THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
Mother of armies !-How the emeralds glow'd,
Where, flush'd with power and vengeance, Pharaoh rode!
And stoled in white, those brazen wheels before,
Osiris' ark his swarthy wizards bore;
And, still responsive to the trumpet's cry,
The priestly sistrum murmur'd—Victory !—
Why swell these shouts that rend the desert's gloom?
Whom come ye forth to combat?-warriors, whom?--
These flocks and herds-this faint and weary train-
Red from the scourge and recent from the chain?-
God of the poor, the poor and friendless save!
Giver and Lord of freedom, help the slave!—
North, south, and west, the sandy whirlwinds fly,
The circling horns of Egypt's chivalry.
On earth's last margin throng the weeping train:
Their cloudy guide moves on:-"And must we swim the main?"
'Mid the light spray their snorting camels stood,
Nor bath'd a fetlock in the nauseous flood-
He comes-their leader comes!-the man of God
O'er the wide waters lifts his mighty rod,
And onward treads.-The circling waves retreat,
In hoarse deep murmurs, from his holy feet;
And the chased surges, inly roaring, show
The hard wet sand, and coral hills below.
With limbs that falter, and with hearts that swell,
Down, down they pass-a steep and slippery dell—
Around them rise, in pristine chaos hurl'd,
The ancient rocks, the secrets of the world;
And flowers that blush beneath the ocean green,
And caves, the sea-calves' low-roof'd haunt, are seen.
Down, safely down the narrow pass they tread;
The beetling waters storm above their head:
While far behind retires the sinking day,
And fades on Edom's hills its latest ray.
Yet not from Israel fled the friendly light,
Or dark to them, or cheerless came the night.
Still in their van, along that dreadful road,
Blazed broad and fierce the brandish'd torch of God.
Its meteor glare a tenfold lustre gave,
On the long mirror of the rosy wave:
While its blest beams a sunlike heat supply,
Warm every cheek, and dance in every eye-
To them alone-for Misraim's wizard train
Invoke for light their monster-gods in vain :
Clouds heap'd on clouds their struggling sight confine,
And tenfold darkness broods above their line.
Yet on they fare, by reckless vengeance led,
And range unconscious through the ocean's bed:
Till midway now-that strange and fiery form
Show'd his dread visage lightening through the storm;
With withering splendour blasted all their might,
And break their chariot-wheels, and marr'd their coursers' flight.
"Fly, Misraim, fly!"-The ravenous floods they see,
And, fiercer than the floods, the Deity.
"Fly, Misraim, fly!"-From Edom's coral strand
Again the prophet stretch'd his dreadful wand :—
With one wild crash the thundering waters sweep,
And all is waves—a dark and lonely deep—
Yet o'er those lonely waves such murmurs past,
As mortal wailing swell'd the nightly blast;
And strange and sad the whispering breezes bore
The groans of Egypt to Arabia's shore.
Oh! welcome came the morn, where Israel stood
In trustless wonder by th' avenging flood!
Oh! welcome came the cheerful morn, to show
The drifted wreck of Zoan's pride below;
The mangled limbs of men-the broken car
A few sad relics of a nation's war:
Alas, how few!-Then, soft as Elim's well,
The precious tears of new-born freedom fell.
And he, whose harden'd heart alike had borne
The house of bondage and th' oppressor's scorn,
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
The stubborn slave, by hope's new beams subdued,
In faltering accents sobb'd his gratitude-
Till, kindling into warmer zeal, around
The virgin timbrel waked its silver sound:
And in fierce joy, no more by doubt supprest,
The struggling spirit throbb'd in Miriam's breast.
She, with bare arms, and fixing on the sky
The dark transparence of her lucid eye,
Pour'd on the winds of heaven her wild sweet harmony.
"Where now," she sang, "the tall Egyptian spear?
On's sun-like shield, and Zoan's chariot, where?
Above their ranks the whelming waters spread.
Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphèd!”—
And every pause between as Miriam sang,
From tribe to tribe the martial thunder rang,
And loud and far their stormy chorus spread,—
"Shout, Israel, for the Lord hath triumphèd!”
THE VISIT OF MADOC.-A SCENE AMONG THE WELSH HILLS.
Now hath Prince Madoc left the holy Isle,
And homeward to Aberfraw, through the wilds
Of Arvon, bent his course.
He turn'd aside, by natural impulses
Moved, to behold Cadwallon's lonely hut.
That lonely dwelling stood among the hills
By a grey mountain-stream; just elevate
Above the winter torrents did it stand,
Upon a craggy bank; an orchard slope.
Arose behind, and joyous was the scene
In early summer, when those antic trees
Shone with their blushing blossoms, and the flax
Twinkled beneath the breeze its liveliest green.
But save the flax-field and that orchard slope,
All else was desolate, and now it wore
One sober hue; the narrow vale, which wound
Among the hills, was grey with rocks, that peer'd
Above its shallow soil; the mountain side
Was loose with stones bestrewn, which oftentimes
Clatter'd adown the steep, beneath the foot
Of straggling goat dislodged; or lower'd with crags,
One day, when winter's work hath loosen'd them,
To thunder down. All things assorted well
With that grey mountain hue; the low stone lines,
Which scarcely seem'd to be the work of man,
The dwelling rudely rear'd with stones unhewn,
The stubble flax, the crooked apple-trees,
Grey with their fleecy moss and mistletoe,
The white-bark'd birch, now leafless, and the ash
Whose knotted roots were like the drifted rock
Through which they forced their way. Adown the vale,
Broken by stones, and o'er a stony bed,
Roll'd the loud mountain-stream
A little child was sporting by the brook,
Floating the fallen leaves, that he might see them.
Whirl in the eddy now, and now be driven
Down the descent, now on the smoother stream
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