NINEVEH
By Edwin Atherstone.
Of Nineveh, the mighty city of old;
The queen of all the nations. At her throne
Kings worshipp'd; and from her their subject crowns,
Humbly obedient, held; and on her state
Submiss attended; nor such servitude
Opprobrious named. From that great eminence
How, like a star, she fell, and passed away;
Such the high matter of my song shall be
The vision comes upon me! To my soul
The days of old return: I breathe the air
Of the young world: I see her giant sons.
Like to a gorgeous pageant in the sky
Of summer's evening, cloud on fiery cloud
Thronging upheaped, before me rise the walls
Of the Titanic city: brazen gates,
Towers, temples, palaces enormous piled;
Imperial Nineveh, the earthly queen!
In all her golden pomp I see her now;
Her swarming streets; her splendid festivals;
Her sprightly damsels to the timbrel's sound
Airily bounding, and their anklets' chime;
Her lusty sons, like summer morning gay;
Her warriors stern; her rich-robed rulers grave:
I see her halls sunbright at midnight shine;
I hear the music of her banquetings;
I hear the laugh, the whisper, and the sigh.
A sound of stately treading toward me comes;
A silken wafting on the cedar floor:
As from Arabia's flowering groves, an air
Delicious breathes around. Tall, lofty browed,
Pale, and majestically beautiful;
In vesture gorgeous as the clouds of morn;
With slow proud step her glorious dames sweep by
And I look; and lo! before the walls,
Unnumbered hosts in flaming panoply;
Chariots like fire, and thunder-bearing steeds!
I hear the shouts of battle: like the waves
Of a tumultuous sea they roll and dash!
In flame and smoke the imperial city sinks!
Her walls are gone: her palaces are dust:
The desert is around her, and within:
Like shadows have the mighty passed away!
Whence and how came the ruin? By the hand
Of the oppressor were the nations bowed;
They rose against him, and prevailed: for he
The haughty monarch who the earth could rule,
By his own furious passions was o'er-ruled:
With pride his understanding was made dark,
That he the truth knew not; and, by his lusts;
The crushing burthen of his despotism;
And by the fierceness of his wrath, the hearts
Of men he turned from him. So to kings
Be he example, that the tyrannous
And iron rod breaks down at length the hand
That wields it strongest: that by virtue alone
And justice monarchs sway the hearts of men:
For there hath God implanted love of these,
And hatred of oppression; which, unseen
And noiseless though it work; yet in the end,
Even like the viewless elements of the storm,
Brooding in silence, will in thunder burst!
So let the nations learn, that not in wealth;
Nor in the grosser pleasures of the sense;
Nor in the glare of conquest; nor the pomp
Of vassal kings, and tributary lands;
Do happiness and lasting power abide:
That virtue unto man best glory is;
His strength and truest wisdom; and that vice,
Though for a season it the heart delight;
Or to worse deeds the bad man do make strong;
Brings misery yet, and terror, and remorse,
And weakness and destruction in the end.
So if the nations learn, then not in vain,
The mighty one hath been; and is no more!
The British Association will meet at Edinburgh, on Wednesday, the 31st of July, under the presidency of its founder, Sir David Brewster.
A lover gazed on the eyes of his mistress till she blushed. He pressed her hand to his heart and said—"My looks have planted roses on thy cheeks; he who sows the seed should reap the harvest."