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Home  »  Specimens of American Poetry  »  James Abraham Hillhouse (1789–1841)

Samuel Kettell, ed. Specimens of American Poetry. 1829.

By Hadad, Scene III

James Abraham Hillhouse (1789–1841)

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,

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,

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

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

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,

Floated like mournful music round my head,

From unseen fingers.

Had.When?

Tam.Now, as thou camest.

Had.’T is but thy fancy, wrought

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

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,

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

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,

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.

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;

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

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

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.

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

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,

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.

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,

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,

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,

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.

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—

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,

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.

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,

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

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!

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.

Implacable he is not; contrite man

Ne’er found him so.

Had.But others have,

If oracles be true.

Tam.Little we know

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,

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

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,

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,

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

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,

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.

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.

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,

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.