All thy cities, O Judah, are desolate now,
And no diadem jewelled shines bright on thy brow;
Zion, widowed and sad, bows her head in despair,
For the Infidel's banner in triumph floats there.
Since the eagles of war scattered horrors around,
And the walls of thy Salem were razed to the ground,
Over thee and thy children dark ages have rolled,
But the depths of thy grief and thy wrongs are untold.
Thou hast silently worn the vile badge of disgrace
Which proud custom hath fixed on thy name and thy race,
And as pilgrims, all homeless, have wandered abroad,
Unenfranchised by man and abandoned by God.
What though empires have fallen and states passed away,
And the earth groans with ruins, the spoils of decay ;
Though bent to the dust 'neath the sceptre of terror,
Like truth, thou hast lived through the midnight of error.
Living proofs of predictions! for thousands of years
Distant climes have been dewed with thy blood and thy tears;
But the home of thy fathers, the land of Canaan,
Shall resound with the music of Israel again.
Turbaned tyranny reels, and the Koran is riven,
As truth onward speeds with the Gospel of Heaven;
Systems totter and heave, the Cross heralds thy way,
And the Crescent already grows pale with dismay.
Yes! 'tis written with lightning, and heard in the gale,
That Jehovah shall triumph and Israel prevail;
That oppression, all ghastly with fire and with sword,
Must expire at the withering frown of the Lord.
Heaven thunders it forth, and Earth loudly replies,
That Jerusalem yet from her ashes will rise;
Moslem hordes from her bosom she proudly will spurn,
But enraptured, O Israel, will hail thy return.
Hark! the strains which the Remnant in ecstasy sing
Make the mountain-girt vales of Assyria ring;
While the hills of Libanus take up
And Judea the sounds of salvation prolong.
Lo the tribes the grand plan of Redemption proclaim,
In Messiah believe, and rejoice in his name;
And, emboldened by soul-cheering smiles from above,
Like apostles go forth on the mission of Love.
Blow the trumpet aloud, for the glad day is near
When thou wilt in Decision's deep valley appear;
Now light dawns on thy darkness, hope gleams on thy path, And sweet Mercy is mixed in the cup of God's wrath.
Apollyon; or, the Destroyer.
O! Man shuddered and trembled when Sin gave me birth, And Omnipotence crowned me dark lord of the earth : In my right hand he placed a dread sceptre, to wave O'er his creatures, all guilty, and doomed to the grave.
Unseen as the whirlwinds that fiercely pass over
Wild regions that wisdom hath yet to discover,
I sweep through the bounds of all peopled creation,
Jehovah's grand agent of dire Desolation.
I career through the world on a mystical steed,
That is swifter by far than a thunderbolt's speed,
Join the wild howling tempest, mid thunder and gloom,
And the life-blasting march of the desert Simoom.
Brooding Murder I saw stain the pure virgin sod,
Till it blushed, and cried out in loud accents to God,
Who in wrath, with a curse and a withering vow,
Set a mark of red guilt on the homicide's brow.
Dark dominion I held when fair Virtue was spurned From the bosom of man, where foul wickedness burned; And Vice reared her vile altars in every clime,
Till e'en hell rung with joy at the triumph of Crime.
When the elements raged, and the red lightnings flashed,
And the loftiest hills by the billows were lashed,
And the mountain-tops rung with the shrieks of despair,
In the deluge I plunged-the last wretch that was there.
When sulphur and fire rained in torrents from heaven,
Till thousands expired, with their crimes unforgiven,
Mid the crashing of cities, and horror, and pain,
I triumphantly swept all the dark smoking plain.
All the empires of old, that were rivals in guilt,
And cemented their walls with the blood they had spilt,
From existence have passed; and the vile and the just,
With their temples and idols, lie mingled in dust.
Ere dark priestly creeds every land had enslaved,
Or the sceptre of power by a monarch been waved-
Ere a sword had been forged, or a diadem worn,
Sad bereavements taught Pity to weep and to mourn.
Ere the lamp-burning Magi had darkly begun,
Like the priests of Osiris, to worship the sun-
Ere the fable-sprung Brahma's dread name had been feared,
Shapeless structures, to mark out my triumphs, were reared.
Ere India could boast of her rock-sculptured isle,
Or young Science had built her huge fanes on the Nile— Ay, long, long ere the East with her light had been blessed, Human frailty succumbed at my awful behest.
Ere the Druids, white-robed, paid grave honors divine
To Albion's green oaks and the sweet-flowing Rhine,
Wildly chanting their hymns where fire-shrines were lighted,
To me bowed a world in dark error benighted.
Long I reigned in the world ere the goat-bearded Pan
His grim empire maintained o'er the worship of man,
And ere Virtue and Truth ever dared to assail
The altars, blood-stained, of Astarte and Baal.
Though old Time, like myself, has grown hoary in crime,
And complacently views all his trophies sublime,
Ere his ruins, wide spread by my subjects, were built,
Nature's debt had been paid, and man's blood had been spilt.
When Egypt's proud king, with his satraps and slaves,
Shrieked in terror, the sport of infuriate waves,
Lo! I stood and threw o'er them my mystical pall,
And the billows obedient passed over them all.
When Sennacherib's host of darkness and error,
Of carnage and conquest, destruction and terror,
Was at midnight asleep on the tent-covered plain,
On it lightning I breathed, and it ne'er woke again.
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