Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
VI. Human ExperienceJewish Hymn in Babylon
Henry Hart Milman (1791–1868)G
The fiery winds of Desolation flow;
Father of vengeance, that with purple feet
Like a full wine-press tread’st the world below;
The embattled armies wait thy sign to slay,
Nor springs the beast of havoc on his prey,
Nor withering Famine walks his blasted way,
Till thou hast marked the guilty land for woe.
The billows of the proud their rage suppress;
Father of mercies! at one word of thine
An Eden blooms in the waste wilderness,
And fountains sparkle in the arid sands,
And timbrels ring in maidens’ glancing hands,
And marble cities crown the laughing lands,
And pillared temples rise thy name to bless.
The chariots rattled o’er her sunken gate,
Her sons were wasted by the Assyrian’s sword,
Even her foes wept to see her fallen state;
And heaps her ivory palaces became,
Her princes wore the captive’s garb of shame,
Her temples sank amid the smouldering flame,
For thou didst ride the tempest cloud of fate.
And the sad City lift her crownless head,
And songs shall wake and dancing footsteps gleam
In streets where broods the silence of the dead.
The sun shall shine on Salem’s gilded towers,
On Carmel’s side our maidens cull the flowers
To deck at blushing eye their bridal bowers,
And angel feet the glittering Sion tread.
And Abraham’s children were led forth for slaves.
With fettered steps we left our pleasant land,
Envying our fathers in their peaceful graves.
The strangers’ bread with bitter tears we steep,
And when our weary eyes should sink to sleep,
In the mute midnight we steal forth to weep.
Where the pale willows shade Euphrates’ waves.
Thy mercy, Lord, shall lead thy children home;
He that went forth a tender prattling boy
Yet, ere he die, to Salem’s streets shall come;
And Canaan’s vines for us their fruit shall bear,
And Hermon’s bees their honeyed stores prepare,
And we shall kneel again in thankful prayer,
Where o’er the cherub-seated God full blazed the irradiate dome.