Hebrew Kelodies. “ ADVERTISEMENT. THE subsequent poems were written at the request of my friend, the Hon. D. Kinnaird, for a Selection of Hebrew Melodies, and have been published with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan. (2) -E. January, 1815. HEBREW MELODIES. SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. (3) Meet in her aspect and her eyes: Which heaven to gaudy day denies. Or softly lightens o'er her face; A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! (1) Lord Byron never alludes to his share in these Melodies with complacency. Mr. Moore having, on one occasion, rallied him a little on the manner in which some of them had been set to music,-"Sunburn Nathan!" he exclaims, "why do you always twit me with his Ebrew nasalities? Have I not told you it was all Kinnaird's doing, and my own exquisite facility of temper?" (2) "Nei her the ancient Jews," says Dr. Burney, "nor the modern, have ever had characters peculiar to music; so that the melodies used in their religious ceremonies have, at all times, been traditional, and at the mercy of the singers."-Kalkbrenner tells us, that "les Juifs espagnols lisent et chantent leurs psaumes bien différemment que les Juifs hollandais, les juifs romains aurement que les Juifs de la Prusse et de la Hesse; et tous croient chanter comme on chantait dans le Temple de Jérusalem !”—Ilist. de la Musique, tom. i. p. 34.-E. (5) These stanzas were written by Lord Byron, on returning from a ball-room, where he had seen Mrs. (now lady) Wilmot Horton, the wife of his relation, the present Governor of Ceylon. On this occasion Mrs. H. had appeared in mourning, with numerous spangles on her dress.-E. THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL THE harp the monarch minstrel swept, The king of men, the loved of Heaven, It gave them virtues not their own; Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne! It made our gladden'd valleys ring, The cedars bow, the mountains nod; Still bid the bursting spirit soar To sounds that seem as from above, IF THAT HIGH WORLD. If that high world, which lies beyond Our own, surviving Love endears; The eye the same, except in tears- niscences of Lord Byron, says :-"It is most probable, from the (5) The hymns of David excel no less in sublimity and tenderness of expression, than in loftiness and purity of religious sentiment. In comparison with them, the sacred poetry of all other nations sinks into mediocrity. They have embo ied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion, that (a few fierce On the other and, Nathan, in his Fugitive Pieces and Remi- and vindic ive passages excepted, natural in the warrior-port of THE WILD GAZELLE. The cedars wave on Lebanon, For, taking root, it there remains In solitary grace: It cannot quit its place of birth, It will not live in other earth. But we must wander witheringly, And where our fathers' ashes be, Our temple hath not left a stone, OH! WEEP FOR THOSE. On! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, a sterner age) they have entered with unquestionable propriety into the Christian ritual. The songs which cheered the solitude of the desert caves of Engedi, or resounded from the voice of the Hebrew people as they wound along the glen or the hill-sides of Judea, have been repeated for ages in almost every part of the habitable world,-in the remotest islands of the ocean, among the forests of America, or the sands of Africa. How many human hearts have they softened, purified, exalted!-of how many wretched beings have they been the secret consolation!-on how many communities have they drawn down the blessings of Divine Providence, by bringing the affections in unison with their deep devotional fervour!" Millman. And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? ON JORDAN'S BANKS. ON Jordan's banks the Arab's camels stray, JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. (1) SINCE Our country, our God-O my sire! help out the melody. He replied, "Why, I have sent you to heaven-it would be difficult to go further! My attention for a few moments was called to some other person, and his Lordship, whom I had hardly missed, exclaimed-'Here, Nathan, I have brought you down again;' and immediately presented me the beautiful and sublime lines which conclude the melody." Nathan. (1) "Jephtha, a bastard son of Gilead, having been wrongfully expelled from his father's house, had taken refuge in a wild country, and become a noted captain of freebooters. His kindred, groaning under foreign oppression, began to look to their valiant though lawless compatriot, whose profession, according to their usage, was no more dishonourable than that of a pirate in the elder days of Greece. They sent for him, and made him head of their city. Before he went forth against the Ammonites, he made the memorable vow, that, if he returned victorious, he would sacrifice as a burnt-offering whatever first met him on his This however did not complete the verse, and I wished him to entrance into his native city. He gained a splendid victory. A "When his Lordship put the copy into my hand, it terminated thus: Its sound aspired to heaven, and there abode.' When this blood of thy giving hath gush'd, OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM. On! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom, Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom : Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, That death nor heeds nor hears distress: Or make one mourner weep the less? MY SOUL IS DARK. My soul is dark-Oh! quickly string Its melting murmurs o'er mine ear. If in this heart a hope be dear, That sound shall charm it forth again If in these eyes there lurk a tear, 'T will flow, and cease to burn my brain. and deep, But bid the strain be Nor let thy notes of joy be first: I tell thee, minstrel! I must weep, Or else this heavy heart will burst; For it hath been by sorrow nursed, And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 'tis doom'd to know the worst, And break at once-or yield to song. (1)TM I SAW THEE WEEP. I SAW thee weep—the big bright tear I saw thee smile--the sapphire's blaze That fill'd that glance of thifie. As clouds from yonder sun receive A deep and mellow dye, Which scarce the shade of coming eve Can banish from the sky, Those smiles unto the moodiest mind Their own pure joy impart : Their sunshine leaves a glow behind That lightens o'er the heart. THY DAYS ARE DONE. The slaughters of his sword! The freedom he restored! Though thou art fall'n, while we are free Thou shalt not taste of death! The generous blood that flow'd from thee Disdain'd to sink beneath; Within our veins its currents be, Thy spirit on our breath! Thy name, our charging hosts along, Thy fall, the theme of choral song From virgin voices pour'd! To weep would do thy glory wrong; SONG OF SAUL BEFORE HIS LAST BATTLE. WARRIORS and chiefs! should the shaft or the sword Pierce me in leading the host of the Lord, Heed not the corse, though a king's, in your path: Bury your steel in the bosoms of Gath! Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Should the soldiers of Saul look away from the foe, Stretch me that moment in blood at thy feet! Mine be the doom which they dared not to meet. Farewell to others, but never we part, Heir to my royalty, son of my heart! Bright is the diadem, boundless the sway, Or kingly the death, which awaits us to-day! the news of it, his only daughter came dancing forth, in the glad-gularities approached on some occasions to derangement, and at ness of her heart, and with jocund instruments of music, to salute the deliverer of his people. The miserable father rent his clothes in agony; but the noble-spirited maiden would not hear of the disregard of the vow: she only demanded a short period to bewail upon the mountains, like the Antigone of Sophocles, her dying without hope of becoming a bride or mother, and then submitted to her fate." Millman. one. period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that his intellects were actually impaired. The report only served to amuse his Lordship. He referred to the circumstance, and declared that he would try how a madman could write: seizing the pen with eagerness, he for a moment fixed his eyes in majestic wildness on vacancy; when, like a flash of inspiration, without erasing a single word, the above verses were the result." No (1) "It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported sin- than. SAUL. (1) THOU whose spell can raise the dead, Earth yawn'd; His hand was wither'd, and his veins were dry; "ALL IS VANITY, SAITH THE PREACHER." I strive to number o'er what days (1) "Haunted with that insatiable desire of searching into the secrets of futurity, inseparable from uncivilised man, Saul knew not to what quarter to turn. The priests, outraged by his cruelty, had forsaken him the prophets stood aloof: no dreams visited his couch; he had persecuted even the unlawful diviners. He hears at last of a female necromancer, a woman with the spirit of Ob; strangely similar in sound to the Obeah women in the West Indies. To the cave-dwelling of this woman, in Endor, the monarch proceeds in disguise. He commands her to raise the spirit of Samuel. At this daring demand, the woman first recognises, or pretends to recognise, her royal visitor. Whom seest thou?" says the king.-Mighty ones ascending from the earth.'-'Of what form?—An old man covered with a mantle.' Saul, in terror, bows down his head to the earth; and, it should seem, not Which all that life or earth displays And not a trapping deck'd my power The serpent of the field, by art And spells, is won from harming; But that which coils around the heart, Oh! who hath power of charming? It will not list to wisdom's lore, Nor music's voice can lure it; But there it stings for evermore The soul that must endure it. WHEN COLDNESS WRAPS THIS SUFFERING WHEN coldness wraps this suffering clay, But leaves its darken'd dust behind. By steps each planet's heavenly way? A thought unseen, but seeing all, Its eye shall roll through chaos back; Its glance dilate o'er all to be, Above or love, hope, hate, or fear, It lives all passionless and pure: daring to look up, receives from thevoice of the spectre the awful intimation of his defeat and death. On the reality of this appa rition we pretend not to decide: the figure, if figure there were, was not seen by Saul; and excepting the event of the approaching battle, the spirit said nothing which the living prophet had not said before, repeatedly and publicly. But the fact is curious, as showing the popular belief of the Jews in departed spirits to have been the same with that of most other nations." Millman. (2) "Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron Cephalonia, in 1823, “what think you of the witch of Endor? have always thought this the finest and most finished witch-scen that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opi nion, if you consider all the circumstances and the actors in th case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and diguity of th THE king was on his throne, In Judah deem'd divine- The godless heathen's wine! In that same hour and hall, And traced them like a wand. The monarch saw, and shook, The wisest of the earth, But here they have no skill; And the unknown letters stood Untold and awful still. And Babel's men of age Are wise and deep in lore; But now they were not sage, They saw-but knew no more. A captive in the land, A stranger and a youth, He heard the king's command, He saw that writing's truth. The lamps around were bright, The prophecy in view; He read it on that night, The morrow proved it true. "Belshazzar's grave is made, His kingdom pass'd away, He, in the balance weigh'd, Is light and worthless clay. The shroud, his robe of state, His canopy the stone; The Mede is at his gate! The Persian on his throne!" SUN OF THE SLEEPLESS! SUN of the sleepless! melancholy star! So gleams the past, the light of other days, WERE MY BOSOM AS FALSE AS THOU WERE my bosom as false as thou deem'st it to be, The curse which, thou say'st, is the crime of my race. I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. (1) OH, Mariamne! now for thee The heart for which thou bled'st is bleeding; Revenge is lost in agony, And wild remorse to rage succeeding. Oh, Mariamne! where art thou? Thou canst not hear my bitter pleading: Ah! couldst thou-thou wouldst pardon now, Though Heaven were to my prayer unheeding. And is she dead ?—and did they dare Obey my frenzy's jealous raving? My wrath but doom'd my own despair: The sword that smote her 's o'er me waving. language. It beats all the ghost-scenes I ever read. The finest! (1) "Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the conception on a similar subject is that of Goethe's devil, Mephis-suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a topheles; and though, of course, you will give the priority to the former, as being inspired, yet the latter, if you know it, will appear to you-at least it does to me-one of the finest and most sublime specimens of human conception." Kennedy's Conversations on Religion, etc., with Lord Byron. woman of unrivalled beauty, and a haughty spirit: unhappy in being the object of passionate attachment, which bordered on frenzy, to a man who had more or less concern in the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod |