In the slow breeze (I hear their funeral song,)
The dance of ghosts the infernal tribes prepare:
To hell's dark mansions haste, ye abandoned throng,
Drinking from German sculls old Odin's beer.
From dire Cesarea[A] forced, these slaves of kings,
Quick, let them take their way on eagle's wings:
To thy strong posts, Manhattan's isle, repair,
To meet the vengeance that awaits them there!
[A] The old Roman name of Jersey.—Freneau's note.
[160] This poem first appears in the 1795 edition, though the opening stanzas had formed a part of "The House of Night" in the 1786 edition. It must have been composed after this edition was published. I have inserted it here on account of its historical significance. Text is from the edition of 1809.
THE JEWISH LAMENTATION AT
EUPHRATES[161]
By Babel's streams we sate and wept,
When Sion bade our sorrows flow;
Our harps on lofty willows slept
That near those distant waters grow:
The willows high, the waters clear,
Beheld our toils and sorrows there.
The cruel foe, that captive led
Our nation from their native soil,
The tyrant foe, by whom we bled,
Required a song, as well as toil:
"Come, with a song your sorrows cheer,
"A song, that Sion loved to hear."
How shall we, cruel tyrant, raise
A song on such a distant shore?—
If I forget my Sion's praise,
May my right hand assume no more
To strike the silver sounding string,
And thence the slumbering music bring.