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The garden of ABSALOM’S house on Mount Zion, near the palace, overlooking the city. TAMAR sitting by a fountain.
Tam. How aromatic evening grows! The flowers, | |
| And spicy shrubs exhale like onycha; | |
| Spikenard and henna emulate in sweets. | |
| Blest hour! which He, who fashioned it so fair, | |
| So softly glowing, so contemplative, | 5 |
| Hath set, and sanctified to look on man. | |
| And lo! the smoke of evening sacrifice | |
| Ascends from out the tabernacle. Heaven | |
| Accept the expiation, and forgive | |
| This day’s offences!—Ha! the wonted strain, | 10 |
| Precursor of his coming!—Whence can this— | |
| It seems to flow from some unearthly hand— | |
| Had. Does beauteous Tamar view, in this clear fount, | |
| Herself, or heaven? | |
| Tam. Nay, Hadad, tell me whence | 15 |
| Those sad, mysterious sounds. | |
| Had. What sounds, dear Princess? | |
| Tam. Surely, thou know’st; and now I almost think | |
| Some spiritual creature waits on thee. | |
| Had. I heard no sounds, but such as evening sends | 20 |
| Up from the city to these quiet shades; | |
| A blended murmur sweetly harmonizing | |
| With flowing fountains, feather’d minstrelsy, | |
| And voices from the hills. | |
| Tam. The sounds I mean, | 25 |
| Floated like mournful music round my head, | |
| From unseen fingers. | |
| Had. When? | |
| Tam. Now, as thou camest. | |
| Had. ’T is but thy fancy, wrought | 30 |
| To ecstasy; or else thy grandsire’s harp | |
| Resounding from its tower at eventide. | |
| I ’ve lingered to enjoy its solemn tones, | |
| Till the broad moon, that rose o’er Olivet, | |
| Stood listening in the zenith; yea, have deem’d | 35 |
| Viols and heavenly voices answer’d him. | |
| Tam. But these— | |
| Had. Were we in Syria, I might say | |
| The Naiad of the fount, or some sweet Nymph, | |
| The goddess of these shades, rejoiced in thee, | 40 |
| And gave thee salutations; but I fear | |
| Judah would call me infidel to Moses. | |
| Tam. How like my fancy! When these strains precede | |
| Thy steps, as oft they do, I love to think | |
| Some gentle being who delights in us | 45 |
| Is hovering near, and warns me of thy coming; | |
| But they are dirge-like. | |
| Had. Youthful fantasy, | |
| Attuned to sadness, makes them seem so, lady. | |
| So evening’s charming voices, welcomed ever, | 50 |
| As signs of rest and peace;—the watchman’s call, | |
| The closing gates, the Levite’s mellow trump | |
| Announcing the returning moon, the pipe | |
| Of swains, the bleat, the bark, the housing-bell, | |
| Send melancholy to a drooping soul. | 55 |
| Tam. But how delicious are the pensive dreams | |
| That steal upon the fancy at their call! | |
| Had. Delicious to behold the world at rest. | |
| Meek labor wipes his brow, and intermits | |
| The curse, to clasp the younglings of his cot; | 60 |
| Herdsmen, and shepherds, fold their flocks—and hark! | |
| What merry strains they send from Olivet! | |
| The jar of life is still; the city speaks | |
| In gentle murmurs; voices chime with lutes | |
| Waked in the streets and gardens; loving pairs | 65 |
| Eye the red west in one another’s arms; | |
| And nature, breathing dew and fragrance, yields | |
| A glimpse of happiness, which He, who form’d | |
| Earth and the stars, had power to make eternal. | |
| Tam. Ah! Hadad, mean’st thou to reproach the Friend | 70 |
| Who gave so much, because he gave not all? | |
| Had. Perfect benevolence, methinks, had will’d | |
| Unceasing happiness, and peace, and joy; | |
| Fill’d the whole universe of human hearts | |
| With pleasure, like a flowing spring of life. | 75 |
| Tam. Our Prophet teaches so, till man rebell’d. | |
| Had. Mighty rebellion! Had he ’leaguer’d Heaven | |
| With beings powerful, numberless, and dreadful, | |
| Strong as the enginery that rocks the world | |
| When all its pillars tremble; mix’d the fires | 80 |
| Of onset with annihilating bolts | |
| Defensive volleyed from the throne; this, this | |
| Had been rebellion worthy of the name, | |
| Worthy of punishment. But what did man? | |
| Tasted an apple! and the fragile scene, | 85 |
| Eden, and innocence, and human bliss, | |
| The nectar-flowing streams, life-giving fruits, | |
| Celestial shades, and amaranthine flowers, | |
| Vanish; and sorrow, toil, and pain, and death, | |
| Cleave to him by an everlasting curse. | 90 |
| Tam. Ah! talk not thus. | |
| Had. Is this benevolence?— | |
| Nay, loveliest, these things sometimes trouble me; | |
| For I was tutor’d in a brighter faith. | |
| Our Syrians deem each lucid fount, and stream, | 95 |
| Forest, and mountain, glade, and bosky dell, | |
| Peopled with kind divinities, the friends | |
| Of man, a spiritual race allied | |
| To him by many sympathies, who seek | |
| His happiness, inspire him with gay thoughts, | 100 |
| Cool with their waves, and fan him with their airs | |
| O’er them, the Spirit of the Universe, | |
| Or Soul of Nature, circumfuses all | |
| With mild, benevolent, and sun-like radiance; | |
| Pervading, warming, vivifying earth, | 105 |
| As spirit does the body, till green herbs, | |
| And beauteous flowers, and branchy cedars rise; | |
| And shooting stellar influence through her caves, | |
| Whence minerals and gems imbibe their lustre. | |
| Tam. Dreams, Hadad, empty dreams. | 110 |
| Had. These Deities | |
| They invocate with cheerful gentle rites, | |
| Hang garlands on their altars, heap their shrines | |
| With Nature’s bounties, fruits, and fragrant flowers. | |
| Not like yon gory mount that ever reeks— | 115 |
| Tam. Cast not reproach upon the holy altar. | |
| Had. Nay, sweet.—Having enjoyed all pleasures here | |
| That Nature prompts, but chiefly blissful love, | |
| At death, the happy Syrian maiden deems | |
| Her immaterial flies into the fields, | 120 |
| Or circumambient clouds, or crystal brooks, | |
| And dwells, a Deity, with those she worshipp’d; | |
| Till time, or fate, return her in its course | |
| To quaff, once more, the cup of human joy. | |
| Tam. But thou believ’st not this. | 125 |
| Had. I almost wish | |
| Thou didst; for I have fear’d, my gentle Tamar, | |
| Thy spirit is too tender for a Law | |
| Announced in terrors, coupled with the threats | |
| Of an inflexible and dreadful Being, | 130 |
| Whose word annihilates, whose awful voice | |
| Thunders the doom of nations, who can check | |
| The sun in heaven, and shake the loosen’d stars, | |
| Like wind-toss’d fruit, to earth, whose fiery step | |
| The earthquake follows, whose tempestuous breath | 135 |
| Divides the sea, whose anger never dies, | |
| Never remits, but everlasting burns, | |
| Burns unextinguish’d in the deeps of Hell. | |
| Jealous, implacable— | |
| Tam. Peace! impious! peace! | 140 |
| Had. Ha! says not Moses so? | |
| The Lord is jealous. | |
| Tam. Jealous of our faith, | |
| Our love, our true obedience, justly his; | |
| And a poor recompense for all his favors. | 145 |
| Implacable he is not; contrite man | |
| Ne’er found him so. | |
| Had. But others have, | |
| If oracles be true. | |
| Tam. Little we know | 150 |
| Of them; and nothing of their dire offence. | |
| Had. I meant not to displease, love; but my soul | |
| Sometimes revolts, because I think thy nature | |
| Shudders at him and yonder bloody rites. | |
| How dreadful! when the world awakes to light, | 155 |
| And life, and gladness, and the jocund tide | |
| Bounds in the veins of every happy creature, | |
| Morning is usher’d by a murder’d victim, | |
| Whose wasting members reek upon the air, | |
| Polluting the pure firmament; the shades | 160 |
| Of evening scent of death; almost, the shrine | |
| O’ershadowed by the holy Cherubim; | |
| And where the clotted current from the altar | |
| Mixes with Kedron, all its waves are gore. | |
| Nay, nay, I grieve thee—’t is not for myself, | 165 |
| But that I fear these gloomy things oppress | |
| Thy soul, and cloud its native sunshine. | |
| Tam. (in tears, clasping her hands.) Witness, ye Heavens! Eternal Father, witness! | |
| Blest God of Jacob! Maker! Friend! Preserver! | |
| That with my heart, my undivided soul, | 170 |
| I love, adore, and praise thy glorious name, | |
| Confess thee Lord of all, believe thy Laws | |
| Wise, just, and merciful, as they are true. | |
| O Hadad, Hadad! you misconstrue much | |
| The sadness that usurps me—’t is for thee | 175 |
| I grieve—for hopes that fade—for your lost soul, | |
| And my lost happiness. | |
| Had. O say not so, | |
| Beloved Princess. Why distrust my faith? | |
| Tam. Thou know’st, alas, my weakness; but remember, | 180 |
| I never, never will be thine, although | |
| The feast, the blessing, and the song were past, | |
| Though Absalom and David call’d me bride, | |
| Till sure thou own’st, with truth, and love sincere, | |
| The Lord Jehovah. | 185 |
| Had. Leave me not—Hear, hear— | |
| I do believe—I know that Being lives | |
| Whom you adore. Ah! stay—by proofs I know | |
| Which Moses had not. | |
| Tam. Prince, unclasp my hand. | 190 |
| Had. Untwine thy fetters if thou canst.—How sweet | |
| To watch the struggling softness! It allays | |
| The beating tempest of my thoughts, and flows | |
| Like the nepenthe of elysium through me. | |
| How exquisite! Like subtlest essences, | 195 |
| She fills the spirit! How the girdle clips | |
| Her taper waist with its resplendent clasp! | |
| Her bosom’s silvery-swelling network yields | |
| Ravishing glimpses, like sweet shade and moonshine | |
| Checkering Astarte’s statue. | 200 |
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