Page:Redemption, a Poem.djvu/292

 286 REDEMPTION.

And of his wormwood drank mingled with gall.

Descend blest prophet, and inspire my song,

By night my wakeful hours attend, attune

My heart, unskill'd the doleful lay to sing;

And you, sad Levites, who with bitter grief,

By Gingarnella's streams, on willows hung

Your harps, if ever you the woes deplored

Of Sion's sons, deplore them now with me.

No foe derisive asks your doleful strains,

No victor proudly taunts your silent tears ;

But One, who for you weeps, and Jordan's flood

More copious swells, than e'er th' Euphrates ye,

Or Baby'lon's num'rous streams, enlaved with tears.

Dolorous is the way I sing, and dripp'd

With blood of Him, who red from Bozra comes,

O'erfraught with sorrow's cumulative load ;

Way, hard for me to tread, o'ercome with fear,

That I, unworthy deetn'd, obscure the theme,

Who long reluctant linger'd, lest my voice

Should midway fail me, sad, and slow of speech,

Or wing grow weary in its onward flight,

Unequal to the task, though clear defined ;

More difficult from so familiar grown,

What to select, or how the verse indite,

Lest too familiar clog so sweet a song,

And human art but damp its sacred course,

Profuse display'd by heav'n-inspired pens.

Or, fearful lest, irrev'rent, I transgress

The bounds, prescribed to muse-inspired verse,

And too presumptuous haste to look, where

Angels veil'd refrain, and seraphs softly tread ;

And, press'd by sense of guilt, which at the end,

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