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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
FAR south of Ctesiphon, where Ulai flows, | |
| That heard of old the song of Israel’s woes, | |
| Ye meet a shapeless building, low and rude, | |
| Wild as the scene, where all is solitude; | |
| Who owned in other days this moss-clad cell? | 5 |
| Here, Allah’s child, did some blessed dervish dwell, | |
| Hoping, by scorning pleasure, hating man, | |
| And dragging on in woe life’s wretched span, | |
| To win his prophet’s praises in the skies, | |
| Sit in bright bowers, and bask in houris’ eyes?— | 10 |
| No, yon small ruin marks the ancient dead; | |
| Hushed be thy voice, and walk with reverent tread; | |
| Towers near a mighty mound,—’t is all ye see | |
| Of Persia’s boast, of Susa’s majesty; | |
| Wild fern and rue around thee whispering wave, | 15 |
| Meet to adorn a perished people’s grave. | |
| Now on that tomb sleep evening’s mellow rays, | |
| Its dark sides softening in the golden haze; | |
| The heart throbs high, yet solemn feeling steeps | |
| The awe-struck soul, for here famed Daniel sleeps! | 20 |
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| Mighty of eld! interpreter of dreams! | |
| Stern, mystic, awful, as his sacred themes! | |
| We pause, and doubt his very bones can rest | |
| Beneath this heathy turf, the wild-bird’s nest; | |
| Yet here stood Susa,—there those waters roll, | 25 |
| Where heaven-born visions burst on Daniel’s soul; | |
| Yes, he, the favored of Chaldea’s kings, | |
| Who swept the future’s depths on prophet-wings, | |
| Hath oft, perchance, roamed here in thought sublime, | |
| Mused by these murmuring waves, unchanged by time, | 30 |
| At night’s deep hour yon lonely mountains trod, | |
| Mourned for his captive race, and called on God. * * * * * | |
| Susa! that held the wealth of Persia’s kings, | |
| Gold, silver, gems, and luxury’s sweetest things; | |
| Susa! the pleasant city of delight, | 35 |
| With groves so shady, and with streams so bright, | |
| Where sang the bulbul to his blushing rose, | |
| Half matched by Beauty’s lyre at evening’s close; | |
| Where spread those lily-gardens far and near, | |
| Like carpets of soft snow through half the year, | 40 |
| Save that they breathed perfumes as purely sweet | |
| As wreaths of angels, when the blessed they meet; | |
| Save that their tall green stems hid frolic Love, | |
| Who laughed and played, and still would peep above, | |
| Crowning the maid he lured amid their flowers | 45 |
| With blooms all fresh as those in Eden’s bowers. | |
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| Alas for Susa! Climb we thoughtful, slow, | |
| The giant mound, the Hebrew’s grave below. | |
| The eye looks east and west, but all is bare, | |
| A drear expanse, a savage desert there; | 50 |
| And other mounds in wild confusion sweep, | |
| Like waves heaped high, then frozen on the deep. | |
| The joyous city, and the murmuring crowd, | |
| The lily-garden, and the palace proud, | |
| The lutes of maids, the bulbul’s melting song, | 55 |
| The happy groups that danced the meads along,— | |
| All now have mingled with the eternal past, | |
| A lamp gone out, a dream that might not last, | |
| And o’er these heaps Oblivion waves her wing, | |
| And the poor grasshopper will scarce be king! | 60 |
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| Yet interest haloes still fair Susa’s name, | |
| And hearts unborn shall treasure up her fame, | |
| Shall thrill sweet Esther’s varied tale to hear, | |
| And for the wrongs of Vashti ask a tear. | |
| Pilgrims, when we are dust, shall climb this mound, | 65 |
| And gaze like us, and sink in thought profound. | |
| Here, too, when day along the desert dies, | |
| And sunset glories slowly quit the skies, | |
| Will lean the dreamer, and in fancy see | |
| Gay sights of old, and pomp no more to be. | 70 |
| High on yon pile where rays of violet fall, | |
| Will feast Darius, throned amidst his hall, | |
| In deeper shade sad Vashti wander by, | |
| Weep for her lord, and breathe her fruitless sigh. | |
| There Mordecai will watch the palace gate, | 75 |
| And proud Hamán defy approaching fate; | |
| While, as the stars peep out, and silvery beams | |
| Light sacred Ulai, and Choaspes’ streams, | |
| And desert flowers their dewy eyelids close, | |
| And all but elves and peris seek repose, | 80 |
| That group of chosen maids will seem to shine, | |
| Sweet as the flowers, and as the stars divine,— | |
| The maids from every country gathered there, | |
| The pale, the rosy-cheeked, the dark, the fair, | |
| The bright, the languid-eyed, the short, the tall, | 85 |
| And Hebrew Esther,—loveliest of them all! | |
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