The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1895-04-09
Esther.
Bv 5. a1rRARp nELsoN

| "Lost-all is lostl The ancient purpose falls n
Dissolves my high born. but TOO hopeful dream
Dark grows my soul; the youthful vision
| pales -
And. now, these trappings of barbaric state
lnly my outraged nature loathes hate
The silvers glitter, and the marbles CLEAN;
The airy, incensed fabrics of the loom;
The iewelled walls wherein walk foriern.
And sapphire domes that simulate the morn
The hooking splendors of my living tomb
For these. my soul, uncompromising scornl
J or, come they not OF yoke, by me abhorred,
With one. by irony, miscalled king
The drunken, maniacal, imbruted thing.
Whom fate remorselessly hath made my lord
While yet child, with other children.
Was made to pass beneath his british gaze.
1 burned at the hot insult of his eye;
| Deaths toul breath blended with his maudlin
| praise;
And when. discordantly upon mine ear,
The plaudits tell, procaiming me his queen,
l swooned Twas mercy for he else had seen
My look of mingled ioathing and of fear.
So this eve lamb was led to sacrifice,
Her young love strangled as it sprang to birth;
And with it passed the gladness and the mirth
OF Israei's daughter meath the alien skies.
But not so passed her hope of Israers line
Whose hope and pride are quenchless as the
sun, ft
Kindled in Israel by the breath Divine
To burn till her victorious race be runi
Submissive, hence for her dear sake prayed
The Nameless One, to ind the Hebrew maid
Such favor with the king, that he would make
The yoke OF Israel lighter for my sake.
So ran my dream. But, now, DER Euleus, see
Those couriers dash with mandates from my
lord r la.,tfs
That doom my kindred to the insatiate sword |!
Already. winds are frenzied with their walls
"Lost-all is lostl The ancient purpose fails ~
Help, Bethels angel succor send by me.
Behold, thou Nameless One, mine agonyl
But, bark, footsteps IT'S our Hatach, pale
And ashen-stained, sore spent and lacking
breath
Who sternly thus: 1.-THE purpose cannot fail !
TITS we that tail, while it but waiteth by;
But hear. o Queen the word OF Mordecai:
The king, deceived by that Amaleklte,-
The sleek, accused adviser of his throne
base whelp OF Agag, whom we scorn to own
Heaven blot his name, TOR aye, from mortal
sight y
Hath published, by swift post, decree of death
To all our race. And now we turn to thee,
Pride of our house. appraised to majesty
And bid thee seek thy lord and supplicate
That, for thy sake, he turn aside our fate.'"
"Hatach, tits vain Be this my sad reply:
SO dark my sorrow, tain, ali, fain, would
The bidding do of noble Mordecai;
But. in the fixed DEGREES, as alI men know,
IT'S written that who dares unbidden go
Before the king, hath forfeit made OF life
n olox 1ohd lar obi MI o
So darkly, Hatach passeth hence; ana now
Ny soul is seething in its own hot scorn
SO loving life, though blighted IN its morn,
That for its sake could forget my VOW
Daughter of Benjamin, in sackcloth bow
For, when hither came, a jewelled slave,
With lifted hands, beneath this canopy,
For Israel swore 'twere joy toDiei
But, now, when Israel summons me to save,
And blood-red skies presage her coming doom,
1 shrink, cover. hug my living tombl
All false!
But softly, Hatach doth return,
And kneeling, walls the burden of Shushan,
Dark as a fatetuI dirge of Ahriman;
In his hot eyes the wrongs of Israel burn,
And DER his lips, in trembling torrents, flow,
Ny kinsman's auguries of coming woe -
30 Queen, If, at this time, thou hold thy peace,
Know that deliverance and swift release
Shall else arise. But, other aid employed,
Thou and Thy fathers house shall be destroy
ed ~
Whereto mine answer :-'Hatach, hither thou,
And say,-I hazard all my race to save!
My soul, now nerved to courage of its vow,
Falters no morei The queenly diadem
Pales before valor, womans fairer gem
Armed but with beauty's bland hypocrisy,
My bessial lord, and his decree, lbrlve
So, hence and summon Israel to fast,
Three days ana nights, botoro the Namelcss
One
Who led our fathers In the perilous past:
Then--dazzling as that morrow's Persian SUM
Say thou unto my consin Mordecai,-
go unto the King, and if die, die!"
The Watchmaqs, Boston.