Lo! Dura is shout­ing the war cry of Hell—
Now lit is her sym­bol of flame—
The hosts of the hea­then are bow­ing to Bel,
And mock­ing the earth with his name!

But Zi­on the de­so­late—wast­ed and low,
Shall give to Je­ho­vah her trust—
And find in the giant of Ba­bel a foe,
To lay, like Go­li­ath, in dust.

Ah! where is her chief with­out buck­ler or spear,
The min­strel that guard­ed her throne?
His harp has no mu­sic for Ba­by­lon’s ear,
It sighs on her wil­lows alone.

The spir­it that woke in his bo­som of old,
That prompt­ed his cour­age and wrath,
That snatched from the li­on the lamb of his fold,
And con­quered the de­mon of Gath.

That spir­it, en­kin­dled in Ju­dah again,
The heart of her child­ren in­spires;
It speaks for Je­ho­vah, from Ba­by­lon’s chain,
And scoffs at her fur­nace of fire.

Now list­en, Chal­dea—the wise and the brave
Thus an­swer thy rul­er’s com­mand:
“The God whom we wor­ship is able to save—
The God of our de­so­late land.

We speak not of mer­cy, proud mon­arch, to thee,
We wait not for life on thy breath,
And ere to thine idol we of­fer the knee,
We wel­come thy man­date of death.

They cease—and the hea­then is burn­ing with ire,
The strife of op­press­ion and shame;
The brow of his an­ger is flash­ing with fire,
That glows in the fur­nace of flame.

See, Ju­dah! thy chiefs, in their gen­tle­ness strong,
Are bear­ing the sen­tence of wrath:
How no­bly they suf­fer, who suf­fer the wrong!
How pure is the light on their path!

So bound, they are borne to the cal­dron of doom—
Ah, Ba­bel! thy ven­geance is vain—
The He­brews are walk­ing un­hurt in its tomb!
The men of Chal­dea are slain!

Now, mon­arch of Ba­by­lon, calm is thy rage,
Thy pas­sions have wast­ed their storm;
But what doth the eye of thy won­der eng­age?
An an­gel, or man in that form?

The shout of the hea­then is ech­oed no more;
The voice of the harp­er is low;
The hea­then is bid­ding the na­tion adore—
And own­ing the faith of his foe!

For there, like a beam from the glo­ry on high,
Unmixed with the fierce­ness of flame,
He sees with the vic­tims he des­tined to die,
A guard­ian he trem­bles to name.

Behold them! he cries, ’tis the sig­nal di­vine—
Unharmed in des­truc­tion they stand.
O Ju­dah! no God can de­liv­er like thine,
Let thine be the God of the land.