Floats now with choral swell, now fainter falls Upon the ear? It is, it is the song
He loved to hear,-a song of thanks and praise, Sung by the patriarch for his ransomed son.
Hope from the omen springs: O, blessed hope! It may not be her voice!-Fain would he think 'Twas not his daughter's voice, that still approached, Blent with the timbrel's note. Forth from the grove She foremost glides of all the minstrel band: Moveless he stands; then grasps his hilt, still red With hostile gore, but, shuddering, quits the hold; And clasps in agony his hands, and cries,
“Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me low.”— The timbrel at her rooted feet resounds.
EEP was the furrow in the royal brow,
When DAVID'S hand, lightly as vernal gales
Rippling the brook of Ķedron, skimmed the lyre: He sung of JACOB's youngest born,—the child
Of his old age,-sold to the Ishmaelite ;
His exaltation to the second power
In PHARAOH's realm; his brethren thither sent; Suppliant they stood before his face, well known, Unknowing, till JOSEPH fell upon the neck Of BENJAMIN, his mother's son, and wept. Unconsciously the warlike shepherd paused;
But when he saw, down the yet quivering string,
The tear-drop trembling glide, abashed, he checked, Indignant at himself, the bursting flood,
And, with a sweep impetuous, struck the chords: From side to side his hands transversely glance, Like lightning 'thwart a stormy sea; his voice Arises 'mid the clang, and straightway calms The harmonious tempest, to a solemn swell Majestical, triumphant; for he sings
Of Arad's mighty host by Israel's arm Subdued; of Israel through the desert led, He sings; of him who was their leader, called, By God himself, from keeping JETHRO's flock, To be a ruler o'er the chosen race.
Kindles the eye of SAUL; his arm is poised ;- Harmless the javelin quivers in the wall.
was the famine throughout all the bounds
Of Israel, when ELIJAH, by command
Of GOD, journeyed to Cherith's failing brook. No rain-drops fall, no dew-fraught cloud, at morn, Or closing eve, creeps slowly up the vale ; The withering herbage dies; among the palms The shrivelled leaves send to the summer gale An autumn rustle; no sweet songster's lay Is warbled from the branches; scarce is heard The rill's faint brawl. The prophet looks around, And trusts in God, and lays his silvered head Upon the flowerless bank; serene he sleeps,
Nor wakes till dawning: then, with hands enclasped, And heavenward face, and eyelids closed, he prays To Him who manna on the desert showered,
To Him who from the rock made fountains gush: Entranced the man of God remains; till roused By sound of wheeling wings, with grateful heart, He sees the ravens fearless by his side
Alight, and leave the heaven-provided food.
« הקודםהמשך » |