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 She walks in brightness, looking cloudless down, As if to smile on her terrestrial reign. Earth should be hush'd in slumber—but the night Calls forth her worshippers; the feast is spread, On hoary Lebanon's umbrageous height The shrine is raised, the rich libation shed To her, whose beams illume those cedar-shades Faintly as Nature's light the 'wilder'd soul pervades.

XXI. But when thine orb, all earth's rich hues restoring, Came forth, O sun! in majesty supreme, Still, from thy pure exhaustless fountain, pouring Beauty and life in each triumphant beam, Through thine own East what joyous rites prevail'd! What choral songs re-echo’d! while thy fire Shone o'er its thousand altars, and exhaled The precious incense of each odorous pyre, Heap'd with the richest balms of spicy vales, And aromatic woods that scent the Arabian gales.

XXII. Yet not with Saba's fragrant wealth alone, Balsam and myrrh, the votive pile was strew'd; For the dark children of the burning zone Drew frenzy from thy fervours, and bedew'd With their own blood thy shrine; while that wild scene, Haply with pitying eye, thine angel view'd, And though with glory mantled, and severe In his own fulness of beatitude, Yet mourn'd for those whose spirits from thy ray Caught not one transient spark of intellectual day.

XXIII. But earth had deeper stains. Ethereal powers! Benignant seraphs! wont to leave the skies, And hold high converse, midst his native bowers, With the once glorious son of Paradise, Look'd ye from heaven in sadness? were your strains Of choral praise suspended in dismay. When the polluted shrine of Syria's plains With clouds of incense dimm'd the blaze of day? Or did ye veil indignantly your eyes. While demons hail'd the pomp of human sacrifice?

XXIV. And well the powers of evil might rejoice, When rose from Tophet's vale the exulting cry, And, deaf to Nature's supplicating voice, The frantic mother bore her child to die! Around her vainly clung his feeble hands With sacred instinct: love hath lost its sway, While ruthless zeal the sacrifice demands, And the fires blaze, impatient for their prey.