THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
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 e'en now may trace
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 troop'd a warrior train,
Siwah's green isle and Sennaar's marly plain :
On either wing their fiery coursers check
The parch'd and sinewy sons of Amalek :
While close behind, inured to feast on blood,
Deck'd in Behemoth's spoils. the tall Shangalla strode.
'Mid blazing helms and bucklers rough with gold,
Saw ye how swift the scythed chariots roll'd?
Lo, these are they whom, lords of Afric's fates,
Old Thebes hath pour'd through all her hundred gates,
Mother of armies !-How the emeralds glow'd,
Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode !
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 murmur'd-Victory!
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat ?-warriors, whom?-
These flock 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!—
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,
Nor bath'd 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 murmur, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand and coral hills below.
With limbs that falter, and with hearts that w
Down, down they pass a steep and slippery dell-
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are secu.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head:
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,
Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd 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-
To them alone--for Misraim's wizard train
Invoked for light their monster-gods in vain
Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine,
And tenfold darkness broods above their line,
Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed;
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form
Show'd his dread visage lightening through the storm;
With withering splendor blasted all their might,
And broke their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight. '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 stretch'd his dreadful wand :-
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves-a dark and lonely deep-
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swell'd the nightly blast;
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.
Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood
In trustless wonder by the avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below;
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car—
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,
The stubborn salve, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobb'd his gratitude-
Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound:
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbb'd in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,
Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony.
"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear?
On's sun-like shield, and Zion's chariot, where?
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed!"
And every pause between as Miriam sang,
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang,
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,-
"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphed !"
Miriam. But what suspends their progress? Something stays them; Slow, and more slow, their lagging motion seems.
Their chariot wheels drive heavily along
They stop; they're moveless. Now, O extasy!
The refluent waters haste to meet again!
They close above their heads! Egypt, ingulph'd,
Is lost to sight!-the rider and his horse
Together sink-they sink-they rise no more.
Jochebed. Can this be realiz'd?
Tis great; but great is HE whose will controls it.
Methinks I hear the shouts of victory,
I hear triumphant Moses' grateful song!
Thou art our strength, O Lord! the work is thine,
Thine is the power, and thine be all the praise;
Pharaoh is sunk-his chariots and his host
Plung'd in the dark abyss! As lead they sank.
To save the favor'd sons of Jacob's race,
The flood, no longer liquid, stood congeal'd.
The crystal wall stood firm, as Israel pass'd:
When Egypt came, the crystal wall dissolv'd.
Thou didst stretch forth Thy hand, and Moses pass'd;
Thou didst stretch forth Thy hand, and Pharaoh sank.
Lord! who among the Gods is like to Thee?
Fearful in praises, wonderful in power,
Glorious in holiness! thou great I AM!
What mighty marvels Thy right hand has wrought!
Thy hand pre-eminent! Thou art my God!
And all I have is Thine! My father's God!
Thy name I will exalt; 'tis THOU hast conquer'd.
See Pharaoh's captains perish with his host!
The horse and rider meet one common fate.
The depths have cover'd them they sink together.
Vainly they boasted-" Though the slaves escape,
Yet we will follow them, o'ertake, and crush them."
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers' God before her moved,
An awful guide, in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night Arabia's crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column's glow.
Then rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen ;
And Zion's daughters poured their lays,
With priest's and warrior's voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone :
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.
But, present still, though now unseen !—
When brightly shines the prosperous day
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And, O! when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn ;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.
But Thou hast said, The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are mine accepted sacrifice.
PALESTINE, THE LAND OF RUINS.
THIS is the most convenient place for noticing a peculiari the present aspect of Palestine, which, though not, prop speaking, a physical feature, is so closely connected both
PALESTINE, THE LAND OF RUINS
cannot be omitted. Above all other countries in the world, it is a Land of Ruins. It is not that the particular ruins are on a scale equal to those of Greece and Italy, still less to those of Egypt. But there is no country in which they are so numerous, none in which they bear so large a proportion to the villages and towns still in existence. In Judæa it is hardly an exaggeration to say that whilst for miles and miles there is no appearance of present life or habitation, except the occasional goat-herd on the hill-side, or gathering of women at the wells, there is yet hardly a hill-top of the many within sight which is not covered by the vestiges of some fortress or city of former ages. Sometimes they are fragments of ancient walls, sometimes mere foundations and piles of stone, but always enough to indicate signs of human habitation and civilisation. Such is the case in Western Palestine. In Eastern Palestine, and still more if we include the Haurân and the Lebanon, the same picture is continued although under a somewhat different aspect. Here the ancient cities remain, in like manner deserted, ruined but standing; not mere masses and heaps of stones, but towns and houses, in amount and in a state of preservation which have no parallel except in the cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, buried under the eruption of Vesuvius. Not even in Rome or Athens, hardly in Egyptian Thebes, can ancient buildings be found in such magnitude and such profusion as at Baalbec, Jerash, Ammân, and Palmyra. No where else, it is said, can all the details of Roman domestic architecture be seen so clearly as in the hundreds of deserted villages which stand on the red desert of the Haurân. This difference between the ruins of the two regions of Palestine arises no doubt from the circumstance, that, whereas Eastern Syria has been for the last four hundred years entirely, for the last fifteen hundred years nearly, deserted by civilised, almost by barbarian, man, Western Palestine has always been the resort of a population which, however rude and scanty, has been sufficiently numerous and energetic to destroy and to appropriate edifices which in the less frequented parts beyond the Jordan have escaped through neglect and isolation.
But the general fact of the ruins of Palestine, whether erect or fallen, remains common to the whole country; deepens and confirms, if it does not create, the impression of age and decay which belongs to almost every view of Palestine, and invests it
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