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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
BUT seek ye ruins? Pilgrim, raise thine eye, | |
| On yon steep mount what whitening relics lie? | |
| ’T is Herod’s city, built where Israel reared | |
| Samaria’s walls, ere conquering Rome appeared, | |
| Royal Sebaste, crowning Shemer’s brow, | 5 |
| A spot of wildness and of silence now. | |
| See yon fair pillars threatening soon to fall, | |
| Once rich with gold, they graced a royal hall; | |
| Calm on their tops the raven folds his wing, | |
| And round their base long grass and thistles spring: | 10 |
| And this was Herod’s palace, luxury’s slave, | |
| Who ruled the land to Jordan’s northern wave; | |
| And here his goblets flowed, fair women sang, | |
| And charming night, sweet harp and tabret rang: | |
| Yes, by these pillars, mourners of the wild, | 15 |
| Once danced Herodias’ beauty-beaming child; | |
| Here waved her locks, and pealed her laughter sweet, | |
| And, light as fairy’s, gleamed her sandalled feet. | |
| The prince, who gazed with rapture in his eye, | |
| Naught to that fair enchantress could deny: | 20 |
| A mother’s hate then burned, and sped the blow | |
| That smote a prophet in those cells below. | |
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| But Christian relics, too, are rising near; | |
| Shall not yon moss-grown fane the heart revere? | |
| The massy buttress and the solid tower | 25 |
| Reluctant yield to Time’s o’erwhelming power; | |
| No more shall sound beneath those arches dim, | |
| The voice of prayer, the holy choral hymn; | |
| No more the priest his burning censer swing, | |
| Or the soul mount on rapt Devotion’s wing. | 30 |
| Helena! peace to thee, whose pious hand | |
| With Christian shrines thus decked this sainted land; | |
| Bright on thy memory honor’s beams be shed! | |
| As amaranths now adorn thine angel head. | |
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