280 HEBREW MELODY. In the deserts they make them a home, And the mountains awake to their cryFor the frown of Jehovah hath come, And his anger is red in the sky! Thy tender ones throng at the brink, Of the gush of the stream from its cell- And drank in their innocent mirth: Away! it is sealed—and no more Shall the fountain give freshness to earth. The hearts of the mighty are bowed, The voices of mothers are loud, As they shriek the wild note of despair. Oh, Jerusalem! mourn through thy halls, And bend to the dust in thy shame; The doom that thy spirit appals, Is famine the sword-and the flame! SEE how yon flaming herald treads She rends the clinging sea, Bb 282 THE STEAMBOAT. The morning spray, like sea-born flowers, And flaming o'er the midnight deep, In lurid fringes thrown, The living gems of ocean sweep Along her flashing zone. With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, And smoking torch on high, When winds are loud, and billows reel, When seas are silent and serene, With even beam she glides, The sunshine glimmering through the green Now, like a wild nymph, far apart Still sounding through the storm; THE STEAMBOAT. To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, To-night yon frigate scarce shall keep And many a foresail, scooped and strained, The rising mist of day. Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast; The black throat of the hunted cloud An hour, and whirled like winnowing chaff, His tresses o'er yon pennon staff, White as the sea-bird's wing! Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; Those fleshless arms, whose pulses leap With floods of living fire; Sleep on-and when the morning light O think of those for whom the night 283 'Tis midnight's holy hour-and silence now Is brooding like a gentle Spirit o'er The still and pulseless world. Hark! on the winds Is sweeping past-yet, on the stream and wood, |