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PAINTED BY JOHN MARTIN

Hark! hark; the shrieks

Of those that perish in the flames. Too late VOL. I. No. IV.

37

ས༦.༦,

Not toward the fountain, not by

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AMERICAN ECLECTIC

AND

MUSEUM OF LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

APRIL, 1843.

FALL OF JERUSALEM.

FROM MILMAN.

Illustrated by an Engraving by Mr. Sartain, from Martin's celebrated Picture.

TITUS, PLACIDUS, TERENTIUS, Soldiers, SIMON.

TITUS.

Save, save the Temple! Placidus, Terentius,
Haste, bid the legions cease to slay; and quench
Yon ruining fire.
Who's this, that stands unmoved
Mid slaughter, flame, and wreck, nor deigus to bow
Before the Conqueror of Jerusalem?
What art thou?

SIMON.

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I came to spare, it wraps the fabric round.
Fate, Fate, I feel thou'rt mightier than Cesar,
He cannot save what thou hast doom'd! Back,
Romans,

Withdraw your angry cohorts, and give place
To the inevitable ruin. Destiny,

It is thine own, and Cesar yields it to thee.
Lead off the prisoner.

SIMON.

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A moment, Romans.
Is't then thy will, Almighty Lord of Israel,
That this thy Temple be a heap of ashes?
Is't then thy will, that I, thy chosen Captain,
Put on the raiment of captivity?

By Abraham, our father! by the Twelve,
The Patriarch Sons of Jacob! by the Law,
In thunder spoken! by the untouch'd Ark!
By David, and the Anointed Race of Kings!
By great Elias, and the gifted Prophets !
I here demand a sign!

'Tis there-I see it. The fire that rends the Veil !

We are then of thee Abandon'd- —not abandon'd of ourselves. Heap woes upon us, scatter us abroad, Earth's scorn and hissing; to the race of men A loathsome proverb; spurn'd by every foot, And curs'd by every tongue; our heritage And birthright bondage; and our very brows Bearing, like Cain's, the outcast mark of hate : Israel will still be Israel, still will boast Her fallen Temple, her departed glory; And, wrapt in conscious righteousness, defy Earth's utmost hate, and answer scorn with scorn.

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My own beloved! I dare call thee mine,

For Heaven hath given thee to me-chosen out,
As we two are for solitary blessing,
While the universal curse is pour'd around us
On every head, 'twere cold and barren gratitude
To stifle in our hearts the holy gladness.

But, oh Jerusalem! thy rescued children
May not, retir'd within their secret joy,
Shut out the mournful sight of thy calamities.

Oh, beauty of earth's cities! throned queen

Of thy milk-flowing valleys! crown'd with glory!
The envy of the nations! now no more
A city-One by one thy palaces
Sink into ashes, and the uniform smoke
O'er half thy circuit hath brought back the night
Which the insulting flames had made give place
To their untimely terrible day. The flames
That in the Temple, their last proudest conquest,
Now gather all their might, and furiously,
Like revellers, hold there exulting triumph.
Round every pillar, over all the roof,

On the wide gorgeous front, the holy depth
Of the far sanctuary, every portico,
And every court, at once, concentrated,
As though to glorify and not destroy,
They burn, they blaze-

Look!

Look, Miriam, how it stands!

MIRIAM.

There are men around us!

JAVAN.

They are friends,

Bound here to meet me, and behold the last
Of our devoted city. Look, oh Christians!
Still the Lord's house survives man's fallen dwell-

ings,

And wears its ruin with a majesty
Peculiar and divine. Still, still it stands,

All one wide fire, and yet no stone hath fallen.

Hark-hark!

The feeble cry of an expiring nation.

Hark-hark!

The awe-struck shout of the unboasting conqueror.
Hark-hark!

It breaks-it severs-it is on the earth.
The smother'd fires are quench'd in their own ruins :
Like a huge dome, the vast and cloudy smoke
Hath cover'd all.
And it is now no more,

Nor ever shall be to the end of time,
The Temple of Jerusalem!-Fall down,
My brethren, on the dust, and worship here
The mysteries of God's wrath.
Even so shall perish,
In its own ashes, a more glorious Temple,
Yea, God's own architecture, this vast world,
This fated universe-the same destroyer,
The same destruction-Earth, Earth, Earth, be-
hold!

And in that judgment look upon thine own!

HYMN.

Even thus amid thy pride and luxury,
Oh Earth! shall that last coming burst on thee.
That secret coming of the Son of Man.
When all the cherub-throning clouds shall shine,
Irradiate with his bright advancing sign:

When that Great Husbandman shall wave his fan, Sweeping, like chaff, thy wealth and pomp away: Still to the noontide of that nightless day,

Shalt thou thy wonted dissolute course maintain. Along the busy mart and crowded street, The buyer and the seller still shall meet,

And marriage feasts begin their jocund strain : Still to the pouring out the Cup of Wo; Till Earth, a drunkard, reeling to and fro, And mountains molten by his burning feet, And Heaven his presence own, all red with furnace heat.

The hundred-gated Cities then,

The Towers and Temples, nam'd of men
Eternal, and the Thrones of Kings;

The gilded summer Palaces,

The courtly bowers of love and ease,
Where still the Bird of pleasure sings;
Ask ye the destiny of them?

Go gaze on fallen Jerusalem!

Yea, mightier names are in the fatal roll, 'Gainst earth and heaven God's standard is un

furl'd,

The skies are shrivell'd like a burning scroll, And the vast common doom ensepulchres the world.

Oh! who shall then survive?

Oh! who shall stand and live?

When all that hath been, is no more:
When for the round earth hung in air,
With all its constellations fair

In the sky's azure canopy;

When for the breathing Earth, and Sparkling Sea,
Is but a fiery deluge without shore,

Heaving along the abyss profound and dark,
A fiery deluge, and without an Ark.

Lord of all power, when thou art there alone
On thy eternal fiery-wheeled throne,
That in its high meridian noon
Needs not the perish'd sun nor moon:
When thou art there in thy presiding state,
Wide-sceptred Monarch o'er the realm of doom:
When from the sea depths, from earth's darkest
womb,

The dead of all the ages round thee wait:
And when the tribes of wickedness are strewn

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