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.

HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE.*

I.

Он, Mariamne! now for thee

The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding;

Revenge is lost in agony,

And wild remorse to rage succeeding.

Oh, Mariamne! where art thou?

Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading:

* [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a woman of unrivalled beauty, and haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. - MILMAN.]

Ah! couldst thou

- thou wouldst pardon now,

Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding.

II.

And is she dead? — and did they dare
Obey my frenzy's jealous raving?

My wrath but doomed my own despair:

The sword that smote her's o'er me waving.

But thou art cold, my murdered love!
And this dark heart is vainly craving

For her who soars alone above,

And leaves my soul unworthy saving.

She's gone,

III.

who shared my diadem;

She sunk, with her my joys entombing;

I swept that flower from Judah's stem

Whose leaves for me alone were blooming;
And mine's the guilt, and mine the hell,
This bosom's desolation dooming;

And I have earned those tortures well,
Which unconsumed are still consuming!

ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM BY TITUS.

I.

FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome I beheld thee, oh Sion! when rendered to Rome:

"T was thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy

fall

Flashed back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

II.

I looked for thy temple, I looked for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fettered hands that made vengeance
in vain.

III.

On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy
shrine.

IV.

And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I marked not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!

V.

But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane The shrine where Jehovah disdained not to reign; And scattered and scorned as thy people may be, Our worship, oh Father! is only for thee.