The King was on his throne, The Satraps thronged the hall:[lx] A thousand bright lamps shone O'er that high festival. A thousand cups of gold, In Judah deemed divine--[ly] Jehovah's vessels hold The godless Heathen's wine! II. In that same hour and hall, The fingers of a hand Came forth against the wall, And wrote as if on sand: The fingers of a man;-- A solitary hand Along the letters ran, And traced them like a wand. III. The monarch saw, and shook, And bade no more rejoice; All bloodless waxed his look, And tremulous his voice. "Let the men of lore appear, The wisest of the earth, And expound the words of fear, Which mar our royal mirth." IV. Chaldea's seers are good, But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw--but knew no more. V. A captive in the land, A stranger and a youth,[300] He heard the King's command, He saw that writing's truth. The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night,-- The morrow proved it true. VI. "Belshazzar's grave is made,[lz] His kingdom passed away. He, in the balance weighed, Is light and worthless clay; The shroud, his robe of state, His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate! The Persian on his throne!" SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star! Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far, That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel, How like art thou to Joy remembered well! So gleams the past, the light of other days, Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays: A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold, Distinct, but distant--clear--but, oh how cold! WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU DEEM'ST IT TO BE. I. Were my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, I need not have wandered from far Galilee; It was but abjuring my creed to efface The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race. II. If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! If the slave only sin--thou art spotless and free! If the Exile on earth is an Outcast on high, Live on in thy faith--but in mine I will die. III. I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, As the God who permits thee to prosper doth know; In his hand is my heart and my hope--and in thine The land and the life which for him I resign. Seaham, 1815. HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.[301]