The Ruins of Herod's Palace

The traveller sat upon a stone,A broken column's pride,And o'er his head a fig-tree wavedIts grateful umbrage wide,While round him fruitful valleys smiled,And crystal streams ran by,And the bold mountain's forehead hoarRose up 'tween earth and sky.

But on a ruin'd pile he gazed,Beneath whose mouldering gloomThe roving fox a shelter found,And noisome bats a tomb."Ho, Arab!" for a ploughman wroughtThe grassy sward among,With marble fragments richly strew'd,And terraced olives hung,

"Say, canst thou tell what ancient domeIn darkness here declines,And strangely lifts its spectral formAmong the matted vines?"He stay'd his simple plough, that tracedIts crooked furrow nigh,And, while his oxen cropp'd the turf,Look'd up with vacant eye.

"It was some satrap's palace, sure,In old time, far away,Or else of some great Christian prince,I've heard my father say,""Arab! it was King Herod's dome;'Twas there he feasted, free,His captains, and the chief estates,And lords of Galilee;

"'Twas there the impious dancer's heelLured his rash soul astray."But, ere the earnest tale was told,The ploughman turn'd away.O ruthless king! thy vaunted pompAnd power avail thee not,Who here, beside thy palace-gates,Art by the serf forgot:

Yet he whose blood in prison-cellBy thy decree was spilt,Whose head, upon the charger brought,Appeased revengeful guilt,His name, amid a deathless page,Gleams forth with living ray,While all thy royalty and prideAre swept like foam away.