Not all the wise and the learned of thine, Poor impotent one, shall explain that line! But the captive of Judah, him thy queen Has bid thee summon--let him be seen! His eye prophetic receives its sight From the Being, who caused the hand to write. The slave is brought to the potentate! To spurn his gifts, but to read his fate; To whom 't is inscribed on the lofty wall, "Thou art weighed, found wanting, and now must fall! Thy kingdom is numbered--the Persian and Mede Shall hence to thy throne and thy power succeed!" They come!--the foemen--nor sword nor flight, Shall win for that monarch the morning light! The haughty head where the crown was set, In dust is pillowed--with gore is wet! Ye, who are trusting in honor and gold, Look on him now, and your strength behold! THE DEER STRICKEN BY TORCH-LIGHT. The arrow! the arrow is fast in his side! And still through the forest they follow The poor stricken deer, that has nowhere to hide, And dared not to pause where the cool waters glide, When, leaping the brook, he would almost have died, One draught from its ripple to swallow. That deep-planted arrow! O how can he bear The anguish of feeling it quiver, When shook by the branches, the wave, or the air, As forward he bounds, but without heeding where, From thicket to crag, with the force of despair, To plunge in the cold, sweeping river? They hunted him hard, till the sun in the west Had sunk, while their aim he evaded. At evening, he sought a calm refuge of rest, And dropped from pursuit, by his terrors oppressed, Beneath the close branches, in verdure full-dressed, By night and the covert o'ershaded. But ah, the poor deer! they had doomed him to die! For near the green turf where he laid him, They lighted the torch, and they brandished it high; It glared through the boughs on his tender black eye, That fatally shone for the death-shaft to fly; His beauty, his beaming betrayed him: He cannot by flying now loosen the dart, The end of his tortures to quicken, By letting the life in one blood-gush depart. He seeks a retreat, like the warm, wounded heart, When, lone, slow, and silent, the victim of art, It dies, as a deer that is stricken. THE DEATH OF SAPPHIRA.[3] Sapphira, Sapphira, awake! Alas! she is gone in the sleep That but the archangel can break; For life hath no slumber so deep. 'T is death! his pale ashes are cast On those withered lips, where but now An insult to Heaven was passed; His dumbness hath followed the vow. A bolt from above, swift and sure, Hath blasted the pride of the clay; The spirit, in boldness secure, In guilt hath been stricken away.