Scant leaves upon the aspen
Shake golden in the sun;
Old Year, thy sins are many,
Thy sand is almost run.
The beech-tree, brazen-orange,
Burns like a sunset down;
Old Year, thy grave is ready;
Doff sceptre, robe, and crown.
The elm, a yellow mountain,
Is shedding leaf by leaf;
The rains, in gusts of passion.
Pour forth their quenchless grief;
The winds, like banshees mourning.
Wail in the struggling wood;
Old Year, put off thy splendor.
And don thy funeral hood.
Lay down thy golden glories;
The bare boughs bar the sky—
Skeletons wild and warning.
Quaking to see thee die.
Thou hast lived thy life, remember;
Now lay thee down and rest;
The grass shall grow above thy head,
And the flower above thy breast.
From The Dublin University Magazine.
THE HOLY LAND.
There can be no doubt that the Mount Moriah where Abraham would have sacrificed his son is the same spot as the Moriah upon which Solomon built the temple. "Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in Mount Moriah" (2 Chron. iii. 1). [Footnote 150] It is also probable that it is the same place as the Salem mentioned in Genesis xiv. 18, of which Melchisedek was king; for in Psalm lxxvi. 2 we read, "In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling-place in Sion." Josephus calls Melchisedek King of Solyma, a name afterward altered to Hierosolyma. But the first mention of the name Jerusalem occurs in Joshua x. 1, where Adoni-zedec is spoken of as "King of Jerusalem." There are to be gathered from sacred and secular annals the records of twenty-one invasions of this ancient city by hostile armies. The first attack was made upon her by the children of Judah, shortly after the death of Joshua. They fought against Jerusalem, took it, put it to the fire and sword (Judges i. 1-8); but they were unable to expel the Jebusites, nor were the children of Benjamin any more successful, but they both dwelt with the Jebusites in the city; the Jebusites being probably driven from the lower part to Mount Sion, where they remained until the time of David, who marched against Jerusalem, drove them from Mount Sion, and called it the City of David.
[Footnote 150: Also confirmed by Josephus, Antiq i, 13-2.]
The Ark of the Covenant was conveyed there, an altar built, and Jerusalem became the imperial residence, the centre of the political and religious history of the Israelites. Its glory was enhanced by the labors of Solomon, but under his son Rehoboam ten tribes revolted, so that Jerusalem became only the capital of Judah, with whom the tribe of Benjamin alone remained faithful. During the reign of this king, Shishak, the Egyptian monarch, invaded the holy city and ransacked the temple. Then about a hundred years rolled by, when Amaziah was king of Judah, and Joash of Israel; the latter marched against Jerusalem, threw down the wall, and the temple was once more rifled of its treasures. In the next century Manasseh the king was taken captive by the Assyrians to Babylon but ultimately restored. In consequence of the strange intermeddling of Josiah, a few years later, when Pharao-necho, king of Egypt, was on his march, he was killed in battle, and the latter directed his army toward Jerusalem, and placed Eliakim on the throne by the name of Jehoiakim. The advance of this Egyptian king is confirmed by Herodotus. [Footnote 151]
[Footnote 151: Herodotus, Euterpe, 159. He also mentions a victory gained by him at Magdola, then says that he took the city of Cadytis
