A FRAGMENT
Behold! on an Assyrian quay
Fast by the town of Nineveh,
At moon of night, methought I stood
Where Tigris went with glimmering flood;
And walls were there all storied round
With old grim kings, enthroned, encrown’d,
Strange-visaged chief, and wing?d bull,
Pine-cone, and lotus wonderful.
Embark’d, I floated fast and far,
For I was bound to Babylon.
I saw the great blue lake of Wan,
And that green island Ahktamar.
I saw above the burning flat
The lone and snow-capp’d Ararat.
But ever spellbound on I pass,
Sometimes hearing my shallop creep,
With its cool rustle, through the deep
Mesopotamian meadow-grass.
And now (as when by moons of old,
Grandly with wrinkling silver roll’d,
It glimmer’d on through grove and lea,
For the starry eyes of Raphael
Journeying to Ecbatane)
The ancient Tigris floweth free,
Through orange-grove, and date-tree dell,
To pearl and rainbow-colour’d shell,
And coral of the Indian sea.
Take down the sail, and strike the mast,
Here is Euphrates old, at last.
Begirt with many a belt of palm,
Round fragrant garden-beds of balm,
(in one whereof old Chelcias’ daughter
Went to walk down beside the water,
The lily both in heart and name,
Whose white leaf hath no blot of shame)
Grandly the king of rivers greets
His Sheshach’s hundred-gated streets.
Through the great town the river rolls.
Who are these sitting by the billows,
With their harps hung upon the willows?
What time on Judah’s hills they trod,
Science of song to them was given,
The harpers on the harps of God,
The poets of the King of Heaven.
Mournful their strains, but through them still
The hope of their return is seen,
Like a sun-silver’d sail between
Dark sea and darkly purple hill.
Strange race! that reads for ever scrolls
With future glories pictured bright,
As sunset’s golden pencils write
Those slanting sentences of light,
When tree-tops dusk, on dark green boles.
By the broad pulses of this river,
Keeping one even time for ever,
Since Amraphel was King of Shinar,
They long for Jordan’s spray and shout,
And link?d music long drawn out,
Passioning with song diviner,
From waterfall to waterfall.
O for the line of long green meadows,
Waters whose gleams are silver shadows,
Whose glooms, where wood-hung hills arise,
Are darkness dash’d with silver fire,
And glens through which those waters come
With many a crashing downward call,
With sweeping sound of battle pomp,
With blaring of the battle trump
And double of the battle drum.
(Archbishop William Alexander)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Night Poems, Light Poems, War & Peace Poems, Heaven Poems, Name Poems, Kings & Queens Poems, Fire Poems, Hope Poems, Water Poems, Literature PoemsBased on Keywords: wrinkling, boles, blaring, ararat, tigris, begirt, floweth, meadow-grass, harpers, spellbound, shinar