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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
SLOW moves our skiff o’er still Tabaria’s tide, | |
| Through whose clear azure fish are seen to glide; | |
| Abrupt and steep the girdling mountains frown, | |
| Gigantic shadows stealing darkly down. | |
| No murmuring crowds move busy on the shore, | 5 |
| No shepherd sings, or fisher plies his oar; | |
| No voice in heaven, no whisper from the cave, | |
| Man seems unborn, and Nature here a grave. | |
| A quiet sadness fills the musing mind, | |
| We fain would speak, but language may not find. | 10 |
| Yet, not like Sodom’s waters, here we trace | |
| A holy beauty and a solemn grace; | |
| Though man may now desert yon silent strand, | |
| Fancy will call up forms on wave and land; | |
| A thousand memories treasured still shall be, | 15 |
| And linked throughout all time, fair lake, with thee. | |
| Here lowly Peter’s youthful days were past, | |
| In yon green cove, perchance, his net was cast; | |
| Here, mingling blood with pure and sparkling foam, | |
| In her last throes Judæa fought with Rome; | 20 |
| On yon fair Mount that blessed discourse was given | |
| By One who spoke as angels speak in heaven. | |
| Lo! on the lake, day’s farewell smiles expire, | |
| And night’s deep shadows wrap each rocky spire; | |
| Struggling with winds, and tossed on surges dark, | 25 |
| The Apostles urge in vain their laboring bark; | |
| No friendly moon,—not e’en a star on high | |
| Casts on their course its mild celestial eye. | |
| See! near their ship that calm and awful form, | |
| Who walks the waves, unheeding night and storm; | 30 |
| Far o’er the lake they see strange lustre gleam, | |
| And round his head a lambent glory beam; | |
| Shrinking in fear, with eyes that wildly stare, | |
| They deem that form a spectre gliding there; | |
| But, soft as music to the saint who dies, | 35 |
| Floats o’er Time’s gulf from opening Paradise, | |
| His voice now sounds along the troubled wave, | |
| And calms their fears,—the blessed One comes to save! | |
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| He who shall search for cities famed of yore, | |
| Few wrecks will find on lone Tabaria’s shore: | 40 |
| Where stood tower-crowned Chorazin, men forget; | |
| A palm-tree marks thy sight, Gennesaret. | |
| Tiberias, Herod’s pride, still flaunteth fair, | |
| But not the cross, the crescent triumphs there; | |
| With zeal for Islam’s creed men’s bosoms burn, | 45 |
| And brows to Mecca, not to Salem, turn. | |
| No more Bethsaida gleams across the flood; | |
| An ancient watch-tower tells where Magdal stood | |
| Clothed with green moss,—Time’s sad but fragrant pall,— | |
| Many a dark bath extends its mouldering wall; | 50 |
| They sink to dust, yet Health still spreads his wings | |
| O’er the warm fountain’s life-reviving springs. | |
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