Hebrew Melodies. ' ADVERTISEMENT. THE subsequent poems were written at the request of my friend, the Hon. Douglas Kinnaird, for a Selection of Hebrew Melodies 2, and have been published, with the music, arranged by Mr. Braham and Mr. Nathan. January, 1815. SHE WALKS IN BEAUTY. 3 SHE walks in beauty, like the night Which heaven to gaudy day denies. Or softly lightens o'er her face; Where thoughts serenely sweet express, How pure, how dear their dwelling-place. The smiles that win, the tints that glow, A mind at peace with all below, A heart whose love is innocent! THE HARP THE MONARCH MINSTREL THE harp the monarch minstrel swept, [Lord Byron never alludes to his share in these Melodies with complacency. Mr. Moore having, on one occasion, ralEed 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["Neither 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 pseaumes bien differemment que les Juifs Hollandais, les Juifs Romains autrement que les Juifs de la Prusse et de la Hesse; et tous croient chanter comme on chantait dans le Temple de Jérusalem !"— Hist. de la Musique, tom. i. p. 34.] 3 [These stanzas were written by Lord Byron, on returning from a ball-room, where he had seen Irs. (now Lady) Wilmot Horton, the wife of his relation, the present Governor of Ceylon. On this occasion Mrs. Wilmot Horton had appeared in mourning, with numerous spangles on her dress.] ["In the reign of King David, music was held in the highest estimation by the Hebrews. The genius of that prince for music, and his attachment to the study and practice of it, as well as the great number of musicians appointed by him for the performance of religious rites and ceremonies, could not fail to extend its influence and augment its perfections; for it was during this period, that music was first honoured by being Which Music hallow'd while she wept O'er tones her heart of hearts had given, Redoubled be her tears, its chords are riven ! It soften'd men of iron mould, It gave them virtues not their own; No ear so dull, no soul so cold, That felt not, fired not to the tone, Till David's lyre grew mightier than his throne ! It told the triumphs of our King, It made our gladden'd valleys ring, The cedars bow, the mountains nod; Its sound aspired to Heaven and there abode ! Since then, though heard on earth no more, Devotion and her daughter Love, Still bid the bursting spirit soar To sounds that seem as from above, In dreams that day's broad light can not remove. G IF THAT HIGH WORLD. If that high world, which lies beyond The eye the same, except in tears — It must be so: 't is not for self Yet cling to Being's severing link. To hold each heart the heart that shares; With them the immortal waters drink, And soul in soul grow deathless theirs! admitted in the ministry of sacrifice, and worship of the ark; as well as by being cultivated by a king."- BURNEY.] 5 ["When Lord Byron put the manuscript into my hand, it terminated with this line. As this, however, did not complete the verse, I wished him to 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 mit tes 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 lines which conclude the melody."- NATHAN.] 6 [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 embodied so exquisitely the universal language of religious emotion, that (a few fierce and vindictive passages excepted, natural in the warrior-poet of a sterner age,) they have entered, with un questionable 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 glens 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, amongst 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!MILMAN.] THE WILD GAZELLE. THE wild gazelle on Judah's hills Exulting yet may bound, And drink from all the living rills That gush on holy ground; Its airy step and glorious eye May glance in tameless transport by:— A step as fleet, an eye more bright, Inhabitants more fair. The cedars wave on Lebanon, But Judah's statelier maids are gone! More blest each palm that shades those plains Than Israel's scatter'd race; For, taking root, it there remains In solitary grace: It cannot quit its place of birth, But we must wander witheringly, And where our fathers' ashes be, OH! WEEP FOR THOSE. Он! weep for those that wept by Babel's stream, And where shall Israel lave her bleeding feet? The hearts that leap'd before its heavenly voice? Tribes of the wandering foot and weary breast, 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 hin, 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 burrt offering JEPHTHA'S DAUGHTER. 1 SINCE Our Country, our God— Oh, my sire! And the voice of my mourning is o'er, And of this, oh, my Father! be sure- And the last thought that soothes me below. I have won the great battle for thee, And my father and country are free! OH! SNATCH'D AWAY IN BEAUTY'S BLOOM. OH! snatch'd away in beauty's bloom, On thee shall press no ponderous tomb; But on thy turf shall roses rear Their leaves, the earliest of the year; And the wild cypress wave in tender gloom : And oft by yon blue gushing stream Shall Sorrow lean her drooping head, And feed deep thought with many a dream, And lingering pause and lightly tread; Fond wretch as if her step disturb'd the dead ! Away! we know that tears are vain, That death nor heeds nor hears distress : Will this unteach us to complain? Or make one mourner weep the less? And thou-who tell'st me to forget, Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet. MY SOUL IS DARK. 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. But bid the strain be wild and deep, Nor let thy notes of joy be first: I tell thee, minstrel, I must weep, Or else this heavy heart will burst; whatever first met him on his entrance into his native city. He gained a splendid victory. At the news of it, his only daughter came dancing forth, in the gladness of heart, and with jocund instruments of music, to salute the deliverer of his people. Tiserable father rent his clothes in agony but the noble--| ed maiden would not hear of the disregard of the vow: shy demanded a short period to bewail upon the mountains, the Antigone of Sophocles, her dying ecoming a bride or mother, and then subMILMAN.] without hope of mitted to her fa For it hath been by sorrow nursed, And ached in sleepless silence long; And now 't is doom'd to know the worst, And break at once-or yield to song. 1 I SAW THEE WEEP. I SAW thee weep-the big bright tear I saw thee smile- the sapphire's blaze It could not match the living rays As clouds from yonder sun receive Which scarce the shade of coming eve Those smiles unto the moodiest mind THY DAYS ARE DONE. THY days are done, thy fame begun; Though thou art fall'n, while we are free Thy name, our charging hosts along, Thy fall, the theme of choral song To weep would do thy glory wrong; [ It was generally conceived that Lord Byron's reported singularities approached on some occasions to derangement; and at one period, indeed, it was very currently asserted that bis 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." NATHAN.] 2 [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? king. "Mighty ones ascending from the earth."—" Of what form?"-"An old nan covered with a mantle." Saul, in says the 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: Thou who art bearing my buckler and bow, Farewell to others, but never we part, Heir to my royalty, son of my heart! SAUL. 2 THOU whose spell can raise the dead, King, behold the phantom scer!" terror, bows down his head to the earth; and, it should seem, not daring to look up, receives from the voice of the spectre the awful intimation of his defeat and death. On the reality of this apparition 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.- MILMAN.] 3 ["Since we have spoken of witches," said Lord Byron, at Cephalonia, in 1823, what think you of the witch of Endor? I have always thought this the finest and most finished witchscene that ever was written or conceived; and you will be of my opinion, if you consider all the circumstances and the actors in the case, together with the gravity, simplicity, and dignity of the language. It beats all the ghost scenes I ever read. The finest conception on a similar subject is that of Goethe's Devil, Mephistopheles; 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."] H h 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: If the bad never triumph, then God is with thee! I have lost for that faith more than thou canst bestow, HEROD'S LAMENT FOR MARIAMNE. 1 Он, 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. But thou art cold, my murder'd love! And this dark heart is vainly craving For her who soars alone above, And leaves my soul unworthy saving. She's gone, who shared my diadem ; She sunk, with her my joys entombing; Which unconsumed are still consuming! ON THE DAY OF THE DESTRUCTION OF FROM the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home, 1 [Mariamne, the wife of Herod the Great, falling under the suspicion of infidelity, was put to death by his order. She was a 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 And now on that mountain I stood on that day, BY THE RIVERS OF BABYLON WE SAT We sate down and wept by the waters Which roll'd on in freedom below, Oh Salem! its sound should be free; THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB. And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, And there lay the rider distorted and pale, And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, the murder of her grandfather, father, brother, and uncle, and who had twice commanded her death, in case of his own. Ever after, Herod was haunted by the image of the murdered Mariamne, until disorder of the mind brought on disorder of body, which led to temporary derangement. —. MILMAN.] |