68
POEMS.
While his young daughter's words of prayer
Were mingled with his wild despair.
He stood there like the blasted tree,
Erect in former majesty;
Tho' stripped of every leaf and flower,
In the dread whirlwind of that hour.
And then the passion of his grief
In his wild ravings found relief;
Clasping his first-born to his arm,
As it had might to shield from harm,
He bounded onwards with the form
Now withering in Death's fierce storm;
Still on among the scattered dead
The frenzy-stricken parent fled.
Where in the wildly gleaming eye
Was then the ruler's majesty?
The clenching hands, the gasping breath
Calling for mercy upon Death,
Told that the prophet's threat had past
Across his memory at last.
Onward—still on, with blinded gaze,
'Mid tears which since his childhood's days
Had never started, till his eye
Fell on his priests of prophecy.
To lay there the now pallid dead,
Gently as tho' life had not fled;
And drag them, in his anguish wild,
To gaze upon his worshipped child,
Were mingled with his wild despair.
He stood there like the blasted tree,
Erect in former majesty;
Tho' stripped of every leaf and flower,
In the dread whirlwind of that hour.
And then the passion of his grief
In his wild ravings found relief;
Clasping his first-born to his arm,
As it had might to shield from harm,
He bounded onwards with the form
Now withering in Death's fierce storm;
Still on among the scattered dead
The frenzy-stricken parent fled.
Where in the wildly gleaming eye
Was then the ruler's majesty?
The clenching hands, the gasping breath
Calling for mercy upon Death,
Told that the prophet's threat had past
Across his memory at last.
Onward—still on, with blinded gaze,
'Mid tears which since his childhood's days
Had never started, till his eye
Fell on his priests of prophecy.
To lay there the now pallid dead,
Gently as tho' life had not fled;
And drag them, in his anguish wild,
To gaze upon his worshipped child,
