On the Destruction of Babylon (Isaiah XIV. 5-28)

’Tis over--she exists no more--
The terror of the bad and good
Is fallen--an awful solitude
Spreads all her insolent trophies o’er.
Her crumbling ruins are in dust:
The Almighty, in his anger just,
Has scatter’d all her glories: He--
The Lord--hath riven the heavy yoke--
He hath th’ accursed sceptre broke,
And given his people liberty.

Thus did the Lord--the Lord of might!
His day of wrath for us is past;
The smiter he hath smitten at last,
And beam’d on us his smile of light.
Joy round his Israel’s tents has sped,
And grateful Lebanon bows his head,
And joins with ours his song of praise:
The heavenly cedars from on high
Bending--‘And thou art razed,’ they cry,
‘And we have seen thy dying blaze.’

Destruction now, in robes of night,
Hath veil’d thy fading rays in gloom;
Strange shadows round thee take their flight,
As on the storm the surges’ foam.
The empress of a hundred states--
The city of the thousand gates--
Her glory in the dust is laid.
‘What! thou who wert a god in pride,
‘Is this thy fate--so magnified,
‘And so defenceless--so decay’d?’

Where is thy pride, thy pageantry?
Where is thy glory, humbled thing?
O bid thy choral voices sing
The triumphs of thy vanity!
No! all is still--for, like a shade,
The idle tones of flattery fade;
And music’s charms--a shifting play.
Murd’ress! how baseless was thy trust!
Thy house is night, thy bed the dust,
Thy covering--crawling worms of clay.

There was a light from heaven that shone,
Dazzling all visions with its ray:
It shone in glory yesterday--
This morn it glanced--but now ’tis gone.
Then, thine was an imperial will--
Now, as the grave, thy voice is still.
Thou saidst, in insolent pride, ‘My throne
‘I’ll build upon the highest star--
‘Ride on the rolling clouds afar,
‘And this proud Zion trample down.

‘My car the glorious sky shall sweep,
‘My towers the very heavens shall reach,
‘Obedience to the gods to teach:’
And now--thou art a ruin’d heap.
The pilgrim who shall seek thee there,
Will only find a wild-beast’s lair
In a vast desert: he shall stand
Trembling before the God of heaven,
And pray his sins may be forgiven,
And hide his pale cheek in his hand.

Was this the city that we fear’d,
This she whose fetter-bearing hands
Enslaved, insulted countless lands,
While misery in her train appear’d?
Who shall resist death’s mighty claim?
Who shall oppose the good man’s fame?
His sons shall watch his gen’rous fires,
And he shall live in memory’s store,
In the wet eyelids of the poor,
Until he sleeps where sleep his sires.

Thou’rt stretch’d upon the battle-plain,
And shame and misery hem thee round;
Indignant voices curse the ground
Where thou once rear’dst thy trophies vain.
Thou, the destroyer of thy sons!
Thou, thy own people’s murderer once!
Now liest beneath th’ unwholesome dew--
A peaceful grave is now denied thee.
The God of vengeance stands beside thee,
Thy children’s children to pursue.

Now rise, in all thy fury rise,
Sprout of the fallen accursed race;
New threats of slavery I trace--
Another plague towards us flies.
No! God hath said: ‘My strength shall wake,
And in the storm and thunder speak,
And sweep the daring hordes away;
Their towns the tygers’ haunts shall be,
Their lands--the cradle of the sea,
And all their memory shall decay.’

He spake--and as He spoke ’twas done:
The mandate of Thy heavenly will
To utter, Lord! is to fulfil;
For art Thou not th’ Almighty One?
Thou hast subdued their tyranny,
Broken our bonds of slavery;
Hast waved Thy fearful, fiery rod:
And who shall check Thy awful hand?
Who shall Thy thunderbolt withstand?
Who battle with a battling God?