| |
| IS this thy tomb, amid the mournful shades | |
| Of the deep valley of Jehoshaphat, | |
| Thou son of David? Kedron’s gentle brook | |
| Is murmuring near, as if it fain would tell | |
| Thy varied history. Methinks I see | 5 |
| Thy graceful form, thy smile, thy sparkling eye, | |
| The glorious beauty of thy flowing hair, | |
| And that bright, eloquent lip, whose cunning stole | |
| The hearts of all the people. Didst thou waste | |
| The untold treasures of integrity, | 10 |
| The gold of conscience, for their light applause, | |
Thou fair dissembler?
Say, rememberest thou | |
| When o’er yon flinty steep of Olivet | |
| A sorrowing train went up? Dark frowning seers | |
| Denouncing judgment on a rebel prince, | 15 |
| Past sadly on; and next a crownless king | |
| Walking in sad and humbled majesty, | |
| While hoary statesmen bent upon his brow | |
| Indignant looks of tearful sympathy. | |
What caused the weeping there?
Thou heardst it not, | 20 |
| For thou within the city’s walls didst hold | |
| Thy revel brief and base. So thou couldst set | |
| The embattled host against thy father’s life, | |
| The king of Israel, and the loved of God! | |
| He mid the evils of his changeful lot, | 25 |
| Saul’s moody hatred, stern Philistia’s spear, | |
| His alien wanderings, and his warrior toil, | |
| Found naught so bitter as the rankling thorn | |
| Set by thy madness of ingratitude | |
Deep in his yearning soul.
What were thy thoughts | 30 |
| When in the mesh of thy own tresses snared | |
| Amid the oak whose quiet verdure mocked | |
| Thy misery, forsook by all who shared | |
| Thy meteor-greatness and constrained to learn | |
| There in that solitude of agony, | 35 |
| A traitor hath no friends!—what were thy thoughts | |
| When death careering on the triple dart | |
| Of vengeful Joab found thee? To thy God | |
| Rose there one cry of penitence, one prayer | |
| For that unmeasured mercy which can cleanse | 40 |
| Unbounded guilt? Or turned thy stricken heart | |
| Toward him who o’er thy infant graces watched | |
| With tender pride, and all thy sins of youth | |
| In blindfold fondness pardoned? All thy crimes | |
| Were cancelled in that plenitude of love | 45 |
| Which laves with fresh and everlasting tide | |
A parent’s heart.
I see that form which awed | |
| The foes of Israel with its victor-might | |
| Bowed low in grief, and hear upon the breeze | |
| That sweeps the palm-groves of Jerusalem, | 50 |
| The wild continuous wail,—“O Absalom! | |
My son! My son!”
We turn us from thy tomb, | |
| Usurping prince! Thy beauty and thy grace | |
| Have perished with thee, but thy fame survives,— | |
| The ingrate son that pierced a father’s heart. | 55 |
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