seaward, to the sound

Of shouts and brazen trumpets, we might say,

How glorious, Edom, in thy ships art thou,

And mighty as the rushing winds!

But night

Is on the mournful scene: a voice is heard,

As of the dead, from hollow sepulchres,

And echoing caverns of the Nile — So pass

The shades of mortal glory! One pure ray

From Sinai bursts ( where God of old revealed

His glory, through the darkness terrible

That sat on the dread Mount ), and we descry

Thy sons, O Noah! peopling wide the scene,

From Shinar's plain to Egypt.

Let the song

Reveal, who first “went down to the great sea

In ships,” and braved the stormy element.

THE SONS OF CUSH.Still fearful of the FLOOD,

They on the marble range and cloudy heights

Of that vast mountain barrier,— which uprises

High o'er the Red Sea coast, and stretches on

With the sea-line of Afric's southern bounds

To Sofala,— delved in the granite mass

Their dark abode, spreading from rock to rock

Their subterranean cities, whilst they heard,

Secure, the rains of vexed Orion rush.

Emboldened they descend, and now their fanes

On Egypt's champaign darken, whilst the noise

Of caravans is heard, and pyramids

In the pale distance gleam. Imperial THEBES

Starts, like a giant, from the dust; as when

Some dread enchanter waves his wand, and towers

And palaces far in the sandy wilds

Spring up: and still, her sphinxes, huge and high,

Her marble wrecks colossal, seem to speak

The work of some great arm invisible,

Surpassing human strength; while toiling Time,

That sways his desolating scythe so vast,

And weary havoc murmuring at his side,

Smite them in vain. Heard ye the mystic song

Resounding from her caverns as of yore?

Sing to Osiris,for his ark

No more in night profound

Of ocean, fathomless and dark,

Typhonhas sunk! Aloud the sistrums ring —

Osiris!— to our god Osiris sing!—

And let the midnight shore to rites of joy resound!

Thee, great restorer of the world, the song

Darkly described, and that mysterious shrine

That bore thee o'er the desolate abyss,

When the earth sank with all its noise!

So taught,

The borderers of the Erithræan launch'd

Their barks, and to the shores of Araby

First their brief voyage stretched, and thence returned

With aromatic gums, or spicy wealth

Of India. Prouder triumphs yet await,

For lo! where Ophir's gold unburied shines

New to the sun; but perilous the way,

O'er Ariana'sspectred wilderness,

Where ev'n the patient camel scarce endures

The long, long solitude of rocks and sands,

Parched, faint, and sinking, in his mid-day course.

But see! upon the shore great Ammonstands —

Be the deep opened! At his voice the deep

Is opened; and the shading ships that ride

With statelier masts and ampler hulls the seas,

Have passed the Straits, and left the rocks and GATES

OF DEATH.Where Asia's cape the autumnal surge

Throws blackening back, beneath a hollow cove,

Awhile the mariners their fearful course

Ponder, ere yet they tempt the further deep;

Then plunged into the sullen main, they cast

The youthful victim, to the dismal gods

Devoted, whilst the smoke of sacrifice

Slowly ascends:

Hear, King of Ocean! hear,

Dark phantom! whether in thy secret cave

Thou sittest, where the deeps are fathomless,

Nor hear'st the waters hum, though all above

Is uproar loud; or on the widest waste,

Far from all land, mov'st in the noontide sun,

With dread and lonely shadow; or on high

Dost ride upon the whirling spires, and fume

Of that enormous volume, that ascends

Black to the skies, and with the thunder's roar

Bursts, while the waves far on are still: Oh, hear,

Dread power, and save! lest hidden eddies whirl

The helpless vessels down,— down to the deeps

Of night, where thou, O Father of the Storm,

Dost sleep; or thy vast stature might appear

High o'er the flashing waves, and ( as thy beard

Streamed to the cloudy winds ) pass o'er their track,

And they are seen no more; or monster-birds

Darkening, with pennons lank, the morn, might bear

The victims to some desert rock, and leave

Their scattered bones to whiten in the winds!

The Ocean-gods, with sacrifice appeased,

Propitious smile; the thunder's roar has ceased,

Smooth and in silence o'er the azure realm

The tall ships glide along; for the South-West

Cheerly and steady blows, and the blue seas

Beneath the shadow sparkle; on they speed,

The long coast varies as they pass from cove

To sheltering cove, the long coast winds away;

Till now emboldened by the unvarying gale,

Still urging to the East, the sailors deem

Some god inviting swells their willing sails,

Or Destiny's fleet dragons through the surge

Cut their mid-way, yoked to the beaked prows

Unseen!

Night after night the heavens’ still cope,

That glows with stars, they watch, till morning bears

Airs of sweet fragrance o'er the yellow tide:

Then Malabar her green declivities

Hangs beauteous, beaming to the eye afar

Like scenes of pictured bliss, the shadowy land

Of soft enchantment. Now Salmala's peak

Shines high in air, and Ceylon's dark green woods

Beneath are spread; while, as the strangers wind

Along the curving shores, sounds of delight

Are heard; and birds of richest plumage, red

And yellow, glance along the shades; or fly

With morning twitter, circling o'er the mast,

As singing welcome to the weary crew.

Here rest, till westering gales again invite.

Then o'er the line of level seas glide on,

As the green deities of ocean guide,

Till Ophir's distant hills spring from the main,

And their long labours cease.

Hence Asia slow

Her length unwinds; and Siam and Ceylon

Through wider channels pour their gems and gold

To swell the pomp of Egypt's kings, or deck

With new magnificence the rising dome

Of Palestine's imperial lord.

His wants

To satisfy; “with comelier draperies”

To clothe his shivering form; to bid his arm

Burst, like the Patagonian's,the vain cords

That bound his untried strength; to nurse the flame

Of wider heart-ennobling sympathies;—

For this young Commerce roused the energies

Of man; else rolling back, stagnant and foul,

Like the GREAT ELEMENT on which his ships

Go forth, without the currents, winds, and tides

That swell it, as with awful life, and keep

From rank putrescence the long-moving mass:

And He, the sovereign Maker of the world,

So to excite man's high activities,

Bad various climes their various produce pour.

On Asia's plain mark where the cotton-tree

Hangs elegant its golden gems; the date

Sits purpling the soft lucid haze, that lights

The still, pale, sultry landscape; breathing sweet

Along old Ocean's billowy marge, the eve

Bears spicy fragrance far; the bread-fruit shades

The southern isles; and gems, and richest ore,

Lurk in the caverned mountains of the west.

With ampler shade the northern oak uplifts

His strength, itself a forest, and descends

Proud to the world of waves, to bear afar

The wealth collected, on the swelling tides,

To every land:— Where nature seems to mourn

Her rugged outcast rocks, there Enterprise

Leaps up; he gazes, like a god, around;

He sees on other plains rich harvests wave;

He marks far off the diamond blaze; he burns

To reach the glittering prize; he looks; he speaks;

The pines of Lebanon fall at his voice;

He rears the towering mast: o'er the long main

He wanders, and becomes, himself though poor,

The sovereign of the globe!

So Sidon rose;

And Tyre, yet prouder o'er the subject waves,—

When in his manlier might the Ammonian spread

Beyond Philistia to the Syrian sands,—

Crowned on her rocky citadel, beheld

The treasures of all lands poured at her feet.

Her daring prows the inland main disclosed;

Freedom and Glory, Eloquence, and Arts,

Follow their track, upspringing where they passed;

Till, lo! another Thebes, an ATHENS springs,

From the Ægean shores, and airs are heard,

As of no mortal melody, from isles

That strew the deep around! On to the STRAITS

Where tower the brazen pillarsto the clouds,

Her vessels ride. But what a shivering dread

Quelled their bold hopes, when on their watch by night

The mariners first saw the distant flames

Of Ætna, and its red portentous glare

Streaking the midnight waste!‘ Tis not thy lamp,

Astarte, hung in the dun vault of night,

To guide the wanderers of the main! Aghast

They eye the fiery cope, and wait the dawn.

Huge pitchy clouds upshoot, and bursting fires

Flash through the horrid volume as it mounts;

Voices are heard, and thunders muttering deep.

Haste, snatch the oars, fly o'er the glimmering surge —

Fly far — already louder thunders roll,

And more terrific flames arise! Oh, spare,

Dread Power! for sure some deity abides

Deep in the central earth, amidst the reek

Of sacrifice and blue sulphureous fume

Involved. Perhaps the living Molochthere

Rules in his horrid empire, amid flames,

Thunders, and blackening volumes, that ascend

And wrap his burning throne!

So was their path,

To those who first the cheerless ocean roamed,

Darkened with dread and peril. Scylla here,

And fell Charybdis, on their whirling gulph

Sit, like the sisters of Despair, and howl,

As the devoted ship, dashed on the crags,

Goes down: and oft the neighbour shores are strewn

With bones of strangers sacrificed, whose bark

Has foundered nigh, where the red watch-tower glares

Through darkness. Hence mysterious dread, and tales

Of Polyphemus and his monstrous rout;

And warbling syrens on the fatal shores

Of soft Parthenope. Yet oft the sound

Of sea-conch through the night from some rude rock

Is heard, to warn the wandering passenger

Of fiends that lurk for blood!

These dangers past,

The sea puts on new beauties: Italy,

Beneath the blue soft sky beaming afar,

Opens her azure bays; Liguria's gulph

Is past; the Bætic rocks, and ramparts high,

That CLOSE THE WORLD, appear. The dashing bark

Bursts through the fearful frith: Ah! all is now

One boundless billowy waste; the huge-heaved wave

Beneath the keel turns more intensely blue;

And vaster rolls the surge, that sweeps the shores

Of Cerne, and the green Hesperides,

And long-renowned Atlantis,whether sunk

Now to the bottom of the “monstrous world;”

Or was it but a shadow of the mind,

Vapoury and baseless, like the distant clouds

That seem the promise of an unknown land

To the pale-eyed and wasted mariner,

Cold on the rocking mast. The pilot plies,

Now tossed upon Bayonna's mountain-surge,

High to the north his way; when, lo! the cliffs

Of Albion, o'er the sea-line rising calm

And white, and Marazion's woody mount

Lifting its dark romantic point between.

So did thy ships to Earth's wide bounds proceed,

O Tyre! and thou wert rich and beautiful

In that thy day of glory. Carthage rose,

Thy daughter, and the rival of thy fame,

Upon the sands of Lybia; princes were

Thy merchants; on thy golden throne thy state

Shone, like the orient sun. Dark Lebanon

Waved all his pines for thee; for thee the oaks

Of Bashan towered in strength: thy galleys cut,

Glittering, the sunny surge; thy mariners,

On ivory benches, furled th’ embroidered sails,

That looms of Egypt wove, or to the oars,

That measuring dipped, their choral sea-songs sung;

The multitude of isles did shout for thee,

And cast their emeralds at thy feet, and said —

Queen of the Waters, who is like to thee!

So wert thou glorious on the seas, and said'st,

I am a God, and there is none like me.

But the dread voice prophetic is gone forth:—

Howl, for the whirlwind of the desert comes!

Howl ye again, for Tyre, her multitude

Of sins and dark abominations cry

Against her, saith the LORD; in the mid seas

Her beauty shall be broken; I will bring

Her pride to ashes; she shall be no more,

The distant isles shall tremble at the sound

When thou dost fall; the princes of the sea

Shall from their thrones come down, and cast away

Their gorgeous robes; for thee they shall take up

A bitter lamentation, and shall say —

How art thou fallen, renowned city! THOU,

Who wert enthroned glorious on the seas,

To rise no more!

So visible, O GOD,

Is thy dread hand in all the earth! Where Tyre

In gold and purple glittered o'er the scene,

Now the poor fisher dries his net, nor thinks

How great, how rich, how glorious, once she rose!

Meantime the furthest isle, cold and obscure,

Whose painted natives roamed their woody wilds,

From all the world cut off, that wondering marked

Her stately sails approach, now in her turn

Rises a star of glory in the West —

Albion, the wonder of the illumined world!

See there a Newton wing the highest heavens;

See there a Herschell's daring hand withdraw

The luminous pavilion, and the throne

Of the bright SUN reveal; there hear the voice

Of holy truth amid her cloistered fane,

As the clear anthem swells; see Taste adorn

Her palaces; and Painting's fervid touch,

That bids the canvas breathe; hear angel-strains,

When Handel, or melodious Purcell, pours

His sweetest harmonies; see Poesy

Open her vales romantic, and the scenes

Where Fancy, an enraptured votary, roves

At eve; and hark!‘ twas Shakspeare's voice! he sits

Upon a high and charmed rock alone,

And, like the genius of the mountain, gives

The rapt song to the winds; whilst Pity weeps,

Or Terror shudders at the changeful tones,

As when his Ariel soothes the storm! Then pause,

For the wild billows answer — Lycidas

Is dead, young Lycidas, dead ere his prime,

Whelmed in the deep, beyond the Orcades,

Or where the “vision of the guarded Mount,

BELERUS holds.”

Nor skies, nor earth, confine

The march of England's glory; on she speeds —

The unknown barriers of the utmost deep

Her prow has burst, where the dread genius slept

For ages undisturbed, save when he walked

Amid the darkness of the storm! Her fleet

Even now along the East rides terrible,

Where early-rising commerce cheered the scene!

Heard ye the thunders of her vengeance roll,

As Nelson, through the battle's dark-red haze

Aloft upon the burning prow directs,

Where the dread hurricane, with sulphureous flash,

Shall burst unquenchable, while from the grave

Osiris ampler seems to rise? Where thou,

O Tyre! didst awe the subject seas of yore,

Acre even now, and ancient Carmel, hears

The cry of conquest.‘ Mid the fire and smoke

Of the war-shaken citadel, with eye

Of temper'd flame, yet resolute command,

His brave sword beaming, and his cheering voice

Heard‘ mid the onset's cries, his dark-brown hair

Spread on his fearless forehead, and his hand

Pointing to Gallia's baffled chief, behold

The British Hero stand! Why beats my heart

With kindred animation? The warm tear

Of patriot triumph fills mine eye. I strike

A louder strain unconscious, while the harp

Swells to the bold involuntary song.

Fly, SON OF TERROR, fly!

Back o'er the burning desert he is fled!

In heaps the gory dead

And livid in the trenches lie!

His dazzling files no more

Flash on the Syrian sands,

As when from Egypt's ravaged shore,

Aloft their gleamy falchions swinging,

Aloud their victor pæans singing,

Their onward way the Gallic legions took.

Despair, dismay, are on his altered look,

Yet hate indignant lowers;

Whilst high on Acre's granite towers

The shade of English Richard seems to stand;

And frowning far, in dusky rows,

A thousand archers draw their bows!

They join the triumph of the British band,

And the rent watch-tower echoes to the cry,

Heard o'er the rolling surge — They fly, they fly!

Now the hostile fires decline,

Now through the smoke's deep volumes shine;

Now above the bastions gray

The clouds of battle roll away;

Where, with calm, yet glowing mien,

Britain's victorious youth is seen!

He lifts his eye,

His country's ensigns wave through smoke on high,

Whilst the long-mingled shout is heard — They fly, they fly!

Hoary CARMEL, witness thou,

And lift in conscious pride thy brow;

As when upon thy cloudy plain

BAAL'S PROPHETS cried in vain!

They gashed their flesh, and leaped, and cried,

From morn till lingering even-tide.

Then stern ELIJAH on his foes

Strong in the might of Heaven arose!—

On CARMEL'S top he stood,

And while the blackening clouds and rain

Came sounding from the Western main,

Raised his right hand that dropped with impious blood.

ANCIENT KISHON prouder swell,

On whose banks they bowed, they fell,

The mighty ones of yore, when, pale with dread,

Inglorious SISERA fled!

So let them perish, Holy LORD,

Who for OPPRESSION lift the sword;

But let all those who, armed for freedom, fight,

“Be as the sun who goes forth in his might.”