| |
| WITH heat o’erlabored and the length of way, | |
| On Ethan’s beach the bands of Israel lay. | |
| ’T was silence all, the sparkling sands along; | |
| Save where the locust trilled her feeble song, | |
| Or blended soft in drowsy cadence fell | 5 |
| The wave’s low whisper or the camel’s bell. | |
| ’T was silence all!—the flocks for shelter fly | |
| Where, waving light, the acacia shadows lie; | |
| Or where, from far, the flattering vapors make | |
| The noontide semblance of a misty lake: | 10 |
| While the mute swain, in careless safety spread, | |
| With arms enfolded, and dejected head, | |
| Dreams o’er his wondrous call, his lineage high, | |
| And, late revealed, his children’s destiny. | |
| For, not in vain, in thraldom’s darkest hour, | 15 |
| Had sped from Amram’s sons the word of power; | |
| Nor failed the dreadful wand, whose godlike sway | |
| Could lure the locust from her airy way; | |
| With reptile war assail their proud abodes, | |
| And mar the giant pomp of Egypt’s Gods. | 20 |
| O helpless Gods! who naught availed to shield | |
| From fiery rain your Zoan’s favored field! | |
| O helpless Gods! who saw the curdled blood | |
| Taint the pure lotus of your ancient flood, | |
| And fourfold night the wondering earth enchain, | 25 |
| While Memnon’s orient harp was heard in vain!— | |
| Such musings held the tribes, till now the west | |
| With milder influence on their temples prest? | |
| And that portentous cloud which, all the day, | |
| Hung its dark curtain o’er their weary way | 30 |
| (A cloud by day, a friendly flame by night), | |
| Rolled back its misty veil, and kindled into light!— | |
| Soft fell the eve;—but, ere the day was done, | |
| Tall waving banners streaked the level sun; | |
| And wide and dark along the horizon red, | 35 |
| In sandy surge the rising desert spread. | |
| “Mark, Israel, mark!”—On that strange sight intent, | |
| In breathless terror, every eye was bent; | |
| And busy faction’s fast-increasing hum, | |
| And female voices shriek, “They come, they come!” | 40 |
| They come, they come! in scintillating show | |
| O’er the dark mass the brazen lances glow; | |
| And sandy clouds in countless shapes combine, | |
| As deepens or extends the long tumultuous line; | |
| And fancy’s keener glance even now may trace | 45 |
| The threatening aspects of each mingled race: | |
| For many a coal-black tribe and cany spear, | |
| The hireling guards of Misraim’s throne, were there. | |
| From distant Cush they trooped, a warrior train, | |
| Siwah’s green isle and Sennaar’s marly plain; | 50 |
| On either wing their fiery coursers check | |
| The parched and sinewy sons of Amalek; | |
| While close behind, inured to feast on blood, | |
| Decked in Behemoth’s spoils, the tall Shangalla strode. | |
| Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold | 55 |
| Saw ye how swift the scythéd chariots rolled? | |
| Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric’s fates, | |
| Old Thebes hath poured through all her hundred gates | |
| Mother of armies!—How the emeralds glowed, | |
| Where, flushed with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode! | 60 |
| And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before, | |
| Osiris’ ark his swarthy wizards bore; | |
| And still responsive to the trumpet’s cry | |
| The priestly sistrum murmured,—Victory! | |
| Why swell these shouts that rend the desert’s gloom? | 65 |
| Whom come ye forth to combat?—warriors, whom?— | |
| These flocks and herds,—this faint and weary train, | |
| Red from the scourge and recent from the chain? | |
| God of the poor, the poor and friendless save! | |
| Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave! | 70 |
| North, south, and west the sandy whirlwinds fly, | |
| The circling horns of Egypt’s chivalry. | |
| On earth’s last margin throng the weeping train; | |
| Their cloudy guide moves on: “And must we swim the main?” | |
| Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood, | 75 |
| Nor bathed a fetlock in the nauseous flood. | |
| He comes,—their leader comes! the man of God | |
| O’er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod, | |
| And onward treads. The circling waves retreat, | |
| In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet; | 80 |
| And the chased surges, inly roaring, show | |
| The hard wet sand, and coral hills below. | |
| With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell, | |
| Down, down they pass,—a steep and slippery dell, | |
| Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurled, | 85 |
| The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world; | |
| And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green, | |
| And caves, the sea-calves’ low-roofed haunt, are seen. | |
| Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread; | |
| The beetling waters storm above their head, | 90 |
| While far behind retires the sinking day, | |
| And fades on Edom’s hills its latest ray. | |
| Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light, | |
| Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night. | |
| Still in their van, along that dreadful road, | 95 |
| Blazed broad and fierce the brandished torch of God. | |
| Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave | |
| On the long mirror of the rosy wave, | |
| While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply, | |
| Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye,— | 100 |
| To them alone; for Misraim’s wizard train | |
| Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain: | |
| Clouds heaped on clouds their struggling sight confine, | |
| And tenfold darkness broods above their line. | |
| Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led, | 105 |
| And range unconscious through the ocean’s bed; | |
| Till midway now, that strange and fiery form | |
| Showed his dread visage lightening through the storm; | |
| With withering splendor blasted all their might, | |
| And brake their chariot-wheels, and marred their coursers’ flight. | 110 |
| “Fly, Misraim, fly!” The ravenous floods they see, | |
| And fiercer than the floods, the Deity. | |
| “Fly, Misraim, fly!” From Edom’s coral strand | |
| Again the prophet stretched his dreadful wand; | |
| With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep, | 115 |
| And all is waves,—a dark and lonely deep, | |
| Yet o’er those lonely waves such murmurs past, | |
| As mortal wailing swelled the nightly blast, | |
| And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore | |
| The groans of Egypt to Arabia’s shore. | 120 |
| O, welcome came the morn, where Israel stood | |
| In trustless wonder by the avenging flood! | |
| O, welcome came the cheerful morn, to show | |
| The drifted wreck of Zoan’s pride below; | |
| The mangled limbs of men, the broken car, | 125 |
| A few sad relics of a nation’s war,— | |
| Alas, how few! Then, soft as Elim’s well, | |
| The precious tears of new-born freedom fell. | |
| And he, whose hardened heart alike had borne | |
| The house of bondage and the oppressor’s scorn, | 130 |
| The stubborn slave, by hope’s new beams subdued, | |
| In faltering accents sobbed his gratitude, | |
| Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around | |
| The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound; | |
| And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest, | 135 |
| The struggling spirit throbbed in Miriam’s breast. | |
| She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky | |
| The dark transparence of her lucid eye, | |
| Poured on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony. | |
| “Where now,” she sang, “the tall Egyptian spear? | 140 |
| On’s sunlike shield, and Zoan’s chariot, where? | |
| Above their ranks the whelming waters spread. | |
| Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphéd!” | |
| And every pause between as Miriam sang, | |
| From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang, | 145 |
| And loud and far their stormy chorus spread, | |
| “Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphéd!” | |
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