JOAD, ABNER.

ABNER.
TO worship the Eternal, yea, I come
Into his temple, come to celebrate,
According to our ancient, solemn use,
In company with you, the hallowed day
On which upon Mount Sinai unto us
The law was given. How changed are the times!
No sooner did the sacred trumpet sound
That day's return, than holy people thronged
In multitudes the temple's porticos;
And all in order 'fore the altar placed,
Bearing the fields' new produce in their hands,
Those first-fruits offered up to the One God:
The sacrifices overtaxed the priests!
Stopping that concourse, an audacious woman
Has changed those glorious days to days of gloom.
Scarce a small number of true worshippers
Dare give faint semblance of the ancient times;
The rest have shewn a fatal thoughtlessness
Towards their God, or worse, have even rushed
To Baal's altars to initiate
Themselves into his shameful mysteries;
And curse the name their fathers have invoked.
To speak right openly, I am in dread
That Athaliah from the altar will
Tear you, yourself; and casting off, at length,
The remnants of her forced respect, complete
On you her deadly vengeance.


JOAD.
Whence comes to-day this dark presentiment?


ABNER.
Think you that with impunity you can
Be just and pure? since, for so long a time
The queen has hated that rare constancy
Which adds, in Joad, new splendour to his office;
Since, for so long, your ardour for your faith
Has been construed sedition and revolt.
The jealous-minded queen hates, above all,
The dazzling worth of Josabet, your wife.
Though Joad is the successor of the priest—
The high priest, Aaron—Josabet is still
The last king's sister. Mathan, besides, Mathan—
Apostate priest—more vile than Athaliah,
Is importuning her at every hour;
Mathan, the base deserter from our altars,
And persecutor of all righteous zeal.
'Tis not enough his brow's encircled with
A foreign mitre; e'en his ministry
This Levite lends to Baal: this temple frets him,
And his impiety doth wish to crush
The God he has abjured. To ruin you
No snare he can devise will be unwrought.
Sometimes he pities you, and frequently
He even praises, and affects for you
A treacherous gentleness; and by this means
He deepens his malignity's dark dye.
Now, to that queen he paints you terrible;
Now, seeing her insatiate lust for gold,
He feigns that in a place, to you but known,
You hide the treasures David had amassed.
At last, the sombre Athaliah's seemed
For two days buried in a dark chagrin.
I saw her yesterday, and watched her eye
Flash on this holy place a furious glance,
As if the depths of this vast edifice
Concealed God's 'venger, armed to punish her.
Believe me, more I think of it and less
I doubt that 'tis on you her wrath's to burst;
And that the cruel Athaliah will
Assail our God, e'en in His sanctuary.


JOAD.
He who can rein the fury of the waves
Knows also how to check the base one's plots:
Submit with reverence to His holy will.
Dear Abner, I fear God, and no one else
I have to fear. I thank you, ne'ertheless,
For the observant zeal with which your eyes
Are open to my peril. Secretly,
I see injustice galls you,—that you have
Within you still the heart of Israel:
Thank God for that! But are you satisfied
With this unpractised virtue—secret wrath?
Ah! Can that faith which acts not be sincere?
Usurping all the rights of David's sway,
An impious stranger, now for eight years past,
Hath weltered in the blood of Judah's kings
Unpunished,—odious murderer of her sons;
And now e'en raiseth her perfidious arm
'Gainst God: and you, though nourished in the camp
Of Josaphat, the saintly king, are one
Of the upholders of this tottering state;
Who led our armies under Joram's son,
And who alone revived our towns alarmed
When the abrupt decease of Ochoziah
Dispersed all his camp at Jehu's sight;
God fear, I say you, and His word affects me!
Hear, how that God rebukes you by my mouth:—
"What use to vaunt your ardour for My law?
By empty vows think you to honour Me?
What value all your offerings to Me?
Need I the blood of he-goats and of heifers?
The blood of kings exclaims and is not heard:
Break, break all compact with the impious!
Drive out the offences from your people's midst;
And then return to offer Me your victims."


ABNER.
Ah! what can I amongst this down-trod race?
Powerless is Benjamin, and Judah droops:
The day which saw their race of kings no more
Extinguished all their spirits' ancient fire;
E'en God, say they, withholds Himself from us:
So jealous, formerly, of Hebrews' fame,
He sees, unmoved, our grandeur crushed to earth,
And, in the end, His mercy's wearied out:
No more, for us, His terrible arm is seen
To awe mankind with marvels numberless:
The ark is mute, its oracles unspoken.


JOAD.
Yet, when was time so full of miracles?
When did God show His power with more effect?
Will you have always eyes that do not see
A people thankless?—still your ear be struck
With greatest wonders, and your heart unmoved?
Must I, then, Abner, call to mind the course
Of prodigies accomplished in our days?
Of Israel's tyrants, the notorious shame,
And God found true in all His menaces;
The impious Ahab ruined, and his blood
That drenched the field by homicide usurped;
Jezebel slaughtered near that fatal field;
That queen beneath the feet of horses crushed;
The dogs in her inhuman blood quenched full,
And the torn members of her hideous corpse;
Of lying prophets, the confounded crew,
And flames upon the altar fall'n from heaven;
Elijah speaking like a potentate
Unto the elements, the firmament
As heated brass becoming, closed by him;
The earth three years without both rain and dew;
The dead reviving at Elisha's voice?
O, Abner, own in these transcendant deeds,
A God such as He was throughout all time.
Who knoweth, when He wills, to show His glory,
His people always present in His thoughts.


ABNER.
But where the dignities to David promised,
And e'en foretold by Solomon, his son?
Alas! we hoped that from that happy race
Was to descend a numerous train of kings;
That over every nation, every tribe,
His domination one of them should fix;
Make war and tumult cease in every land,
And at their feet behold all earthly kings.


JOAD.
Wherefore renounce the promises of heaven?


ABNER.
Where shall we seek that monarch, David's son?
Can heaven itself repair that withered tree,
Dead, even to its roots? The infant king,
By Athaliah murdered in his cradle;
Can those, for eight years dead, forsake the tomb?
Ah! in her fury were she but deceived!
If of the royal blood one drop escaped!


JOAD.
What would you then?


ABNER.
O happy day for me!
O with what ardour would I own my king!
Doubt you, that at his feet our eager tribes—
But wherefore flatter me with these vain thoughts?
The wretched heir of our triumphant kings
Alone was Ochoziah, with his children;
By Jehu's shafts I saw the father pierced;
You, by the mother, saw the son despatched.


JOAD.
I say no more; but when the star of day
Shall have performed a third part of his course
On the horizon, come with this same zeal
Again into the temple, whilst to prayers
The third hour summons us, and God to you
Will show, by benefactions weighty, that
His word is stable, that it ne'er deceives.
Depart: I must prepare for this great day,
And dawn already gilds the temple's summit.


ABNER.
What are those favours that I cannot fathom?
The

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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