| |
| MANY a perilous age hath gone, | |
| Since the walls of Babylon | |
| Chained the broad Euphrates’ tide, | |
| Which the great king in his pride | |
| Turned, and drained its channel bare,— | 5 |
| Since the Towers of Belus square, | |
| Where the solid gates were hung | |
| That on brazen hinges swung, | |
| Mountain-sized, arose so high | |
| That their daring shocked the sky. | 10 |
| |
| Famous city of the earth, | |
| What magician gave thee birth? | |
| What great prince of sky or air | |
| Built thy floating gardens fair? | |
| Thee the mighty hunter founded: | 15 |
| Thee the star-wise king surrounded | |
| With thy mural girdle thick | |
| Of the black bitumen brick,— | |
| Belus, who was Jove, the God: | |
| He who each bright evening trod | 20 |
| On thy marble streets, and came | |
| Downwards like a glancing flame, | |
| Love-allured, as fables tell. | |
| But the last who loved thee well | |
| Was the king whose amorous pride | 25 |
| (All to please his Median bride) | |
| Fenced thee round and round so fast, | |
| That, while the crumbling earth should last, | |
| Thou, he thought, shouldst be, and Time | |
| Should not spoil thy look sublime. | 30 |
| |
| He is gone, whose spirit spoke | |
| To him in a golden dream: | |
| He who saw the future gleam | |
| On the present, and awoke | |
| Troubled in his princely mind, | 35 |
| And bade his magicians blind | |
| From their eyelids strip the scale, | |
| And translate his hidden tale: | |
| He is gone: but ere he died, | |
| He was tumbled from his pride, | 40 |
| From his Babylonian throne, | |
| And cast out to feed alone, | |
| Like the wild ox and the ass, | |
| Seven years on the sprinkled grass. | |
| He is dead: his impious deeds | 45 |
| Are on the brass; but who succeeds? | |
| |
| Over Babylon’s sandy plains | |
| Belshazzar the Assyrian reigns. | |
| A thousand lords at his kingly call | |
| Have met to feast in a spacious hall, | 50 |
| And all the imperial boards are spread, | |
| With dainties whereon the monarch fed. | |
| Rich cates and floods of the purple grape: | |
| And many a dancer’s serpent shape | |
| Steals slowly upon their amorous sights, | 55 |
| Or glances beneath the flaunting lights: | |
| And fountains throw up their silver spray, | |
| And cymbals clash, and the trumpets bray | |
| Till the sounds in the arched roof are hung; | |
| And words from the winding horn are flung: | 60 |
| And still the carvéd cups go round, | |
| And revel and mirth and wine abound. | |
| |
| But Night has o’ertaken the fading Day; | |
| And Music has raged her soul away: | |
| The light in the Bacchanal’s eye is dim; | 65 |
| And faint is the Georgian’s wild love-hymn. | |
| “Bring forth” (on a sudden spoke the king, | |
| And hushed were the lords, loud-rioting),— | |
| “Bring forth the vessels of silver and gold, | |
| Which Nebuchadnezzar, my sire, of old | 70 |
| Ravished from proud Jerusalem; | |
| And we and our queens will drink from them.” | |
| And the vessels are brought, of silver and gold, | |
| Of stone, and of brass, and of iron old, | |
| And of wood, whose sides like a bright gem shine, | 75 |
| And their mouths are all filled with the sparkling wine. | |
| Hark! the king has proclaimed with a stately nod, | |
| “Let a health be drunk out unto Baal, the god.” | |
| They shout and they drink: but the music moans, | |
| And hushed are the reveller’s loudest tones: | 80 |
| For a hand comes forth, and ’t is seen by all | |
| To write strange words on the plastered wall! | |
| The mirth is over; the soft Greek flute | |
| And the voices of women are low,—are mute; | |
| The bacchanal’s eyes are all staring wide; | 85 |
| And where ’s the Assyrian’s pomp of pride?— | |
| That night the monarch was stung to pain: | |
| That night Belshazzar, the king, was slain! | |
| |
| Many a silent age the prow | |
| Of untiring Time, dividing | 90 |
| Years and days, and ever gliding | |
| Onwards, has passed by: and now, | |
| Where ’s thy wealth of streets and towers? | |
| Where thy gay and dazzling hours? | |
| Where thy crowds of slaves, and things | 95 |
| That fed on the rich breath of kings? | |
| Where thy laughter-crownéd times? | |
| Thou art—what?—a breath, a fame, | |
| In the shadow of thy name | |
| Dwelling, like a ghost unseen; | 100 |
| Grander than if laurels green | |
| Or the massy gold were spread, | |
| Crown-like, upon thy great head: | |
| Mighty in thy own undoing, | |
| Drawing a fresh life from ruin | 105 |
| And eternal prophecy: | |
| Thou art gone, but cannot die. | |
| Like a splendor from the sky | |
| Through the silent ether flung, | |
| Like a hoar tradition hung | 110 |
| Glittering in the ear of Time, | |
| Thou art, like a lamp sublime, | |
| Telling from thy wave-worn tower | |
| Where the raging floods have power, | |
| How ruin lives, and how time flies, | 115 |
| And all that on the dial lies. | |
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