Or tell me, Pleasure, what you feel;
Speak honestly, nor aught conceal :
The matter is of weight.
Pleasure, sweet power, to Nature dear!
I never wish to be austere;
I seek the happiest state.
Pleasure replies, with modest smile,
Let not a name the heart beguile :
My name the sons of sense
Have oft assum'd; but, trust me, they
From happiness are far astray!
'Tis all a mere pretence.
To me they boast alliance near;
As men of pleasure, men of cheer,
If you will them believe:
Meanwhile, they are of Circe's crew,
Wretched, defiled; with painted huc,
Weak mortals to deceive.
Mine is a purer, nobler rise,
Virtue, my parent, from the skies
Came down to bless the earth,
With me, the child she bore to Love;
A beauteous happy pair above
And here of highest worth!
Virtue, I grant, is often tried
By sickness, sorrow, envy, pride;
Nor is asham'd to mourn.
But trial strengthens: conscience cheers,
Of death and woe, prevents the fears:
Assaults to vict❜ry turn.
Of active life the hard turmoils,
The patriot's cares, the hero's toils,
In brighter triumphs end.
Of friendship, sympathy, the pains
A generous soul accounts her gains,
While all the good commend.
But who can paint the heart-felt glow
Of holy love, of thought the flow
Reciprocal, sincere?
Faith's firm repose, hope's vision bright,
Of God's approving face the light,
Of prayer the rapt'rous tear?
Nor deem such bliss an empty form;
'Tis solid, 'twill defy the storm
And keep the breast serene;
When all the merriment of vice,
A low-born vapour, sudden flies,
And leaves a void within!
A naked void where nought can come,
But self-reproach and secret gloom,
Earnest of future woe!
Let braggart sinners loudly boast:
To joy, to peace, to comfort lost,
True hearts they do not know.
They dare not face rich Folly's frown;
To saucy greatness they bow down,
Held fast in Passion's chain.
They talk of liberty; 'tis prate,
The slaves of appetite and fate,
They start at every pain.
Lest death their trembling souls should seize,
Their blood with mortal horrors freeze,
And all their prospects end;
At that inevitable hour,
My parent, Virtue, proves her power,
An everlasting friend.
In life, in death, I follow her;
She, she alone can joys confer,
To fill the human heart:
From Heav'n together first we came :
Constant we breathe one common flame,
And never, never part!
WE sat us down by Babel's streams,
And dreamed soul-saddening memory's dreams;
And dark thoughts o'er our spirits crept
Of Sion-and we wept, we wept!
Our harps upon the willows hung
Silent, and tuneless, and unstrung;
For they who wrought our pains and wrongs,
Asked us for Sion's pleasant songs.
How can we sing Jehovah's praise
To those who Baal's altars raise?
How warble Judah's freeborn hymns,
With Babel's fetters on our limbs?
How chant thy lays dear Fatherland
To strangers on a foreign strand?
Ah no! we'll bear grief's keenest sting,
But dare not Sion's anthems sing.
Place us where Sharon's roses blow;
Place us where Siloe's waters flow;
Place us on Lebanon, that waves
Its cedars o'er our fathers' graves:
Place us upon that holy mount,
Where stands the temple, gleams the fount;
And love and joy shall loose our tongues,
To warble Sion's pleasant songs.
If I should e'er, earth's fairest gem,
Forget thee, O Jerusalem!
May my right hand forget its skill,
To wake the slumbering lyre at will!
If from my heart, e'en when most gay,
Thy memory e'er should fade away,
May my tongue rest within my head
Mute as the voices of the dead!
Remember, O remember, Lord,
In that day Edom's race abhorred;
When once again o'er Salem's towers,
The sun of joy its radiance pours,
Forget not them whose hateful cry
Rose loud and fiend-like to the sky,--
Be that unholy city crushed,
Raze, raze it even with the dust!'
Daughter of Babylon, the hour
Is coming that shall bow thy power,
The Persian sword shall make thee
groan.
The Mede shall fill Belshazzar's throne;
Blest shall he be who bids thee sip
The cup thou heldst to Salem's lip,
And mocks thee, weeping o'er the stones
Red with thy children's bleeding bones.
DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB.
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.
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 withered and strowu.
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed on the face of the foe as he passed, And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide,
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride;
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf,
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
And there lay the rider distorted and pale,
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail;
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone,
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail,
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal;
And the might of the Gentile unsmote by the sword
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.
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