Let not his shrieks reveal the dreadful tale!
Well may the drum's loud peal o'erpower an infant's wail!
XXV.
A voice of sorrow! not from thence it rose;
'Twas not the childless mother. Syrian maids,
Where with red wave the mountain streamlet flows,
Keep tearful vigil in their native shades.
With dirge and plaint the cedar-groves resound,
Each rock's deep echo for Adonis mourns:
Weep for the dead! Away! the lost is found—
To life and love the buried god returns!
Then wakes the timbrel—then the forests ring,
And shouts of frenzied joy are on each breeze's wing!
XXVI.
But fill'd with holier joy the Persian stood,
In silent reverence, on the mountain's brow,
At early dayspring, while the expanding flood
Of radiance burst around, above, below—
Bright, boundless as eternity: he gazed
Till his full soul, imbibing heaven, o'erflow'd
In worship of th' Invisible, and praised
In thee, O Sun! the symbol and abode
Of life, and power, and excellence—the throne
Where dwelt the Unapproach'd, resplendently alone.[1]
XXVII.
What if his thoughts, with erring fondness, gave
Mysterious sanctity to things which wear
Th' Eternal's impress?—if the living wave,
The circling heavens, the free and boundless air—
If the pure founts of everlasting flame,
Deep in his country's hallow'd vales enshrined,
And the bright stars maintain'd a silent claim
To love and homage from his awestruck mind?
Still with his spirit dwelt a lofty dream
Of uncreated Power, far, far o'er these supreme.
XXVIII.
And with that faith was conquest He whose name
To Judah's harp of prophecy had rung—
- ↑ At an earlier stage in the composition of this poem, the following stanza was here inserted:— "Nor rose the Maglan's hymn, sublimely swelling
In full-toned homage to the source of flame.
From fabric rear'd by man, the gorgeous dwelling
Of such bright idol-forms as art could frame.
He rear'd no temple, bade no walls contain
The breath of incense or the voice of prayer;
But made the boundless universe his fane.
The rocks his altar-stone—adoring there
The Being whose Omnipotence pervades
All deserts and all depths, and hallows loneliest shades."
