Did'st Thou look down in idle apathy,
When grim Vesuvius, from his dormant rest
Awoke, in molten fury, and o'ercame
With liquid flood and scoriaceous hail
The sleeping cities which beneath him lay;
Interring with such fiery burial
That neither remnant nor inhabitant
Escaped from that both grave and funeral pyre;
Nor vestige of their proud magnificence
Rose from the scene with charred and blackened form;
And rolling centuries, in passing, left
But dim remembrance in the minds of men?
Did'st thou, in age more ancient and remote,
Gaze from thy poise with cold complacency
Upon the guilty cities[[G]] of the plain,
Surcharged with lust and the extremes of sin,
Which Holy Writ avers, when 'neath the shower
Of well deserved combustion from the skies,
They sunk in conflagration with their vice;
And perishing, to ages yet to come
Bequeathed a foul and blasted heritage,
An infamous and execrated name?
Art thou to human anguish so inured
That thou hast neither sentiment of grief
Nor sense of pity for terrestrial ills?
Can agonizing and heart-rending scenes
Relax thy obdurate and placid face
To semblance of emotion? Can man's woes
Excite thy tranquil immobility
To the pathetic look of tenderness,
Or touch thy bosom's calm indifference
With profuse throbs of sympathetic ruth?
Can'st thou unmoved behold the widow's tears,
Or those of orphaned childish innocence,
Or those which wondering infant eyes have shed
On unresponsive breasts, which nevermore
Throb with maternal warmth and suckle them?
Can'st thou with cold, unsympathizing light
Illuminate the ruined maid's despair
Without the echo of a lunar groan?
Hast thou no pang of sorrow or regret
For guilty man, nor tear for his distress,
Or are the tides within thy moist control
The copious weepings of thy mellow lids—
Thy sea of teardrops shed for human woes?
Did'st thou behold, when that most favored star,
Transcending in refulgence all the orbs
Of boundless and bejewelled firmament,
With flash of overwhelming brilliancy
Plunged through the wondering heavens, whose pale spheres
In contrast dimmed to insignificance,
And gliding through the twinkling realms of space,
Burst with such splendor as the envious stars
Had never witnessed since the heavens stood;
Halting in glory o'er Judea's plain?
Halted and burned in stellar reverence,
Above a fold where wrapped in swaddling clothes
A new-born infant in a manger lay;
In humble contrast to the throne of light,
He left to tread the thorny paths of earth;
In undefiled and stainless innocence,
Which earth with all her foul iniquities
Might never tarnish nor pollute with sin.
Perhaps upon that sage triumvirate
Which journeyed from the famed and affluent East,
In regal pomp and rich munificence,
To lay their costly presents at His feet
And worship at that new-born infant's shrine,
Thou shed'st thy mellow rays and lit the way
O'er deserts to the hills of Bethlehem;
Dividing honors with that prince of stars.
Wert thou a witness on that selfsame night
When humble shepherds on Judea's hills,
Watching their flocks with all attentive care,
Beheld unwonted grandeur in the skies?
The ordinary stars were glittering
In unaccustomed glory, and the orbs
Which twinkle in that pale celestial train
Which cleaves in twain the ambient universe,
Had changed their milky hue to that of gold;
But all the forms of stellar brilliancy
Made way for that most bright and luminous
Which glowed with holy radiance, which might
Not emanate from aught but sacred star;
Dispensing such serene magnificence
That e'en the admiring heavens stood abashed.
At such a sight,
Though savoring more of blessing than of curse,
Small marvel 'twas their unenlightened minds
Were seized with sudden and peculiar fear,
So that their trembling knees together smote.
And as they stood
In awestruck trepidation and alarm
The heavens as the bifurcated door
Of some familiar, hospitable tent,
Parted their gorgeous curtains and disclosed
A multitude of the celestial host,
Numerous beyond all efforts to compute,
Solemn of countenance, yet beautiful
Beyond the comprehension of the eye,
Surging in such immaculate array
Of various raiment as the stainless white
Of snows which countless centuries have placed
On rugged Ararat's tremendous heights,
Were blended in an essence!