INTRODUCTION.

EVERY reader will at once perceive from the nature of the interest, and from the language, that this drama was neither written with a view to public representation, nor can be adapted to it without being entirely re-modelled and re-written. The critic will draw the same conclusion from certain peculiarities in the composition, irreconcileable with the arrangements of the theatre; the introducing and dismissing of the subordinate characters after a single appearance; and yet appropriating to them some of the most poetical speeches.

The groundwork of the poem is to be found in Josephus, but the events of a considerable time are compressed into a period of about thirty-six hours. Though their children are fictitious characters, the leaders of the Jews, Simon, John, and Eleazar, are historical. At the beginning of the siege the defenders of the city were divided into three factions. John, however, having surprised Eleazar, who occupied the Temple, during a festival, the party of Eleazar became subordinate to that of John. The character of John

the Galilean was that of excessive sensuality, I have therefore considered him as belonging to the sect of the Sadducees; Simon, on the other hand, I have represented as a native of Jerusalem, and a strict Pharisee; although his soldiers were chiefly Edomites. The Christians, we learn from Eusebius, abandoned the city previous to the siege (by divine command, according to that author,) and took refuge in Pella, a small town on the further side of the Jordan. The constant tradition of the Church has been, that no one professing that faith perished during all the havoc which attended on this most awful visitation.

It has been my object also to show the full completion of prophecy in this great event; nor do I conceive that the public mind (should this poem merit attention) can be directed to so striking and so incontestable an evidence of the Christian faith without advantage. Those whom duty might not induce to compare the long narrative of Josephus with the Scriptural prediction of the "Abomination of Desolation," may be tempted by the embellishments of poetic language and the interest of a dramatic fable.

CHARACTERS.

ROMANS.

They turn their civil weapons on themselves, Even till insatiate War shrinks to behold

The hideous consummation.

TITUS.

Son of Vespasian! I have been a soldier,

Till the helm hath worn mine aged temples bare.
Battles have been familiar to mine eyes
As is the sunlight, and the angry Mars
Wears not a terror to appal the souls
Of constant men, but I have fronted it.

I have seen the painted Briton sweep to battle
On his scythed car, and when he fell, he fell
As one that honour'd death by nobly dying.
And I have been where flying Parthians shower'd
Their arrows, making the pursuer check

His fierce steed with the sudden grasp of death.
But war like this, so frantic and so desperate,
Man ne'er beheld. Our swords are blunt with slaying,
And yet, as though the earth cast up again
Souls discontented with a single death,
They grow beneath the slaughter. Neither battle,
Nor famine, nor the withering pestilence,
Subdues these prodigals of blood: by day
They cast their lives upon our swords; by night

TITUS.

It must be

And yet it moves me, Romans! it confounds
The counsels of my firm philosophy,

That Ruin's merciless ploughshare must pass o'er,
And barren salt be sown on yon proud city.

As on our olive-crowned hill we stand,
Where Kedron at our feet its scanty waters
Distils from stone to stone with gentle motion,
As through a valley sacred to sweet peace,
How boldly doth it front us! how majestically!
Like a luxurious vineyard, the hill side

Is hung with marble fabrics, line o'er line,
Terrace o'er terrace, nearer still, and nearer

To the blue heavens. Here bright and sumptuous

palaces,

With cool and verdant gardens interspersed;

Here towers of war that frown in massy strength.

While over all hangs the rich purple eve,

As conscious of its being her last farewell

Of light and glory to that fated city.
And, as our clouds of battle dust and smoke
Are melted into air, behold the Temple,
In undisturb'd and lone serenity
Finding itself a solemn sanctuaryTM

In the profound of heaven! It stands before us
A mount of snow fretted with golden pinnacles! (2)
The very sun, as though he worshipp'd there,
Lingers upon the gilded cedar roofs;
And down the long and branching porticoes,
On every flowery-sculptured capital,
Glitters the homage of his parting beams.
By Hercules! the sight might almost win
The offended majesty of Rome to mercy.

That with consummate wisdom have tamed down
The fierce and turbulent passions which distract
The vulgar soul; they deem'd that, like Olympus,
Thou, on thy cold and lofty eminence,
Severely didst maintain thy sacred quiet
Above the clouds and tumult of low earth.
But now we see thee stooping to the thraldom
Of every fierce affection, now entranced
In deepest admiration, and anon

Wrath hath the absolute empire o'er thy soul.
Methinks we must unschool our royal pupil,
And cast him back to the common herd of men.

TITUS.

'Tis true, Diagoras; yet wherefore ask not,
For vainly have I question'd mine own reason:
But thus it is-I know not whence or how,
There is a stern command upon my soul.
I feel the inexorable fate within
That tells me, carnage is a duty here,
And that the appointed desolation chides
The tardy vengeance of our war. Diagoras,
If that I err, impeach my tenets. Destiny
Is over all, and hard Necessity

Holds o'er the shifting course of human things
Her paramount dominion. Like a flood
The irresistible stream of fate flows on,
And urges in its vast and sweeping motion

Kings, Consuls, Cæsars, with their mightiest armies,
Each to his fix'd, inevitable end.

Yea, even eternal Rome, and Father Jove,
Sternly submissive, sail that onward tide.
And now am I upon its rushing bosom,
I feel its silent billows swell beneath me,
Bearing me and the conquering arms of Rome
'Gainst yon devoted city. On they pass,
And ages yet to come shall pause and wonder
At the utter wreck, which they shall leave behind them.
But, Placidus, I read thy look severe.

This is no time nor place for school debates
On the high points of wisdom. Let this night
Our wide encircling walls complete their circuit; (4)
And still the approaching trenches closer mine
Their secret way: the engines and the towers
Stand each at their appointed post-Terentius,
That charge be thine.

TERENTIUS.

There spoke again the Roman.

Faith! like old Mummius, I should give to the flame
Whate'er opposed the sovereign sway of Cæsar, (5)
If it were wrought of massy molten gold:
And though I wear a beard, I boast not much
Of my philosophy. But this I know,
That to oppose the omnipotent arms of Rome
Is to pluck down and tempt a final doom.

The Fountain of Siloe.-Night.

JAVAN.

Sweet fountain, once again I visit thee! (6)
And thou art flowing on, and freshening still
The green moss, and the flowers that bend to thee,
Modestly with a soft unboastful murmur,

Rejoicing at the blessings that thou bearest.
Pure, stainless, thou art flowing on; the stars
Make thee their mirror, and the moonlight beams
Course one another o'er thy silver bosom:
And yet thy flowing is through fields of blood,
And arm'd men their hot and weary brows
Slake with thy limpid and perennial coolness.
Even with such rare and singular purity
Movest thou, oh Miriam, in yon cruel city.
Men's eyes, o'erwearied with the sights of war,
With tumult and with grief, repose on thee
As on a refuge and a sweet refreshment.
Thou canst o'erawe, thou in thy gentleness,
A trembling, pale, and melancholy maid,
The brutal violence of ungodly men.
Thou glidest on amid the dark pollution

In modesty unstain'd; and heavenly influences,
More lovely than the light of star or moon,
As though delighted with their own reflection
From spirit so pure, dwell evermore upon thee.
Oh! how dost thou, beloved proselyte
To the high creed of him who died for men,
Oh! how dost thou commend the truths I teach thee,
By the strong faith and soft humility

Wherewith thy soul embraces them? Thou prayest,
And I, who pray with thee, feel my words wing'd,
And holier fervour gushing from my heart,
While heaven seems smiling kind acceptance down
On the associate of so pure a worshipper.

But ah! why comest thou not? these two long nights

I've watch'd for thee in vain, and have not felt
The music of thy footsteps on my spirit-

Now ere we part-if we must part again,
If my sad spirit must be rent from thine.
Even now our city trembles on the verge
Of utter ruin. Yet a night or two,

And the fierce stranger in our burning streets,
Stands conqueror: and how the Roman conquers,
Let Gisehala, let fallen Jotapata (7)

Tell, if one living man, one innocent child,
Yet wander o'er their cold and scatter'd ashes.
They slew them, Miriam, the old grey man,

With their importunate and jarring din,
Javan, I think on thee, and am at peace.
Our famish'd maidens gaze on me, and see
That I am famish'd like themselves, as pale,
With lips as parch'd and eyes as wild, yet I
Sit patient with an enviable smile

On my wan cheeks, for then my spirit feasts
Contented on its pleasing thoughts of thee.
My very prayers are full of thee, I look

To heaven and bless thee; for from thee I learnt

not from me,

The tears thou sheddest feel as though I wrung them
From mine own heart, my life-blood's dearest drops)-
They slew them, Miriam, at the mother's breast,
The smiling infants;-and the tender maid,
The soft, the loving and the chaste, like thee,
They slew her not till

MIRIAM.

Javan, 't is unkind!

I have enough at home of thoughts like these,
Thoughts horrible, that freeze the blood, and make
A heavier burthen of this weary life.

I hoped with thee t' have pass'd a tranquil hour,
A brief, a hurried, yet still tranquil hour!
-But thou art like them all! the miserable
Have only Heaven, where they can rest in peace.
Without being mock'd and taunted with their misery.

JAVAN.

Thou know'st it is a lover's wayward joy
To be reproach'd by her he loves, or thus
Thou wouldst not speak. But 't was not to provoke
That sweet reproof, which sounds so like to tenderness:
I would alarm thee, shock thee, but to save.
That old and secret stair, down which thou stealest
At midnight through tall grass and olive trunks,
Which cumber, yet conceal thy difficult path,
It cannot long remain secure and open;
Nearer and closer the stern Roman winds
His trenches; and on every side but this
Soars his imprisoning wall. Yet, yet 't is time,
And I must bear thee with me, where are met
In Pella the neglected church of Christ.

Oh cease! I pray thee cease!
Javan! I know that all men hate my father;
Javan! I fear that all should hate my father;
And therefore, Javan, must his daughter's love,
Her dutiful, her deep, her fervent love,
Make up to his forlorn and desolate heart
The forfeited affections of his kind.

Is 't not so written in our Law? and He
We worship came not to destroy the Law.
Then let men rain their curses, let the storm
Of human hate beat on his rugged trunk,
I will cling to him, starve, die, bear the scoffs
Of men upon my scatter'd bones with him.

JAVAN.

Oh, Miriam! what a fatal art hast thou
Of winding thought, word, act, to thy sole purpose;
The enamouring one even now too much enamour'd
I must admire thee more for so denying,
Than I had dared if thou hadst fondly granted.
Thou dost devote thyself to utterest peril,
And me to deepest anguish; yet even now
Thou art lovelier to me in thy cold severity,
Flying me, leaving me without a joy,
Without a hope on earth, without thyself;
Thou art lovelier now than if thy yielding soul
Had smiled on me a passionate consent.
Go! for I see thy parting homeward look,
Go in thy beauty! like a setting star,

The last in all the thick and moonless heavens,
O'er the lone traveller in the trackless desert.
Go! if this dark and miserable earth
Do jealously refuse us place for meeting,
There is a heaven for those who trust in Christ,
Farewell!-

And thou return'st!

Oh God! thou surely dost approve mine act,
For thou didst bid thy soft and silver moon
To light me back upon my intricate way.
Even o'er each shadowy thing at which I trembled
She pour'd a sober beauty, and my terror
Was mingled with a sense of calm delight.

How changed that way! when yet a laughing child,
It was my sport to thread that broken stair
That from our house leads down into the vale,
By which, in ancient days, the maidens stole
To bathe in the cool fountain's secret waters.
In each wild olive trunk, and twisted root
Of sycamore, with ivy overgrown,

SALONE.

Of dying men, and the quick peevish moan
Of the half famish'd: there were trumpet sounds
Of arming to the battle, and the shouts
Of onset, and the fall of flaming houses
Crashing around. But in the house of Simon,
The silver lute spake to the dulcimer;
The tabret and the harp held sweet discourse;
And all along our roofs, and all about

The silence of our chambers flow'd the sweetness.
Even yet I hear them-Hark! yet, yet they sound.

MIRIAM.

Alas! we listen to our own fond hopes,

Even till they seem no more our fancy's children, We put them on a prophet's robes, endow them With prophets' voices, and then Heaven speaks in them,

And that which we would have be, surely shall be.

SALONE.

What, mock'st thou still? still enviously doubtest The mark'd and favour'd of the Everlasting?

MIRIAM.

O gracious Lord! thou know'st she hath not eaten
For two long days, and now her troubled brain
Is full of strangeness.

SALONE.

Ha! still unbelieving!
Then, then 't is true, what I have doubted long.
False traitress to our city, to the race,
The chosen race of Abraham! loose apostate
From Israel's faith! Believer in the Crucified!
I know thee, I abjure thee. Thou 'rt no child

Of Simon's house, no sister of Salone:

I blot thee from my heart, I wipe away

All memory of our youthful pleasant hours,
Our blended sports and tasks, and joys and sorrows;
Yea, I'll proclaim thee.