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 The days of Jezebel :an historical drama 
 
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THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
THE 
 
 DAYS OF JEZEBEL, 
 
 AN HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 By PETER BAYNE. 
 
 AUTHOR OK THE CHRISTIAN LIFE! ''SOCIAL AMD INDIVIDUAL," "ESSAYS IN 
 BIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 GOULD A. NT 2D LINCOLN", 
 
 59 WASHINGTON STREET. 
 NEW TOBKs^SKELDOV AND COMPANY. 
 
 li U 18 JM ; II Y 
 
TtOdTVyELI, & CniTRCHILL, STERTIOTYPERS .AND PlUNTEKS, 
 122 Washington Street, Boston. 
 
DEAR PROFESSOR BLACK.IE, 
 
 / dedicate to you this Drama : first, because well-remembered 
 words of yours prevented my' utterly abandoning poetical com- 
 position; and secondly and chiefly, because T wish to tell you, 
 as expressively as I can, that the affectionate admiration with 
 which your genius and kindness inspired me when a student 
 in your class is as boyishly warm as ever. 
 
 PETER BAYNE. 
 Harlington, Middlesex, May i, 1872. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 % 
 
 ^^HE historical significance and great and varied 
 interest of the period, whose delineation is at- 
 
 tempted in the following drama, have attracted 
 
 to it an extraordinary degree of attention ; but in 
 
 none of the books upon the subject which I have 
 
 seen has adequate importance been assigned, or, 
 
 to speak with more precision, sufficient space been 
 
 allotted, to the part played by Queen Jezebel. 
 
 Elijah, one of the most picturesque figures in 
 
 history, revered alike by Jews and Christians, " the 
 
 grandest and most romantic character that Israel 
 
 vii 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 ever produced," has thrown the other personages of 
 the time into the shade. Treatises, orations, ser- 
 mons innumerable have celebrated Elijah ; Jezebel 
 has received but that cursory mention which might 
 be required to render the principal passages in the 
 life of the prophet intelligible. Even Professor 
 Ewald and Dean Stanley devote no more than a 
 few words to the queen. To both of these writers 
 I have, in the composition of this work, been 
 largely indebted. Ewald's searching and masterly 
 investigation may be considered decisive as to the 
 outline of historical fact, and Dean Stanley fur- 
 nishes the scenery amid which the events took 
 place and the actors livud. To him and others 
 who have recently described Syria and Palestine 
 it is due that the transactions in which Elijah, 
 Jezebel, and Ahab took part can be represented 
 with a topographical accuracy and a panoramic 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 vividness on a par with those which we expect in 
 a description of the campaigns of Sadowa or 
 Waterloo. In reading Dean Stanley's account of 
 the sacrifice upon Mount Carmel, we seem to see 
 the very ground under Elijah's feet. But each of 
 these eminent writers has, as I observed, only a 
 few words to say of Jezebel. She was nevertheless 
 the central figure in the historical group in which 
 she appears. It was by the presence of Jezebel, 
 as Queen of Israel, with a determinate, well- 
 considered policy, carried out with inflexible res- 
 olution, that the activity of Elijah was called 
 forth. Paradoxical as the statement looks, the 
 transcendent importance of the part played by 
 Jezebel, and the implacable resentment which 
 she inspired, were among the chief causes why 
 we hear so little about her. The records we 
 possess of her reign were composed by Hebrews 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 for whom it was both patriotism and religion 
 to hate her with a perfect hatred. This hatred 
 did not, I believe, induce them to deviate from 
 strict veracity ; but it made Jezebel's character 
 and actions a supremely disagreeable subject, and 
 they said as little of her as they could. When 
 the shadow of Jezebel falls upon their page, it 
 announces itself in black, but it flits by with 
 spectre-like swiftness. Only in the instances of 
 her message to Elijah, her interference against 
 Naboth, and her death, have we minute details. 
 She issued, apparently at an early period in her 
 reign, an edict for the slaughter of the prophets 
 of Jehovah. This was manifestly a cardinal event 
 in the history of the time. It probably initiated 
 Jezebel's policy of exterminating persecution, and 
 it is a reasonable supposition that the profound 
 agitation which it would occasion reached Elijah 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 in the solitudes of Gilead, and awoke him to his 
 prophetic mission. Yet the sole intimation we 
 have of the massacre occurs in one or two inci- 
 dental allusions, made by the annalist when he 
 is treating of other matters. This method of 
 dealing with Jezebel has been followed by his- 
 torians to this day. In my drama I endeavor 
 to make her speak for herself, and I shall here 
 mention a few of the principal circumstances 
 which throw light upon her character and 
 policy. 
 
 Sidon, of which she was a native, was one of 
 the earliest seats of western civilization. At a later 
 period it was eclipsed by Tyre, but in the second 
 half of the tenth century before the Christian era, 
 in which, to speak broadly, Jezebel flourished, its 
 glory had not waned. Placed upon the shore of the 
 Mediterranean, it was a clasp between east and 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 west. Its situation was, and continues to be, one 
 of the loveliest in the world. The town was 
 built on a ridge of rock jutting into the Medi- 
 terranean, with a mile of the richest gardens 
 between it and the wooded crags of Lebanon. 
 The basis of its civilization was Phoenician, but 
 its association with Greece was close. It was 
 renowned for the intrepidity and skill of its 
 mariners, for the extent of its commerce, for 
 its eminence in the arts. The seamen of Sidon 
 first directed their vessels by the Pole star. They 
 were probably the first to pass the Pillars of Her- 
 cules, and to surprise, with the dawning ray of 
 civilization, the rude savages that fought with 
 wolves and hunted wild cattle in the woods of 
 Britain. The Sidonians laid claim to the inven- 
 tion of glass and of glass mirrors ; and in sculpture, 
 engraving, gem-cutting, and gold and silver work, 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 they were not preceded, though, likely enough, 
 they were soon surpassed by the Greeks. The 
 silver vase which formed the first prize in the foot- 
 race at the funeral games of Patroclus, won by 
 Odysseus with the special aid of Athene, was of 
 Sidonian workmanship, and Sidonian maidens sat 
 in the palace of Priam embroidering vestures 
 worthy to be presented by queens to goddesses. 
 Sidon is repeatedly and familiarly mentioned in 
 the Homeric poems, and it seems plain from 
 Homer's references that there was no hard and 
 fast line, probably no traceable line at all, when 
 Homer lived, between Phoenician culture and Greek 
 culture, as both existed in Sidon. It is not im- 
 possible that Homer and Jezebel were contempora- 
 ries, but the likelihood is that the poet lived about 
 half a century earlier. There may be something 
 of poetic license in representing Jezebel as ac- 
 
xiv PREFAGE. 
 
 quainted with the Homeric poems, but it is cer- 
 tain that a Sidonian princess in the tenth century 
 before our era had opportunity to become im- 
 bued not only with the cosmopolitan ideas which 
 haunt commercial cities, but with Hellenic en- 
 thusiasm for poetry and art. It may be further 
 objected that, though Jezebel might have had 
 an enthusiasm for art, she could not have con- 
 ceived so high a degree of executive perfection 
 in works of art as the words here put into her 
 mouth imply. I venture to answer, first, that 
 there is no absolute proof that art had not reached 
 a high point of development in the cities of Asia 
 Minor and the Levant, even a thousand years be- 
 fore the commencement of our era ; and, secondly, 
 that, so soon as art becomes conspicuous enough to 
 create a deep impression upon the general mind, it 
 is spoken of by poets and others not acquainted 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 with its technical methods, in terms implying 
 an ideal state of perfection. I cannot feel quite 
 certain that Homer never saw a finely-sculptured 
 lion, or an •exquisitely-designed vase or shield ; but 
 reading him, as I have done, with a vague feeling 
 that he had not, I was much struck with the fact 
 on which Mr. Ruskin makes the following re- 
 mark : — " The inconsistency between an Homeric 
 description of a piece of furniture or armor, 
 and the actual rudeness of any piece of art 
 approximating, within even three or four cen- 
 turies, to the Homeric period, is so great, that 
 we at first cannot recognize the art as elucida- 
 tory of, or in any way related to, the poetic 
 language." 
 
 Baal and Ashtoreth were pre-eminently the 
 deities of Sidon, but it can hardly be doubted 
 that the Olympian gods were known and held in 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 honor. In Tyre, which seems to have been less 
 Greek in its culture than Sidon, there was a cele- 
 brated temple to Hercules. 
 
 From all this it will seem natural that Jeze- 
 bel, finding herself confronted by the austere 
 exclusiveness of the Hebrews/ which recoiled 
 from heathen culture as from deadly sin, might 
 regard herself as the missionary of a nobler, 
 kindlier, more expansive civilization than that 
 which so sternly defied her. 
 
 The bitter offence which monotheistic exclu- 
 siveness has always given to polytheistic laxity 
 would of itself account for the fierce persecution by 
 which, so soon as she found there could be no com- 
 promise between Baal and the real worshippers of 
 God, Jezebel attempted to bow the people to her 
 will ; but her blood and breeding had fitted her to 
 encounter the devotion of the Hebrews to the God 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 of their fathers with a fervor and a stubbornness 
 peculiar to herself. She was daughter of iEthbaal 
 or Eithobal, high-priest of Ashtoreth, who, by the 
 murder of his brother Phelles, cut his way to the 
 throne of Sidon, with which that of Tyre was then 
 or soon afterwards combined. In her youth she 
 was doubtless associated with her father in religious 
 rites, and the most zealous of devotees have in all 
 ages been the daughters of able, ambitious, and 
 fanatically zealous priests. Baal and Ashtoreth, 
 the Sun and the Earth, whose union was the source 
 of beauty, life, and fdison to the world, were jointly 
 worshipped, and Jezebel's father may have been 
 about as much the priest of Baal as of Ashtoreth. 
 It is evident from the Scripture narrative that, in 
 Samaria, Jezebel exercised a special presidency 
 over the worship of Ashtoreth, while Ahab stood in 
 a similar relation to that of Baal. At the call of 
 
xviii PREFACE. 
 
 Ahab, the prophets of Baal went to meet Elijah 
 at Carmel. The prophets of Ashtoreth were in- 
 cluded in Elijah's challenge, but they, acting pre- 
 sumably under the directions of Jezebel, did not 
 make their appearance, and thus escaped the doom 
 of the others. The daughter of Eithobal was 
 doubtless sincere in her convictions. 
 
 If the religion of her father was dear to Jezebel 
 as a woman, his alliance was desirable for her as a 
 queen. The king of the great maritime cities, Tyre 
 and Sidon, would be an important ally of Israel in 
 wars waged either with the Syrians on the north 
 and north-east, or with the kingdom of Judah in 
 the south. 
 
 We have thus before us the elements of a policy 
 by no means base, narrow, or stupid, which would 
 commend itself, on grounds of national culture, 
 political advantage, and religious fanaticism, to the 
 
PREFACE. xix 
 
 Sidonian wife of Ahab. It would indeed have been 
 a wise, a splendid, and, in all probability, a success- 
 ful policy if the Israelites had been like any other 
 ancient people. It involved the entrance of Je- 
 hovah's children into the general company of 
 polytheistic nations, and the acceptance by the 
 Hebrews of the principle that each people had its 
 local God, and that Jehovah was but one of many 
 rival deities. Against these concessions the spirit 
 of the Hebrew people, incarnated in Elijah, rose in 
 all the grandeur of intrepid and unconquerable faith. 
 The conflict which ensued gave character to one 
 of the most memorable epochs in the moral and 
 spiritual education of mankind. Elijah and those 
 who remained faithful to Jehovah formed a 
 numerically contemptible minority of the people 
 of Israel, and persons of respectability and posi- 
 tion were in general content to compromise 
 
xx PREFACE. 
 
 the matter both with Jezebel and with Baal. 
 The views of this party are, I trust, done some 
 justice to by Gershom and Milchi in the delicate 
 business of giving effect to the royal wishes re- 
 specting Naboth. 
 
 Between the northern Israelitish kingdom, over 
 which Ahab and Jezebel reigned, and the Medi- 
 terranean, intervened a stripe of country fre- 
 quently referred to both in the Old and New 
 Testaments. Inhabitants of this district mingled 
 with Jews and Samaritans in the audiences which 
 listened to Christ, and from it came the woman 
 whose appreciation of the privilege of sharing in 
 the spiritual advantages of the children of Israel 
 revealed itself in the gracious modesty of her 
 prayer for a crumb from the Saviour's table. The 
 region seems to have been from a very early period 
 a kind of spiritual debatable land between Juda- 
 
PREFACE. xxi 
 
 ism and heathenism, and I have taken this view 
 in treating of Elijah's abode with the widow of 
 Zarepta. There is a Jewish legend that the son of 
 the widow whom the prophet restored, according to 
 the common translation, from death, or, as recent 
 critics suggest, from a death-like swoon, became 
 the attendant of Elijah, accompanied him to 
 Carmel, witnessed his triumph over Ahab and 
 the prophets of Baal and subsequent flight 
 from Jezebel, and was himself called at a later 
 period to assume the prophetic office, and to ex- 
 perience the vicissitudes of circumstance and of 
 mood which befell the prophet Jonah. Into the 
 historical worth of this legend it were bootless to 
 inquire, but I have availed myself of it in my 
 drama. In like manner I have made a slight 
 use of the semi-mythical genealogy which places 
 the Dido of the ^Eneid, known to the Phoenicians 
 
xxii PREFACE. 
 
 as Elissa, in the direct line of descent from the 
 
 father of Jezebel. 
 
 The conflict between the Prophet and the Queen 
 is not the only feature in that age which lends it 
 significance in the spiritual history of the world. A 
 progressive stage in moral civilization, to which a 
 still deeper and subtler interest attaches, has for its 
 note the contrast between the Elijah of Carmel and 
 the Elijah of Horeb. The sublimely-beautiful 
 imagery of the still small voice, revealing God 
 more intensely than hurricane, earthquake, or fire, 
 expresses as clearly as symbolical language can 
 express anything, the Christian truth that gentle- 
 ness is a diviner force than mere material power. 
 Between the decisive declaration of Carmel, for 
 Jehovah and against Baal, and the proclamation of 
 the Divine tenderness in the still small voice of 
 
PREFACE. xxiii 
 
 Horeb, there is no discrepancy ; and yet the deep- 
 thoughted reader of this last passage cannot help 
 feeling that it is a Divine comment upon the 
 slaughter of the prophets of Baal. This is not 
 its sole, perhaps not even its chief, meaning, but 
 this meaning it certainly has. I have treated 
 the vision of Horeb as a prophecy of Christian 
 times, but I probably should not have ventured 
 to represent Elijah as naming Christ had I not 
 been able to quote, by way of precedent, the 
 authoritative example of Mr. Browning. I cannot 
 throw around my subject so much dramatic illu- 
 sion as the author of Saul, but there is less in- 
 herent improbability in the literal anticipation of 
 Christian times by Elijah in a vision than by 
 David when harping before his king. 
 "Whatever talen'ts a person may possess to 
 
xxiv PREFACE. 
 
 amuse and instruct others, be they ever so incon- 
 siderable, he is yet bound to exert them.'' These 
 words were used by a great poet in offering to the 
 world a work which needed no apology, but they 
 state a principle on which the publication of sincere 
 poems may be defended, although the talents of 
 their authors are indeed inconsiderable. Degrees 
 of culture and varieties of taste are innumerable ; ■ 
 one man may derive from a crumbling stone, 
 marked with a few stains of lichen, enjoyment as 
 genuine as another from a range of mountains ; and 
 for great men and little men alike, there seems to 
 be no guarantee that their work will interest others, 
 except that it has interested themselves. Whatever 
 its defects — and the reader is not likely to appre- 
 ciate them more deeply than I do — my heart was in 
 the writing of this drama ; nor have I spared myself 
 careful study in order to. render it a dramatically 
 
PREFACE. xxv 
 
 correct representation of the sentiments, motives 
 and course of action of the historical personages 
 introduced. I purposely abandoned that extreme 
 elaboration of style which imparts to much of our 
 most approved contemporary poetry the character 
 of cabinet painting. I have considered it of 
 more importance that no part of the dramatic 
 frame-work necessary to a just and comprehensive 
 picture of the period should be omitted, than that 
 every par.t should be executed even approximately 
 as I could wish. An event, for example, of so much 
 historical significance as the hiding of the prophets 
 in a cave by Obadiah could not be omitted in an 
 historical view of the period ; but I am conscious 
 that the prophetic chant or psalm put into the 
 mouth of Micaiah is but a feeble imitation of the 
 parallelism of Hebrew poetry. 
 
 I may add that I- have consciously adopted 
 
xxvi PREFACE. 
 
 one or two phrases and images from Mr. Tenny- 
 son and Mr. Ruskin, and that I have no doubt of 
 having unconsciously adopted more both from 
 them and from other writers. 
 
DRAMATIS PERSONS. 
 
 ot<Ko 
 
 King of Israel. 
 Governor of the Palace. 
 Chief of Jezebel's body-guard. 
 Rhapsodist or Minstrel. 
 
 Prophets. 
 
 a Levite. 
 
 Son of the Widow of Zarepta. 
 
 Elders of Jezreel. 
 
 Jezebel, Queen, of Israel. 
 
 Elissa, her Niece, the Dido of the Greeks. 
 
 The Widow of Zarepta. 
 
THE 
 
 DAYS OF JEZEBEL; 
 
 AN HISTORICAL DRAMA. 
 
 ACT I. 
 
 Scene I. In the palace of Ahab at yezreel. 
 
 Ahab and Jezebel. 
 
 ■Ahab. 
 
 COME now, clear up, my morn, my Jezebel ; 
 One smile, but one, to cheer me, like the taste 
 Of Helbon's wine. That tear is maddening ; 
 Ah — let me kiss it ere it overflow 
 The quivering eyelid. — 
 
 yezebel (rebelling him softly with her hand) . 
 Ahab, my good lord, 
 
30 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 I cannot laugh, I cannot jest, to-night ; 
 Methinks thou lov'st me not. — 
 Ahab. 
 
 My Jezebel, 
 Doth thy hand press me from thy breast? Canst thou 
 Even shape the thought in thy soul's deepest deep 
 That Ahab doth not love thee ? 
 Jezebel. 
 
 Words, sweet words, 
 Oh, you were always very deft at words ; 
 So is my minstrel ; Luli sings as sweet, 
 And throws as costly jewel-wreaths of words 
 About my neck ; but Luli's fetter not. 
 They lead me not from Sidon's pillared halls, 
 From the fair ships, the bright cerulean sea. 
 The cedarn alleys upon Lebanon, 
 From my proud father, proud, yet oh how kind 
 To me, his only daughter ! Promise-words, 
 From princely suitors asking for the hand * 
 Of a king's daughter, should be like to those 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 31 
 
 Left peraurably graven in the rock 
 By 'Sidon's cunning workmen, flashing clear, 
 Calm-flashing with the gleam of perfect truth, 
 To greet the mornings of a thousand years. 
 The inlaid words are words no more, and yet 
 They are the beaten and unsullied gold. 
 Thy words flashed bright — the gold, my lord, the gold? 
 Ahab. 
 My Jezebel, let us, in heart and soul, 
 Preserve that quiet of the air at dawn 
 In which each dew-drop gets its touch of light, 
 And every blade shows lucid. You and I 
 Can know no difference which will not be 
 An added note of tenderest ravishment 
 In the melodious concord of our love, 
 If we but trust each other ; if we let 
 No casual glance, no word misunderstood, 
 No freak of humor, no indulged caprice, 
 Disturb our settled peace, or turn our eyes 
 From one clear point of purpose. Am I brave ? 
 
33 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 You grant me brave. And gentle ? Well, my heart, 
 Could Ahab, gentle, brave, as you admit, 
 Wrong his soul's darling, late-wed Jezebel j 
 Who knows, ah, yes, who knows he loves her ? Ask 
 What boon thou wilt, and prove the love thou know' St. 
 yezebel. 
 I ask my life : not the rude sustenance 
 We throw to slaves or beasts ; the finer breath 
 That the live spirit draws, the atmosphere 
 In which my soul expanded, grew to strength 
 And noble quality ; the cherishing light 
 That fell about my maiden brow, the light 
 Of knowledge and of wisdom and large thoughts, 
 That went like those bold birds, with broidered wings, 
 My father's ships, far o'er the purple sea, 
 To many lands, to distant isles, to men 
 Of other tongues than ours and other gods ; 
 Large thoughts, the mothers of large sympathies 
 And tolerant forbearance, keen to see 
 And separate dross from ore, yet smiling calm 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 33 
 
 On varying customs among various men, 
 
 Finding a kindred touch in all, a tone 
 
 Of natural harmony, and scorning nought 
 
 That made its dwelling in a human heart. 
 
 I bowed to Sidon's gods, but honored those 
 
 That the great Homer sang of ; reverently 
 
 Beheld tiieir temples, heard their oracles, /y 
 
 And marked their rites divergent. Beauty's voice 
 
 In music ; beauty's form divine, that changed 
 
 The dead rock into living image, showed 
 
 The hero's arm in act to cast the spear, 
 
 Lit in his eyes the glory and the joy 
 
 Of the poised battle, set the smile of love 
 
 To burn immortal on the eloquent lip 
 
 Of ivory goddess, tressed and zoned with gold ; 
 
 The subtle skill that knew to match and wed 
 
 The colors on the robe, till ecstasy 
 
 Swooned at the sight : all these I learned to love, 
 
 And held them sacred on whatever land 
 
 They beamed forth blessing. Now, my good lord, say, 
 
34 TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL 
 
 Did not my father pledge thee at the first 
 That this my life's best life, my soul's true soul, 
 Should not be quenched in our Samaria? 
 And now ? — 
 
 Ahab. 
 Well, now ; do I not sympathize 
 With all this, Jezebel ? Do I not grant, 
 Nay, guard this life of thine, which thou right well 
 Describest? — Better with thine eye and lip — 
 Glance-words of lightning, crimson syllables — 
 Than with thy voice, and that is ever sweet, 
 And sweetly penetrant to Ahab's heart. 
 yezebel. 
 A trace to courtesies ; the time has come , 
 For swift decision. Be my voice or sweet 
 Or shrill, I now must speak. 'Tis not the life 
 That my proud father meant or I can live, 
 To be bound fast in Sinai's iron law, 
 To build within some tuft of shadowy trees, 
 Deep in our garden bowers, an altar small 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 35 
 
 To Sidon's gods, and offer, trembling, there 
 The scanty gift. No ! no ! by Eithobal, 
 By Baal himself, I worship as a Queen. 
 To Jah, thou knowest, tendered we the free 
 And honorable service of an old 
 And strenuous god, the god of Israel : 
 I smiled upon his prophets, gladly threw 
 Upon his altars incense, passing by ; 
 What god of all the nations asketh more ? 
 But for my father's god, for Baal that guides 
 Yon flaming chariot down the steeps of heaven, 
 And for my own dear goddess, Ashtoreth, 
 The bright, kind, loving, glorious Ashtoreth, 
 I claim supremest honors. Ahab, speak. 
 Ahab. 
 Hush, hush, my bird of beauty, fold thy wings, 
 And still thy beating bosom. Now I know 
 What moved thee. On the fret and insolence 
 Of men whose weapons are but wind-blown words 
 Waste not the adulation of alarm. 
 
$6 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The acrid foam upon the wrinkling lip 
 
 Of turbulence, that feels the sovereign eye 
 
 Restrain it, is as weak as frothy film 
 
 Left on the sand, which you and I have oft 
 
 At Sidon marked, when the down-going storm 
 
 Led back the baffled surges, and it lay 
 
 Sun-dried and impotent. Then wherefore weep ? 
 
 Thine am I, thine alone ; not Jah himself 
 
 Will tear me from thee. Weep not ; every drop 
 
 That wets thy cheek falls on my heart of hearts, 
 
 And stings with barb of fire. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 
 Oh, I must weep 
 To know there is but one way ; to be forced 
 To ask for Hebrew blood ; but in my tears 
 Is less of rain than lightning. I can act 
 As fits my father's daughter. Tolerance 
 Of those who will not tolerate is sin 
 Against all toleration. — Nay, my lord, 
 If you would be a king and I a queen . 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 3^ 
 
 Over this people, proud and stiff of neck, 
 Boasting its freedom and its law, and prompt 
 To catch the flame of mad fanaticisms, 
 We must acknowledge frankly to ourselves 
 That there are tasks appointed unto kings, 
 Which bland good-nature, soft of heart and brain, 
 Smiling and talking, never can perform. 
 
 Jah's prophets do defy me, stain my name 
 
 With foulest slanders, fill the public ways 
 
 With howlings against Baal and Ashtoreth. 
 
 Rebellion rears its head, and must be struck 
 
 Dead with one blow ; and that one blow must fall 
 
 Upon Jah's prophets, for they — 
 Ahab. 
 
 Pardon, sweet ; 
 
 Here comes your valiant Azim, and with him 
 
 Our trusty Obadiah. — Well, my chiefs, 
 
 Is all safe for the night ? 
 
 Obadiah. 
 All safe, O king. 
 
38 TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Ahab. 
 Azim, thou answerest not; what clouds thy brow? 
 
 Azim. 
 My king, my queen, forgive me that my face! 
 Is not so comfortably bland and bright 
 As prudent Obadiah's. Truly, he 
 Knoweth this people and this Jezreel 
 Better than L He sayeth all is safe. 
 Doubtless his words are true. Long live the king 
 And queen. 
 
 Ahab. 
 Speak, Azim, let us know 
 The cause of this thy gloom. For who can tell 
 But Obadiah may dispel thy fears ? 
 Azim. 
 So do I hope, O king, and at the worst 
 Sidonian steel cuts true. My band and I 
 Will answer for our Lady. This I know, 
 That the Jah faction rage tempestuously, 
 That priest and prophet stir the people up, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 39 
 
 That furious multitudes revile the queen, 
 That rumors fly abroad on every wind 
 Of dark conspiracy and murderous plot, 
 To slay in one night king and queen and all 
 The priests of Baal and of Ashtoreth. 
 The rumors may be rumors, -^ nothing more ; 
 Oft have I seen the sky with murky clouds 
 O'er-canopied, yet never drop of rain ; 
 But underneath the cloudy cope men walked 
 Berforce in shadow. So I walk in gloom. 
 Will Obadiah bid the sky be clear ? 
 Obadiah. 
 I should be much in fault, O king, were I 
 Less jealous of thy safety and the queen's 
 Than valiant Azim. If my brow be clear, 
 It is because my confidence is strong. 
 Those shadowing clouds will yield no rain of blood. 
 Almost I marvel that a valiant man 
 Should be disquieted by rumors vain. 
 There is no sign of danger which the force 
 
4° THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 We have in hand could fail to quell. No doubt 
 There is a ferment in the minds of men 
 Throughout the land. Jehovah's prophets cry- 
 That Israel's God is angry, that his wrath 
 Burns hot to see his people forced to bow 
 Unto the gods of Sidon and of — 
 yezebel. 
 What! 
 The gods of Sidon ! Darest thou to prate 
 As if my gods were here by sufferance ? 
 Be witness, King of Israel, and thou, 
 Brave Azim, that it is not I who sought 
 This quarrel. They, not I, have broken truce, 
 And chosen war instead of peace. 'Tis I, 
 Yea, I, who for this land of Israel 
 Have sought the best, the princeliest policy, 
 A policy of peace with neighbor Powers, 
 A policy of friendship closeliest knit 
 With Sidon and with Tyre, my father's realm, 
 A policy of honor to all gods, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Jah 'mong the rest, but homage, first of all, 
 
 To Baal and to Ashtoreth, whom I 
 
 And the king, Ahab, worship. Very well ; 
 
 What one of all Jah's prophets but proclaims 
 
 That he would spit into the sacred eyes 
 
 Of Ashtoreth's dread image ? Peace with such 
 
 Means base submission, treason to all gods 
 
 Except their boasted Jah. Wise Obadiah, 
 
 So sage, so wary, shall we name thee, then, 
 
 A second Solomon, and much improved 
 
 On David's son ? Did he morosely hate 
 
 All other gods but Jah ? Did he not seek, — 
 
 I say not in his heady youth, but when 
 
 His brow showed harvest of maturest thought, 
 
 And age lent softness to his cheek and lip, 
 
 And deepened the love-fountains in his eyes, — 
 
 Did he not then, I say, serenely wish 
 
 That every man of every nation round 
 
 Who visited Mount Zion there should find 
 
 An altar to his country's gods, and thus, 
 
 4i 
 
42 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 With friendly gods above and friendly men 
 Below, the. broad green earth might smile in peace 
 Up to a smiling, azure firmament? 
 Such, too, my royal father's thought, and mine, 
 And thine, King Ahab. Yet we all are scorned, 
 And these rude prophets, raging everywhere, 
 Make insurrection throughout all the land, 
 To cast us from the genial, sunny height 
 Of Solomon's Mount Zion to the gorge, 
 Narrow and dark and haggard, where a horde 
 Of raving fanatics see Samuel hew 
 Agag in pieces in the name of Jah. 
 By Baal, I shall smite them ! Obadiah, 
 Think'st thou we cannot tread these rebels down ? 
 Obadiah. 
 They are most weak, O queen, if spear and sword 
 And iron chariot are the only strength 
 In which a man may trust ; but if their God 
 Be pleased to help them, all their enemies 
 Shall be like stubble in the crackling flame, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 When winds scud rapid o'er the blackened ground. 
 yezebel. 
 Great swelling words, but with no jot of sense ! 
 What armies can these prophets or their Jah 
 Set in the tented field ? What fortresses 
 Can lend them shelter ? Will a javelin 
 Not pin a traitor to the ground because 
 He mouths a prayer to Jah ? 
 
 Obadiah. 
 What God will do, 
 He only knoweth. All unsearchable 
 By mortal man the secrets of his reign. 
 But what he can do he hath clearly shown 
 By mighty signs and wonders. By a word, 
 If such his will, he could the mountains fledge 
 With hosts of bannered angels, helmed with flame. 
 The great sea is his slave, and at his nod 
 Would bring its surges o'er the scarped hills. 
 The solid earth obeys him, opens wide 
 Its rock-fanged mouth to close it upon those 
 
 43 
 
44 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Marked for its prey by him. The moon by night 
 Pauses among the stars to write his praise 
 In silver glitterings on the solemn clouds. 
 The sun that rules by day he bids to stand 
 Until his folk avenge them on — 
 Jezebel. 
 
 No more 
 Of this intolerable rhapsody. 
 Vex not mine ear with fables, fit alone 
 For sucklings and for fools. Why, this same Jah, 
 What is he, at the best? The petty god 
 Of some low-terraced hills and craggy vales 
 Between the Jordan and the sea ! His realm 
 Is but a little spot that meets the eye 
 Of my great Baal when his chariot-wheels 
 Tarry a moment on the ruddy brow 
 Of Lebanon at dawn. Scarce deigns he look 
 On Jah's small heritage beneath his feet. 
 His eye swift ranges from the Syrian bounds 
 To Egypt's river, then away, away % 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 45 
 
 Along the deep to islands of the west, 
 
 Dim, white-cliffed islands glimmering through the mist, 
 
 Where only Sidon's mariners can sail. 
 
 Hark, Obadiah, know'st thou yonder star, 
 
 Steadfast amid the heavenly company, 
 
 Calm in its pure effulgence, while the rest 
 
 Move round melodious ? Tell me who it was 
 
 That taught the mariner to fix his eye 
 
 Upon the pole-star ? Was it not a man 
 
 Of Sidon? Tell me, hath thy vaunted Jah 
 
 Done aught like that? 
 
 Obadiah. 
 
 He lit the polar star ; 
 He spake the word, and all the starry host 
 Moved to their stations in the purple vault, 
 With traceless steps of modulated light. 
 The blue day is his vesture, the green earth 
 His. footstool. At his touch — 
 jfezebel. 
 Peace, peace, O peace 1 
 
46 • THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Thou mak'st a sin of patience ! Wonder small 
 That treason riots in our streets, if thus 
 Its reveries haunt our palace ! 
 Ahab. 
 
 Truth, my queen, 
 Yet Obadiah means no treachery, 
 And we must bear with him. His heart is sound. 
 And let us trust, by force of gentle words, 
 And skilful moderation, to allay 
 These raging heats of faction in the land. 
 Meanwhile, enough of speech. A soldier, I, 
 Able to sleep though noises vex the air 
 With petulant alarm. Hark ! — Luli's voice — 
 
 {Singing heard in the distance?) 
 
 Out on the lawn in the moonlight, 
 Out on the lawn in the moonlight, 
 Out on the lawn 
 When the star-light is drawn 
 To the soft-beaming eye of the dew bright. 
 
 Meet me, my love, in the moonlight, 
 Meet me, my love, in the moonlight, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 47 
 
 Meet me alone 
 When the star-light is thrown 
 Through the dark cedar-boughs on the dew bright. 
 
 Come, Jezebel, he sings the words he made 
 For that new air he spoke of yesterday, 
 Sent him from Sidon. Come, my best one, come. 
 Jezebel. 
 Pardon, my lord. I leave to thee this night 
 The song and dance. There is a darting pain — 
 No serious matter — on my forehead here, 
 And I am weary and would sleep. No doubt 
 Azim will guard us well ; yet give to me 
 The royal seal ; we know not what may hap : 
 Prompt measures may be needful ; thou did'st say 
 That I should test thy love. 
 
 Ahah. 
 
 Ah, little one, 
 And is this all thy wish at last ? — One kiss ? 
 Not one ! well, that's unkind. [ Gives her the seal.'] 
 
 But fare thee well. 
 
48 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Come, Obadiah, let us hear this Luli. 
 
 [Ahab and Obadiah go.~\ 
 Jezebel. 
 Azim, attend me in the tower alone. 
 
 Azim. 
 Most gracious queen, when I have set the watch 
 And gone my rounds, I shall attend on thee. 
 
 Scene II. In the high tower of Jezreel. 
 Jezebel alone. 
 Jezebel. 
 I could not kiss him. I am glad of that — 
 At such an hour to be called from my side 
 By a mere breath of air, a trill of sound, 
 Vacant of thought as warble of a bird ! — 
 Yet would to all the gods he were a king 
 Like to my father ! There are women now, 
 Yea, many silly women, who declare 
 That queen the happiest who rules her lord, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 49 
 
 And by the flexure of his puppet arm 
 
 Wields his dread sceptre. Fools ! It is not so. 
 
 To love a man of whom she can be proud, 
 
 To feel a king's glance softening on her face, 
 
 To pour intenser joy into his soul 
 
 By her one smile, one kiss of tenderness, 
 
 Than subject realms can yield him, — this, oh, this 
 
 Is woman's crowning rapture. What is love 
 
 Without a trace of worship ? Woe is me 
 
 That I should know the royal strain in man 
 
 And be the wife of Ahab ! Father, now 
 
 I feel thy words' full meaning when, in pride 
 
 And joy of my girl's heart, I threw my arms 
 
 Around thy neck, and told thee, whisperingly, 
 
 My bosom's secret. " Is he not," I said, 
 
 " Right brave, my father ? What Sidonian chief 
 
 Urges so featly the foam-whitened steeds 
 
 In the war-chariot? — looks so gladly calm 
 
 When foemen dare him to the conflict ? Who 
 
 In all the court so comely ? Who so kind ? 
 
50 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Am I not happy, father?" Then I hid 
 My face upon his neck. So tenderly 
 He raised it in both hands, and with a smile, 
 A deep, sad smile, looked long into my eyes. 
 " My Jezebel, my beautiful, bright girl, 
 Slight as thou art and fragile, thou art one 
 Of those who go the way of life alone. 
 Thine Ahab is a gallant, courteous man, 
 Pleased with himself and thee and all the world, 
 Of many projects, many hopes, a face 
 Glistening with credulous enthusiasm 
 And vacant magnanimity, aglow 
 With high-flown, impotent benevolence. 
 He will be thy kind husband, full as good 
 As any like to come, but not thy friend, 
 Or mate, or king. My daughter, thou and I 
 Have deeper bonds than kinship, and my soul 
 Will be unsistered when thou art away." 
 I called him naughty father, hard old man, 
 And drew back, pouting ; but, ah ! now I feel 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 51 
 
 How true his words ! He was a king indeed ! 
 How well I knew him ! From a little child, 
 Long ere I read the language of his brow, 
 I'd leave my mother's arms to run to him, 
 And walk beside him, holding by his hand, 
 Along the margin of the mighty sea. 
 
 \_A pause. She paces the floor silently, immersed in 
 thought. As she speaks, she seems gazing on a 
 succession of pictures -which rise before her ; her 
 eyes are full and steady. J 
 
 That first time I was ever in a ship 
 The tawny breakers, like fierce lion-heads 
 Tossing their manes in fury, gnashed on me, 
 And I cowered trembling on the beach, nor nurse 
 Nor mother could appease my fears. He saw, 
 And with one smile, one touch, one living word, 
 So braced my heart that the pale breadths of foam 
 Seemed fields of lilies. Nestling by his side, 
 O heaven, to feel the bounding of the sea, 
 And watch the polished glittering of the waves ! 
 
52 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A little maiden, foremost of the train, 
 
 Clad in pure white with scarlet edges fine, 
 
 And smooth brow crowned with topaz and sweet 
 
 flowers, 
 
 So proud, so meek, so conscious of the gaze 
 
 Of twice ten thousand, treading solemnly 
 
 With many virgins following, she chief, 
 
 The arch-priesfs daughter, in procession fair 
 
 Conducting him, with grave melodious hymns, 
 
 To sacrifice in Ashtoreth's high fane. 
 
 [She muses in silence for a few moments. Then tears 
 rise into her eyes, and touching' her lute gently, 
 she sings in low, flaintive tones.~\ 
 
 O father, I weep ; yet chide not thou, 
 
 Eor the tear sprang unaware, 
 When that waft from the window touched my brow 
 
 Like mine own sweet Sidon air ; 
 
 The still, cool air of the Sidon night, 
 
 As we stood on the palace wall, 
 And watched the black sail on the moon-path white, 
 
 And the long waves float and fall. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 53 
 
 Then chide me not, father, chide not much, 
 
 For I still shall do and dare, 
 But that waft from the window felt like a touch 
 Of my own dear Sidon air. 
 [Another pause. Suddenly she starts and faces 
 with quick, short steps in agitation, speaking 
 rapidly.~\ 
 
 Yes, yes, 'twas I alone 
 
 Then dared to take the hand of Eithobal, 
 
 And kiss him on the cheek. His face was dark. 
 
 His eye shot fierce black firei To slay a king, 
 
 And he a brother ! Every heart stood still 
 
 In Sidon, and her tall towers shook. In tears 
 
 My mother sat and could not go to him. 
 
 Then I went, stepping firm ; methought a pang 
 
 Shot o'er his face when his eye fell upon 
 
 The dark red stain my snow-white sandal caught 
 
 From that pool on the floor. 'Twas but a moment. 
 
 The weakness passed. His brow and eye all clear, 
 
 But with some lingering anguish in his tones, 
 
 He looked me calmly in the face, and said, 
 
 " I thank thee, Jezebel. This lesson take 
 
54 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Beside thy poor dead uncle ; be thyself 
 Completely ; be not anything by halves ; 
 Into thine every deed be thy whole soul 
 Thrown unreserved. Nor look too much at means. 
 Must this be done ? That same necessity 
 Which bids thee do it, bids thee trample down 
 All ties, all claims, all virtues that the throng 
 Can know for such, in doing it. This Phelles, 
 With his lax, dawdling ways and pleasant tongue, 
 His feeble compromises, feeble wish 
 To give the foolish people what they asked, 
 Was loosening every joint of government. 
 Well, I was stronger ; say that I deposed him 
 And took the throne. Then had a thousand heads, 
 Distracted as his own, begun to plot 
 His restoration ; blood had flowed in streams 
 Down every street. He lies there ; he alone. 
 The crown is mine. Like to a dangerous beast, 
 When one sure stroke has cleft its skull in twain, 
 His faction shudders once through every limb, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 55 
 
 Then stiffens, dead for ever. Be thou sure, 
 The sudden, smiting stroke that makes an end 
 Has more of wisdom, ay, and mercy too, 
 Than " — Hush ! my heart be still ; here Azim comes. 
 Enter Azim. 
 Azim. 
 I do commend me to your majesty, 
 And wait the honor of your high commands. 
 yezebel. 
 Azim, thou art of Sidon ; can I count 
 Upon thee wholly? 
 
 Azim. 
 Yea, my queen, thou canst. 
 I learned obedience under Eithobal, 
 Thy godlike father. In the chosen band, 
 His guard of life and honor, breathed no man 
 In whom his trust once faltered. When he brake 
 That band in two, and bade me lead one half 
 To be thy guard in Israel's land, he laid 
 An oath upon me that to thee should be 
 
5°" TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 My supreme duty, and that death alone, 
 No word of mortal man or threat of God, 
 Should come between command of thine to me 
 And my performance. From its scabbard here 
 My sword will leap to pierce through any heart 
 Beneath the sun, if such be thy command. 
 yezebel. 
 There spake my brave Sidonian ! Well ; to work ! 
 Thou apprehendest what this matter means ? 
 The crafty Obadiah did not veil 
 From eyes like thine the truth. Rebellion lurks, 
 In act to spring. We must anticipate 
 The clutch of fang and talon. My just rights, 
 Dear as the diadem that binds this brow, 
 Sealed by my husband's royal word, and held 
 Sacred as Baal-fire by my father, these 
 Are to be swept away. The house of Baal 
 Is to be horribly profaned ; the grove 
 Of Ashtoreth cut down ; the priests of both 
 Slain on their altars. Jah, and Jah alone, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 57 
 
 A god perhaps — I care not — but of gods 
 The most austere and narrow-souled, why he 
 Alone shall reign ! O my great father, priest 
 Of Ashtoreth, of Sidon king and Tyre, 
 How have I bodied in articulate speech 
 Such huge humiliation ! Azim, quick, 
 My tablets. Here I write instruction brief 
 That thou shalt cut this deadly evil out 
 With the cold steel. The ministers of Jah, 
 The prophets above all, wherever found, 
 Within the land of Israel, thou shalt put 
 • To death. The soldiers of the king, my guards, 
 And every loyal subject, are enjoined 
 To give thee furtherance in this. The seal ? — 
 I stamp it broad and deep. 
 
 Such my command. 
 Thou wilt obey. Farewell. The time forbids 
 To speak one word of that sweet life which we 
 Erst lived at Sidon. 
 
 [_She goes.~\ 
 
5^ THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Azim. 
 By the happy gods, 
 How her eyes lightened as she spake to me ! 
 Methought, upon those tablets as she wrote, 
 Her face flashed rain of fire. And then 
 How beautiful she is ! What Sidon girl, 
 Dancing beneath the cedars in the dells 
 Of Lebanon, can once compare with her ? 
 The fiery, splendid creature, how she caught 
 The words from Obadiah's prosing lip, 
 And tossed and flung them as the impatient wind 
 Tosses the scattering foam. Poor man, he looked 
 All dazed and thunder-struck ; and Ahab, too, 
 Although he loves her, fears the bright, wild glare 
 That lights her eyes when her soul's deeps are moved 
 And Eithobal looks through the glittering orbs. 
 Is this enchantment stealing over me ? 
 A man might live in pain a score of years 
 And then be richly guerdoned by the joy 
 Of dying for thee, Jezebel ! — O fool, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. $9 
 
 I dream, I babble. Ere the glimpse of dawn 
 Must riders bear to all our garrisons 
 These words of doom. And I, with every man 
 Who wears Sidonian steel, besides all those 
 Of the king's soldiers whom I dare to trust, 
 Must sweep the plain of Jezreel and begin 
 The work of slaughter. Help me, Eithobal ; 
 Thine influence be upon me, more to me 
 Than any god that lives, or Jah or Baal. 
 
 Scene III. The interior of a cave. One torch, in 
 the recess, shedding a faint light through the place. 
 A company of prophets hiding. A hyaena rushes 
 in. Seeing the light it attempts to escape, but 
 Obadiah, guarding the entrance, transfixes it with 
 his spear, and it dies, uttering a low, scarce audi- 
 ble moan. A minute afterwards thero is heard a 
 trampling of horse-hoofs and then loud voices. 
 
 First Voice {heard from without) . 
 
 Halt, brothers. Bootless that we scale the cliff; 
 
60 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Beneath yon curtain of wild vine I know 
 
 There yawns a cave ; but as I reined my horse, 
 
 Meaning to reach it, a hyasna gray, 
 
 Which I had startled by the reedy pool, 
 
 Ran straight before me, leaped from ledge to ledge, 
 
 And entered. With keen eye I watched the spot. 
 
 It has not re-emerged, nor have- 1 heard 
 
 The slightest sound. 
 
 Second Voice. 
 
 Well spoken ! The shy beast 
 Would shun the company of prophets. Come, 
 The day is well-nigh spent, and my right arm 
 Falls on my side for very weariness. 
 If every one of these mad Hebrew dogs 
 That I have slain to-day has left a notch 
 On my good Sidon blade, it counts a score. 
 Its edge wants whetting for to-morrow's work. 
 In yonder cleft, three bowshots hence, a well 
 Glistens beneath its palms, and gently feeds 
 A patch of sweetest grass. There let us camp. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 6x 
 
 \_The trampling of horse-hoofs in retreat. When 
 they have died away, Obadiah sfeaks.\ 
 
 Obadiah. 
 
 The Lord of hosts be praised ! Till morning break, 
 
 Azim's fierce riders will not seek us here. 
 
 When the first watch is past, and deepest sleep 
 
 Wraps all the land, ye shall arise and flee. 
 
 Meanwhile, unto our gracious God, who, though 
 
 He doth afflict us, is compassionate, 
 
 Let us make offering of prayer and praise. 
 
 Micaiah, son of Imlah, take thou up 
 
 Thy prophecy and lead the choral hymn. 
 
 God of our fathers, hast thou cast us off, 
 And are we smitten, nevermore to rise? 
 
 Hast thou forgotten Abraham, thy friend? 
 And Israel, thy chosen ? 
 
 Is not the blood of thy prophets on the mountains ? 
 In every green place and in the streets of the city ? 
 
 In the paths of the fields, 
 
 In the goings up unto the hills, 
 
 In the haunts of the wild goats, 
 
62 THE BATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 In the lone rocks of the conies, 
 They fall by the edge of the sword. 
 
 A dripping from the ledges of the rocks, 
 A dripping not of lucent threads 
 
 Of beautiful water : 
 
 It pours down red, 
 
 It is purple on the rocks ; 
 
 The land is wet with blood. 
 
 A wailing of young voices, 
 A wild wailing in the schools of the prophets ; 
 The young men are dead on the threshold; 
 Their blood is on the lintels of the doors. 
 
 Arise, O Lord, arise ! 
 
 Awake, why sleepest thou ? 
 Pluck thy right hand from thy bosom, 
 Drink of the wine of thy fierce indignation. 
 
 Go forth to vengeance, 
 
 Go forth with a shout, 
 
 Arise to our help, 
 
 ,0 Holy One of Israel I 
 
 ni. 
 
 Shall they in the house of Baal say, Aha ! Aha ! 
 Shall the priests of Baal say, Our eyes have seen it 1 
 
 Shall the harlots in the groves, 
 
 Striking on the timbrels. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 63 
 
 Tossing their heads on high, 
 
 Laughing in great joy, 
 Tell it to each other in the dance, 
 And give thanks to Ashtoreth? 
 
 rv. 
 
 Oh that thou would'st make bare thine arm, 
 
 And smite this Jezebel ! 
 Shalt thou not require of her thy servants' blood ? 
 Shall she not repent her of the death of thy prophets ? 
 
 She is very proud, 
 
 Jezebel is very proud ; 
 She setteth her face as the morning sun, 
 She lifteth up her head like the moon among clouds ; 
 
 Bring her unto the dust, 
 
 Consume her, consume her ; 
 The innocent blood calleth against her, 
 The blood of hoary men and of white-browed youths, 
 
 From the ground she hath defiled. 
 Cast her down even unto hell, 
 
 Consume her ! Consume her ! 
 
 v. 
 Is this the King of Israel, 
 
 That is ruled by a woman? 
 Is this King Ahab, 
 
 That trembleth before an arrogant heathen ? 
 
 Hath he borne the shield and the spear ? 
 Hath he gone in the chariot to battle ? 
 Hath he shouted in the face of the foemen? 
 
64. THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Wherefore, then, should he fear a woman, 
 And the countenance of his wife make him afraid? 
 Clothe him with the garments of a maid-servant, 
 Let his place be in the women's chambers, 
 Let his hand take hold of the distaff, 
 Let him bring wool to the spinning women. 
 
 VI. 
 
 What is this Baal, in whom Ahab trusteth ? 
 
 What is this Ashtoreth, in whom Jezebel is glad ? 
 Like a dream when one awaketh, 
 Like the dew-drops when the sun is hot, 
 
 They shall pass away and shall not be found. 
 
 The ships of Sidon sail very far, 
 The mariners of Tyrus reach the ends of the earth. 
 Sidon shall be a naked rock, 
 Tyrus shall be a drying-place for nets : 
 Then from far western islands shall they come, 
 Idle men shall come with peering eyes ; 
 They shall dig from the ground the carven image, 
 The carven image overlaid with silver. 
 What, they shall say, is this piece of wood, 
 What is this curiously shaped bit of timber ? 
 They shall answer, This is Ashtoreth ; 
 Unto this thing the people bowed down, 
 In this block the foolish people trusted. 
 They shall tell it to their children, looking, 
 With soft gold hair and blue eyes, wondering, 
 In the remotest islands of the west. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 65 
 
 Ashtoreth shall become a faint remembrance, 
 
 A picture on a wall, a curious dream, 
 
 Which only idle persons talk about. 
 And then shall hymns arise, at morn and eve, 
 
 From thousand thousand voices to our God, 
 Still deepening in their swell as earth grows old 
 
 Till one great anthem rise from all the world. 
 
 vu. 
 
 Arise, O Lord! 
 Let thine enemies be scattered 1 
 
 Remember the ancient days, 
 
 And thy wonders of old ! 
 By the midnight cry in the land of Egypt, 
 By the host of Pharaoh whelmed in the deep, 
 By the pillar of fire in the desert, 
 By the Jordan cleft in twain 
 
 When thy people passed over, 
 When Israel, thy chosen, passed over, 
 
 Arise, O Lord ! arise. 
 
 Obadiah. 
 It is the hour ; now, prophets, follow me ; 
 The kindly moon is in the silent sky. 
 Step cautiously from ledge to ledge, and keep 
 Within the shadow of the cliff. I go 
 
66 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Before you till ye reach the utmost bound 
 Of Israel's land. In Judah ye are safe. 
 
 Scene IV. In the Palace of Samaria. 
 Ahab and Jezebel. 
 Ahab. 
 No, Jezebel, oh, no, I chide thee not, 
 Strange woman, diamond-bright and diamond-hard, 
 Yet ever, ever dear ; I chide thee not 
 But it is pity ; I in sooth could weep 
 For my fair hope — to see it lying there, 
 Death-white and cold, its young hair dripping blood. 
 Can I forget how, when I brought thee first 
 Through lanes of faces beaming love on thee, 
 Faces more radiant than the summer boughs 
 That waved o'erhead, while many voices rose 
 In shouts of welcome, then my bosom glowed 
 To think that thou and I would sit in joy, 
 Throned in the people's hearts in equal love, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 6? 
 
 And that the children lilting in the streets, 
 
 Ay, and their children's children, would enwreathe 
 
 In one sweet garland of unfading song 
 
 The names of Ahab and of Jezebel ? 
 
 I was so proud of thee, — so proud to take 
 
 All praise, all joy, all love as one with thee ! 
 
 And now the blood, the blood — O Jezebel ! 
 Jezebel. 
 There was no other way. The deed is done. 
 Shame not thy manhood with effeminate tears ; 
 Nor hanker after the unwholesome warmth 
 Of the crowd's foolish smiles. There is a love 
 Kinned with contempt and born of slavishness ; 
 There is another which strikes deep its root 
 In prudent fear and measure accurate 
 Of the arm's weight in smiting. Base the one, 
 Snake-like and grovelling, impotent to help, 
 With venom lurking in its soft, sly mouth, 
 And teeth to bite the moment you are down. 
 The other is a leopard at your feet, 
 
68 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Instructed to obedience by the whip, 
 Ready to spring upon and rend your foes, 
 And richly paid by leave to lick your hand. 
 Be king, my lord, of leopards, not of snakes. 
 Now hold I thee for sovereign in this land, 
 And I will kiss thee and be good to thee. 
 Come to the lower garden, where the springs 
 Have their new border of Sidonian lilies, 
 And my sweet Sharon roses break in bloom. 
 
ACT II. 
 
 Scene I. A hillock in a wood of Jirs : the sea visible 
 in the distance. Elijah resting on a gray knoll. 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 [ERE will I pause. The Voice that guideth me 
 
 Bids me advance no further. Long the way 
 
 That I have come, from Israel's eastern bounds, 
 
 Across the land, till now I hear the sea, 
 
 In long, low roll of muffled thunder, beat 
 
 The patient shore. Beyond this whispering wood 
 
 I see — the roofs and walls and flanking towers 
 
 Faint-wavering through haze of silvery gray, 
 
 The blue sea clear behind — a little town. 
 
 Yonder the gate. — Hush ! hear I not a step ? 
 
 A woman, bowed with years, and tottering 
 
 Beneath a little load of sticks. She comes 
 
 69 
 
70 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Close to this place, yet marks me not, and now 
 In broken accents talketh with herself. 
 'Twere well to hear before I speak to her. 
 
 Woman. 
 A poor, lone widow ; and my son, good sooth, 
 Is little help. His father always said 
 That Jonah never would be much ; a boy, 
 That will sit wondering, questioning, when he ought 
 To search the hollows of the wood for springs, 
 Or dive into the caves for trickling drops. 
 What is the use of wondering? Well I wot 
 That I would live at peace with both the gods, 
 Or either, if I only could be sure 
 The other would not hurt me. How, I pray, 
 Is a poor, simple soul like me to tell 
 Which is the greatest and most terrible? 
 For, when a prophet of the Hebrews comes, 
 He says that Jah alone can smite and save ; 
 That Jah's fierce anger with the sinful land 
 Dries up the streams and bids the tender dew 
 
TUE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 71 
 
 Refrain from falling ; that the might of Jah 
 Brought Israel through the sea, while Egypt's host 
 Sank in the waves. I tremble, and am still. 
 But when he goeth, comes a priest of Baal, 
 And says that over Sidon's crowded masts 
 And frowning battlements the fane of Baal 
 Towers eminent ; that Baal rides in the sun, 
 Reining his steeds of flame, and scattering light 
 To ripe the harvest when his mood is kind, 
 Or fire to scorch it when his wrath is hot 
 As now. What can I answer ? Either god 
 Were good enough for me. But, one would think, 
 Neither might grudge the little drop of rain 
 To green my patch of corn and save my son 
 And me alive. — Ah, now, I blame the boy 
 For grumbling and for wondering, and I 
 Am just no better than the feckless lad. 
 See how I talk and talk. What help in that ? 
 I shall turn homeward. Mercy ! who is here ? 
 A Hebrew man, dark-browed, with shaggy beard 
 
72 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And eyes that glance like lightning in the wood : 
 
 A prophet by his mantle, and, I think, 
 
 One of the mightiest. Lo ! he speaks to me. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Fetch me, I pray thee, in a drinking-cup, 
 A little water ; for I greatly thirst. 
 
 Woman. 
 
 I hasten to obey. 
 
 Of bread a morsel. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Bring with thee, too, 
 
 Woman. 
 Pardon me these tears, 
 O prophet of Jehovah, for I know 
 That such thou art : my guarded store of meal 
 Within the barrel, save one handful small, 
 Is gone, and scarce a drop of oil is left 
 Within the cruse ; and I have come, sore spent, 
 To gather some small sticks to dress the last, 
 That I may eat it with my son and die. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 73 
 
 Elijah. 
 Do as thou sayest ; but yet, first of all, 
 Bake me a little cake. And hearken, thou : 
 Thus saith the Lord, " The barrel shall not waste 
 Nor the cruse fail until the time when I 
 Shall send rain on the earth." Think not of death, 
 But life, this day. The God of Israel 
 Looks graciously upon thee and thy son. 
 
 Scene II. On the sea-shore near Zarefta. 
 Elijah and Heman, a Levite. 
 Heman. 
 'Tis he. Slow-pacing by the surf he comes, 
 In melancholy thought, as is his wont ; 
 His lips move sometimes, but his tongue is mute. 
 Now will I speak to him ; my fears that he 
 Might be a spy of wily JezeDel 
 Have passed away ; but reverence for himself 
 
74 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Almost would seal my lips. 
 
 The Lord be with thee ! 
 Elijah. 
 
 Who art thou that dost greet me in this name ? 
 Heman. 
 
 I am a Levite, driven from my land 
 By the crowned sorceress that worketh woe 
 To every one whose heart remaineth true 
 To Israel's God. At intervals I roam, 
 By devious paths, under the cloud of night, 
 Through Israel's valleys, entering the homes 
 Of men whom I can trust, and doing there 
 The office of a priest, and speaking words 
 Of comfort to the desolate of heart. 
 Then, when the murderers are upon my track, 
 I seek the many chambered, glimmering caves. 
 Scooped by the torrent in the ledge o' the hill. 
 With many outlets, many entrances, 
 Steal in the moonless night through silent glens, 
 And reach my sheltering cavern by the sea. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 75 
 
 Yon dead tree and the gray crag at his side 
 Blindfold the entrance. Here, all unaware 
 That I could hear thee, hast thou stood alone, 
 At morn and evening, by the withered tree, 
 An emblem of the drought, and prayed aloud 
 For pity on the sore-afflicted land. 
 Elijah. 
 
 Then know'st thou who I am ? I greet thee, brother, 
 Right joyfully in name of Him we serve. 
 Ueman. 
 
 Yea, I do know thee ; for no mortal man 
 Could dare to speak to Him who sent the drought 
 As I have heard thee speak, had he not been 
 The minister who syllabled God's wrath 
 To Ahab and to Jezebel. Thou art 
 That prophet of Mount Gilead who did face, 
 In the full blaze of noon, the King and Queen-, 
 And told them that the day of doom had come, 
 And vanished. From that time no voice hath told, 
 Throughout the land of Israel, where abode 
 
76 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Elijah ; and thy servant fain would learn 
 
 What hath befallen since that fateful hour. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Full gladly, brother, will I tell it thee ; 
 
 For as the water-flag that long has drooped, 
 
 Trailing its white blades in the burning sand, 
 
 Listens, with rising head and quickening eye 
 
 Of hope new-born, when the first tremulous gush 
 
 Of water round its roots recalls the song 
 
 It knew so well in spring, my heart has drunk 
 
 With sweet, reviving influence the words, 
 
 The old familiar words and tones and looks 
 
 Of a true Israelite. 
 
 The last I saw 
 
 Of Jezebel was her half-risen form 
 
 And outstretched hand, as if she would have sprung 
 
 Forth from the chariot where she rode with Ahab, 
 
 To seize upon me. I was borne away 
 
 Far eastward over Jordan, till I came 
 
 To Cherith's brook. There many days I dwelt 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 'J'J 
 
 Within a cave that opened on the bank ; 
 And every morning, ere the sun grew hot, 
 And every evening, when the long white streaks 
 Grew crimson streamers on the vaulted blue, 
 There was a sound of wings above my head, 
 And, circling slowly through the winnowed air, 
 Two ravens brought me store of flesh and bread. 
 I drank the brook, but soon its crystal wave 
 Died down to scorching dust. And then again 
 The Voice I must obey commanded me 
 To follow in its course the journeying sun, 
 Passing Samaria's bannered hill, and where 
 Jezreel's white palace takes the eye o' the morn, 
 Until, unharmed, I reached the lonely sea. 
 In the fir-wood beside Zarepta here 
 I saw a woman, and the Voice within 
 Told me that God had sent me with his alms 
 To her and to her son. She brought me bread 
 And water, and I entered in with her ; 
 And many days have passed away since then, 
 
78 THE BATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 But never did her little stock of meal 
 Shrink in the barrel, or the pure, bright oil 
 Fail in the cruse. And, brother, thou may'st come 
 To share God's feast : there is enough for all. 
 Heman. 
 O my dear lord, how my heart glows in me, 
 How hope awakens in me like a dove 
 When the flame-arrow of the dawning east 
 Strikes on her breast ! Yet tell me further how 
 The lamp, divine of prophecy has burned 
 In this land, where the scattered rays of truth 
 Twinkle 'mid heathen darkness like faint stars 
 On the black brow of night. 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 The woman spake 
 Not much, but always listened carefully : 
 With much of fear ; not much of faith ; less love : 
 Not doubting that Jehovah is a God, 
 ; Yet cautious ever to keep wide a door 
 Of safe retreat to Baal in case of need. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 79 
 
 She had been born on the bright border-land, 
 
 Where Sidon's gardens, carpeting the plain, 
 
 Between the yellow margin of the sea 
 
 And the blue ridge of Lebanon, display 
 
 Their broideries of many-colored flowers 
 
 And olive-tufts and companies of palms. 
 
 She had been born a heathen, of a race 
 
 Ancient and much renowned in Sidon's wars. 
 
 Her husband was a man of Ephraim. 
 
 Ten years ago he died. Their only son, 
 
 A stripling of sixteen, stirred all my mind 
 
 With a strange wonder. Few and low his words, 
 
 But in his large gray sparkling eyes there lay 
 
 A multitude of thoughts which he reserved, 
 
 Partly in doubt, partly in indolence. 
 
 His mother chid him oft for lounging ways ; 
 
 But with a curious gentleness, that pleased 
 
 Even when it made her angry, he put by 
 
 All her complainings. Bodily indolence, 
 
 Casing a sleepless mind, — such Jonah is. 
 
80 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The mighty question between God and gods 
 Was his birth-heritage. He called himself 
 A Hebrew, but the 'wildering dazzlement 
 Of heathen power and splendor on this coast, 
 Where Tyre and Sidon face the westering sun, 
 Perplexed him from the reverent simpleness 
 Of perfect faith. The notion still remained 
 Of conflict in the heavens, a battling crowd 
 Of rival deities, some cowed, some crowned. 
 One God, a Spirit, infinite and sole, — 
 Whose robe hath room for all the varying tints 
 Of nature's color in cloud, sky, flower, wave, 
 Sidereal fire and glimpse of morning dew, 
 Soft lights of eve and murk of midnight storm ; 
 Whose voice is not the thunder-peal alone, 
 But lisp of leaflet in the breeze-touched wood, — 
 Filled not, for him, the universe. The drought 
 Had brought -him close unto the gate of death, 
 And though he rallied when I came, he still 
 Would fall in fits and trances. On a day 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 8 1 
 
 When I had wandered long upon the sands, 
 
 I saw, on entering the cottage door, 
 
 His white face propped against his mother's arm, 
 
 His breast unheaving, limbs dropped languid down 
 
 Across her knees. He had been dead an hour. 
 
 She tried to hide her anger, stifle down 
 
 Her tears, but both found way. With passionate sobs 
 
 And fiery flashings of the eye, she spake : 
 
 " I never, never knew that my poor boy 
 
 Was half so much to me ; but now I feel 
 
 That I would rather be shut up with him, 
 
 And have him on my breast, although so cold, 
 
 In some rock tomb upon the windy shore, 
 
 Than walk in brightest palace all alone. 
 
 It is not that he worked for me, but that 
 
 I never knew till now how sweet a thing 
 
 It was to work for him. O man of God, 
 
 Why is it that great Jah so strangely deals ? 
 
 He shows me special favor, fills for me, 
 
 From heaven's own stores, the barrel and the cruse, 
 
83 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Then, though I'm sure I always did my best 
 
 To pay due reverence unto him and thee, 
 
 And my poor boy did ill to man nor God, 
 
 Sudden he stabs me to my very heart 
 
 Through this dead clay, that was the life, the light, 
 
 Of my old eyes." — " Give me thy son," I said. 
 
 " Oh, touch him tenderly, my lord," she cried ; 
 
 " He was a faultless and a darling child." 
 
 I took him from her arms, and bore him thence 
 
 Unto the loft in which I slept, and laid 
 
 The body on my bed, and stretched myself 
 
 Three times upon it, praying earnestly 
 
 To God the while. Then first a shivering, 
 
 A breath of motion like the delicate fret 
 
 Of faintest wind on surface of a lake, 
 
 Stole over him from head to foot ; and then 
 
 A misty bloom dawned soft upon the cheek : 
 
 Slow laboring, groan on groan, the bosom heaved, 
 
 And a low, moaning sigh stole through the lips. 
 
 His eye flashed open suddenly, but strange 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 83 
 
 And all unlike the light in living eyes 
 
 The gleam of those wan orbs. " Ah, let me dream," — 
 
 These his first words, and spoken as in trance : 
 
 " Float not away into the deeps of heaven, 
 
 Ye radiant ones ; stern prophet, wake me not ; 
 
 My dreams were sweet — oh, sweet." I only said, 
 
 " Thy mother waits." He sat, and wistfully 
 
 Looked round. A light seemed passing from his face, 
 
 And many memories dying in his eyes. 
 
 " Yes, all the heavens have vanished ; " then he wept : 
 
 " But earth grows warm and dear to me again ; 
 
 Take me back to my mother." In mine arms 
 
 I gently lifted him and brought him down. 
 
 "Now know I," cried she, " that the Lord is God, 
 
 And he alone, and that his goodness doth 
 
 Endure for ever. Also this I know, 
 
 That thou, Elijah, art the man of God, 
 
 And that no other prophet is like thee." 
 
 Then with a storm of weeping to her breast 
 
 She strained her son. 
 
84 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 From that day forth the lad 
 Clung to me close, and hung upon my words. 
 And took it for his pride to wait on me. 
 Heman. 
 Thou fillest all my spirit's thirsty wells 
 With living water. Oh how glad were I 
 To eat this heavenly bread, and see the youth 
 Whom thou hast rescued from the hand of death. 
 It may not be. An impulse peremptory, 
 That brooks no loitering, bids me hasten back 
 Unto the land of Israel, to prepare 
 For the great day that draweth nigh, a day 
 Of mercy, wrath, revealing : for I know 
 That the great prophet of Mount Gilead 
 Is marked by Him who called him from the hills 
 For other work than sweet domestic tasks, 
 To teach a meditative boy, or dry 
 A weeping widow's tears. This halcyon calm 
 Presageth tempest. Now farewell, Elijah. 
 Ere many days I shall again behold thee. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 85 
 
 Scene III. The widow's cottage. Elijah. 
 Enter Heman. 
 Hetnan, 
 My Lord Elijah, Israel calls on thee ! 
 The whole land heaves with long, impetuous swell 
 Of fervent feeling, as when mighty throes 
 Of earthquake wrinkle up the tortured plain. 
 The clamors deepen to that tune of storm > 
 Which shakes the heart of kings. Men dreaded her, 
 The Sidon woman : on the mountain gray 
 The conies crouch and tremble when, outspread, 
 Broad vulture-wings eclipse the light of heaven ; 
 But if, from cave beside them, while they cower, 
 The gaunt wolf springs out suddenly, they start 
 In keener terror, and forget the while 
 The poising vulture : so the present death, 
 The death of gnawing famine, glaring fierce 
 Into their eyes, has quelled with greater dread 
 The people's awe of Jezebel, and Fear, 
 Dying in travail-pangs, hath given birth 
 
86 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 To Courage, the stout man-child. " Shall the land 
 Become," they cry, " one cinder? 'Tis the Lord 
 Hath sent this woe. Elijah bade the sky 
 Withhold the rain, because the house of Baal 
 Stands in Samaria, and Jezebel 
 Hath slain the prophets of the Most High God. 
 Forth, men of Israel, forth ; take spear and shield, 
 Spread your white tents upon the hills, and blow 
 The trumpet loud that all the land may hear." 
 It is a leader that they need, Elijah ; 
 Wilt thou not rise and call them to the field ? 
 Elijah. 
 
 While I have heard thee, Heman, many thoughts 
 Have swept tumultuous through my soul, as oft 
 The shrill wind, harrying the autumn boughs, 
 Through mountain solitudes. But dumb and still 
 I must remain-until His Breath descends 
 Whose servant and whose minister I am. 
 Heman. 
 
 I know, my lord, full well, and reverently 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 87 
 
 Shall I await the finger-touch of God 
 
 To set thee moving. But the time is apt. 
 
 The fierce extremity of ravenous dearth 
 
 Hath driven Ahab from Samaria, 
 
 To search the land for hidden springs, and pools 
 
 Not yet dried up beneath their tall white flags, 
 
 That so the chariot horses and the last 
 
 Of the royal herds may not fall dead with thirst. 
 
 Now know I that his search hath led him on 
 
 Until he nears the roots of Carmel hill, 
 
 That on its forehead takes the sun's last ray, 
 
 Eve after eve. 'Tis hence but some few miles, 
 
 Almost due south. There Kishon's shrunken stream, 
 
 Crawling in many a long and languid twine, 
 
 Moves like a dying serpent to the sea ; 
 
 And there, if anywhere, the king will find 
 
 The water that he seeks. 
 
 Elijah (rising" suddenly). 
 
 The Breath has fallen ! 
 Now know I why the Hand that darkly led 
 
88 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 From the safe East to the endangered West 
 Brought me unto Zarepta. 'Tis the same, 
 Though Ahab knoweth not, that leadeth him 
 To Carmel. Farewell, widow ; Jonah, thou 
 Shalt come with me. I go to meet the king. 
 Widow. 
 Thou brought" st him to me from the jaws of death, 
 And I can trust thee with him now. Farewell. 
 
 Scene IV. The same : a week subsequently. 
 The Widow and some of her neighbors. 
 Widow. 
 ' True, neighbors, true ; it is an anxious time ; 
 Never before was Jonah one whole day 
 Out of my sight. And sore his help I need ; 
 For, since the rain hath come, the meal no more 
 Is fresh each morning ; and we must begin 
 To till the little field as heretofore. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 89 
 
 [Heman enters.'] 
 O Levite, canst thou tell me of my son ? 
 Heman. 
 A draught of water, pray thee, first of all. 
 Jonah, when I beheld him, three days back, 
 Was safe and well. Therefore, no more of him. 
 My heart o'erfloweth with diviner thoughts ; 
 And I will now rehearse to thee and these 
 What, if I live for twice the three-score years 
 And ten allotted unto men below, 
 Will ho more take obscuring dust from time, 
 Or mix with other memories in my mind, 
 Than the clear lustre of the burnished sun, 
 Once kindled in the heavens by word of God, 
 Will be obliterated from the sky 
 By the blue hazes of the earthly dawn, 
 Or smoke from roofs of little human towns. 
 
 When from this cottage-door Elijah passed, 
 Swiftly he went, with fervent tread, and eyes 
 
90 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL 
 
 Burning the distance. When the king appeared, 
 
 We others paused. The prophet stood alone. 
 
 Ahab was first to speak, and yet methought 
 
 'Twas less in courage than in some vague hope 
 
 To ward the flash he saw about to leap 
 
 From 'neath the prophet's clouded brow. " Art thou," 
 
 He said, " the man that troubleth Israel ? " 
 
 Elijah looked at him a minute's space, 
 
 As one looks at a wilful, wicked child, 
 
 Who speaketh folly in his wickedness. 
 
 " Have I the rain in hollow of my hand, 
 
 Do the dews hear my voice, and are the clouds 
 
 Elijah's flocks within the hollow hill? 
 
 God troubleth thee ; thou troublest Israel : 
 
 For thou hast chosen Baal, and left the Lord." 
 
 The monarch's visage fell. Relaxed he stood, 
 
 A-tremble, like a tall tree that one gust 
 
 Of scorching wind hath struck through all its leaves 
 
 With shivering blight. The prophet spake again : 
 
 " Bid thou the trumpets blow through all the land. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 91 
 
 And summon Israel to meet thee here 
 
 On Carmel. Let Baal's prophets also come, 
 
 And Ashtoreth's, to have this question tried." 
 
 King Ahab frowned, yet dared not answer, Nay ; 
 
 Good Obadiah, faithful to the Lord, 
 
 Seconded weightily ; and Jezebel 
 
 Was far away from her obedient lord 
 
 In Jezreel. Therefore, though he spake no word, 
 
 He signified assent, and instantly 
 
 Swift messengers rushed forth throughout the land. 
 
 All Israel had been watching for the word, 
 
 And rose as one man, foresting the plains. 
 
 By scores, by hundreds, chaunting to their god, 
 Clad in white stoles with frontlets of red gold, 
 Baal's prophets marched. But Ashtoreth's remained 
 Close in the groves ; such Jezebel's command, 
 Who in her palace sat and gloomed, the while, 
 Fretting that Ahab had escaped from her. 
 The crowd, through all its myriad ranks, was still, 
 
92 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 With wide, expectant eyes, the king in front. 
 
 Forth stepped Elijah ; melancholy fire 
 
 Burned in his swarthy-glowing eye ; he looked 
 
 In angry love, impatient scornful grief, 
 
 Wonder and pity, on the multitude. 
 
 " How long," he cried, with voice like autumn blast, 
 
 " How long, O Israel, halt ye between two ? 
 
 If Jah be God, than serve ye Him : if Baal, 
 
 Then Baal." The great crowd stretched to him, and 
 
 rocked 
 In mighty agitation to and fro. 
 
 The gray crags caught his words, and echoed them 
 To Carmel's crest ; it threw them to the peak, 
 Snow-crowned, of Lebanon, which tossed them far 
 Along the surges of the boundless sea. 
 He spake again. "The God that answereth 
 By fire, let Him be God." As when a wave, 
 That rears itself, a wall of polished glass, 
 For leagues along the shore, and hangs in air, 
 Falls with one deafening crash, so rose the shout 
 Of answering acclamation from the crowd. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 93 
 
 White-faced, with restless lips and anxious eyes, 
 
 Baal's prophets heard, their hundreds cowed and mute 
 
 Before cne man. They dared not, in mere shame, 
 
 Decline the challenge. While the dusky gray 
 
 Of earliest dawn was fluttering into blue 
 
 They built their altar : and when first the sun 
 
 Showed his clear forehead on the mountain-tops 
 
 Their chaunted prayer to the appearing Baal 
 
 Rose loud and shrill, that he would stretch his hand 
 
 With burning torch to light the sacrifice 
 
 And prove himself a god. The sun rose calm, 
 
 Springing as if in joy from earth's low hills, 
 
 Upon v the vaulted radiance of the sky, 
 
 All unregarding these his worshippers. 
 
 The hymn's last echoes died away ; the sun 
 
 Burned with fierce heat, swift-striding up the blue. 
 
 Standing on that scorched hill, we felt his rays 
 
 Prick like sharp spear-points. Then I heard again 
 
 Elijah's voice. I had been watching close 
 
 Baal's prophets, but I now looked straight at him. 
 
94 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A fearful gleam was in his eye, a mirth 
 
 Too stern, methought, for man of woman born ; 
 
 His glance was vexing those robed prophets more 
 
 Than the sun's fire ; and then he gave it words. 
 
 " Might he not spare one little spark, but one, 
 
 Your fine god riding there," he cried, " to light . 
 
 Your sacrifice ? He surely has enough ; 
 
 He's burning you, if not your offering. 
 
 Poor souls, I pity you ! " They screamed for rage. 
 
 " A little louder," smiled he, " for perhaps 
 
 In his warm chariot he has fallen asleep." 
 
 They leaped, they danced, they cut themselves with 
 
 knives, 
 Till the blood soaked their robes and poured in streams 
 From their lanced foreheads. Then he laughed aloud, 
 Great shouts of laughter, till the echoes rang 
 From crag to crag on Carmel. " Keep it up, 
 Another dance ! " he shrieked ; " another song ! 
 Leap rather higher ; never grudge some drops 
 Of your dear blood, so precious in his sight. 
 Ye know he is a god, my reverend friends ; 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 95 
 
 How often have ye told the people so ? 
 
 Your pretty speeches and the miracles 
 
 Which ye have shown them, these were not, of course, 
 
 Mere lies accursed. He is a god, you know : 
 
 Louder, I say ; he's old, perhaps, and deaf ; 
 
 Out with your beards — thaf s hopeful — crack your 
 
 throats 
 In yelling chorus. Good, good — ha, ha, ha ! " 
 He rubbed his hands, waved wildly in the air 
 His sheepskin mantle, laughed until the tears 
 Streamed down his face, and all his body shook 
 With paroxysms of mirth and scorn. Ah me ! 
 That laughter sounded fearfully, and seemed 
 Not human in its fiery ruthlessness. 
 But as he stood on Carmel, charred and gray, 
 A dead land lay below, his native land ; 
 And the white corpse-eyes made appeal to him 
 Against its murderers, murderers of the truth, 
 Baal's lying prophets. Furthermore, I think 
 That this Elijah is not to be judged 
 Like common men. The little, rippling lake. 
 
96 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Safe hid among the hills, can never know 
 
 The ocean's tempests. — So they writhed and tore, 
 
 In ecstasies of grief and rage. At last 
 
 They hung their heads in mute despair, and looked 
 
 Upon the ground. 
 
 Elijah stood erect, 
 Terrible earnestness and majesty 
 Now sitting on his brow. Twelve stones he took, — 
 Mark, twelve ; this challenge was in the full name 
 Of Israel as it stooped to David's hand, 
 And with one mighty throb the multitude 
 Approved Elijah's purpose ; — twelve smooth stones 
 From Carmel's side, and with them he repaired 
 Jehovah's altar. Then, at his command, 
 We filled the trench with water, till it ran 
 Around the altar like a surging stream, 
 And washed the stones, and soaked the wood beneath 
 The sacrifice. He knelt upon the ridge, 
 Against the golden-placid sky of eve ; 
 Brief, simple, clear, his words arose to heaven : 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 97 
 
 " That God would testify unto himself 
 
 And to his prophet, and would turn the hearts 
 
 Of his own people back to him again." 
 
 Scarce had he spoken when a broad white glare, 
 
 Scattering earth's light like darkness in its path, 
 
 Keener than lightning, calmer than the dawn, 
 
 The sword of God that proveth him by fire, 
 
 That proveth him by fire in every age, 
 
 Stooped from above and touched the sacrifice. 
 
 In the white blaze the sun grew wan, and hung 
 
 Like a pale moon upon the glimmering sky. 
 
 The fierce flame licked the water up, the wood 
 
 Crackled aloft, the very altar stones 
 
 Glowed fiery red. The pillared smoke arose 
 
 Through the hushed air in towering flawlessness, 
 
 Then spread out, calm and broad, like God's own face 
 
 Breathing acceptance. But Baal's prophets shook 
 
 In utter fear, and smote upon their breasts, 
 
 And grovelled, moaning, down into the dust. 
 
 Clear broke the shout from that great multitude, 
 
98 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 " Jah is the God ! Jehovah, he is God ! " 
 
 " Take them," Elijah said ; " let none escape." 
 
 We closed around Baal's prophets, thrust them down 
 
 To where the thirsty Kishon slowly crawled. 
 
 There made Elijah bare his arm, and score 
 
 By score he slew them. From the heap of dead 
 
 Oozed a broad rill of blood, that swelled the wave 
 
 Of slumbrous Kishon. But the fickle crowd, 
 
 Now weary, cast them down upon the ground, 
 
 Mute, but their hungry eyes cried, " Rain, Elijah ; 
 
 The drought still burns ; we want the rain, the rain." 
 
 Within another hour they would have torn 
 
 The prophet limb from limb. He therefore turned, 
 
 And leading Jonah with him by the hand 
 
 Again ascended Carmel. More than this 
 
 I know not of his doings ; ere an hour 
 
 Had passed, each ledge and terrace of the hill 
 
 Was sheeted with the rain. Shelter I sought 
 
 Within a cave — What lights the widow's eye : 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 99 
 
 [Jonah enters behind Heman.] 
 
 Widow. 
 My son ! My son ! Thank God ! 
 
 \Falls upon his neck. 
 
 Heman. 
 
 What ! Jonah here ? 
 Hast thou then left the prophet? Where is he? 
 What hath befallen? 
 
 Jonah. 
 Heman, I am tired, 
 And never am so rich in words as thou. 
 Not much have I to tell, but what I have 
 I briefly will rehearse, if you desire. 
 Where then shall I begin ? 
 
 Heman. 
 
 I saw thee mount 
 The hill, Elijah leading by the hand ; 
 And from that time I saw nor him nor thee. 
 
IOO TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Jonah. 
 When we had reached the eastern brow, he knelt, 
 Staying his breast upon a rock, and prayed 
 In agony of earnestness for rain. 
 Seven times, at bidding of his voice or eye, 
 I went to CarmeFs loftiest crest that fronts 
 The western sea. Six times I only saw 
 The pallid yearning of the nearer waves, 
 And the keen silver-edge of stainless light 
 Where sea met sky. But at the seventh, behold 
 A delicate hand, fine-fingered, on that line 
 Gleamed like a lily. Then I hasted back, 
 And told the prophet. Quickly he arose ; 
 A fiery agitation shook his frame. 
 To me he spake not, but from crag to crag, 
 Downhill, with giant leaps, and form that showed 
 Larger than human in the gloom, he rushed 
 To seek the king. I saw him gird his loins 
 To run beside the royal chariot. 
 I could not choose but think it had been well 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. IOI 
 
 If at that moment he had stayed behind, 
 
 To keep the crowd in heart, and to present 
 
 A front of massive strength to Jezebel. 
 
 He went. I joined myself unto a band 
 
 Of those true Israelites who, all that day, 
 
 Had been most zealous on the prophet's side, 
 
 Naboth of Jezreel chief. We slept, one watch, 
 
 Within a sheltered wrinkling of the hill ; 
 
 Then marched by night, and in the gray of dawn, 
 
 About the going up to Jezreel, 
 
 We met Elijah coming from the town. 
 
 Oh what a change from him of yesterday ! 
 Haggard and worn, with trouble in his gait, 
 And infinite astonishment and pain 
 Within his wildly-sparkling eye. Our time 
 For colloquy was brief. The sum is this : 
 Ahab was in the arms of Jezebel, 
 And her fierce horsemen, pouring from the town, 
 Eager to slay the prophet, galloped swift 
 Along the ways. Our little band broke up. 
 
102 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The prophet and myself ran toward the south 
 
 Until we came to far Beersheba. 
 
 There I sank wearied, for my strength was spent, 
 
 And all my soul was in perplexity. 
 
 Then turned Elijah unto me and spake : — 
 
 " Farewell, my son ; the Lord deals wondrously 
 
 With me his servant, and thy strength has failed ; 
 
 Commend me to thy mother ; bid her trust 
 
 The Care that filled the barrel and the cruse, 
 
 The Love that gave thee to her arms from death. 
 
 Now will I bless and kiss thee ere thou go." — 
 
 " Father," I said, " thou art not angered with me 
 
 That I have pondered deep, and wept and seemed 
 
 Sometimes this day to heed thee not, nor hear 
 
 Thy words ? I love thee well ; my mother only, 
 
 The widow who has watched me all my days, 
 
 Is better loved by me. But I do fear 
 
 This Jah too much to serve his prophet well ; 
 
 For who can understand Him ? Wherefore now 
 
 Did not the fire that blazed upon the hill, 
 
THE BAYS OF JEZEBEL. 103 
 
 Flashing anew, burn up this furious band 
 Of horsemen ? Will not all men say that He 
 Hath but one brand wherewith to smite ? And then 
 Will they not laugh as thou laughed' st yesterday, 
 When Baal's prophets danced and cut themselves ? 
 But yesterday my lord, Elijah, stood 
 Above the anointed King of Israel ; 
 Or wherefore say the King ? The firmament 
 Was thine to shut or open ; from the sea, 
 
 The shoreless deep, the ocean stream that takes 
 
 The whole earth as a babe within its arms, 
 
 I saw the white hand rise and shape itself 
 
 Into a mighty cup, the cup of God, 
 
 To pour down rain upon the thirsty land. 
 
 And, lo ! thou fleest from a woman's face. 
 
 And Jezebel's least spearman mocks at Jah. 
 
 Oh, pardon, father, but thou know'st that I 
 
 Am from the land of Sidon. Long ago, 
 
 My mother's kindred sailed to Ilion 
 
 Along the purple sea with many chiefs ; 
 
104 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And the Achaian and the Dardan kings, 
 
 Though heathens, were clear-sighted, calm-voiced men, 
 
 Wise to discern in earthly things ; and they 
 
 Held always it were best for mortal men 
 
 To walk apart from the immortal gods ; 
 
 Laying upon their altars offerings due, 
 
 And worshipping them reverently, all times ; 
 
 But not aspiring to do more than this, 
 
 Or know them face to face, or hear them speak, 
 
 Or execute their bidding upon earth ; 
 
 For that their language is not known to men, 
 
 And men's thoughts are not their thoughts, nor can men 
 
 Know what it is they want, or why they change ; 
 
 Nurse hope, then slay it ; smite their prophet hard 
 
 When he erects his brow to take a crown. 
 
 Thou knowest I believe with heart and soul 
 
 That Jah is God. The first-fruits I will bring, 
 
 The best of all my flock will offer up, 
 
 And every day, at morn and eve, will bend 
 
 The knee to him. But I'm a quiet lad, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 105 
 
 And love the cottage porch and the green shade 
 Of vine, or fig, or gourd, and fain would pass 
 My days in peace, and lay my mother's head 
 Beneath the kindly earth. I pray thee, therefore, 
 That thou would'st ask the Lord to let me be, 
 For if His dreadful Voice should reach mine ear, 
 I would be much afraid, and hide me close 
 Within some cavern of the hill, or beg 
 Sea-faring men to bear me in their ship 
 To Tyrus or to Tarshish or — " — "My son, 
 What boots," he said, " this talk? A fibre still 
 Of the half-heathen lingers in thy heart. 
 If it should please the Lord to make of thee 
 One of his army — for he can — thou will 
 Have strange experience." — " Rather not," I cried ; 
 " Much rather not." He blessed me, and I went. 
 Heman. 
 And thou did'st leave him at his utmost need ? 
 Oh, bitter selfishness of little men ! 
 Would God that I were with him now, to bring 
 
io6 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A cup of water to his lips, or tie 
 
 The latchet of his shoe ! — And know thou this, 
 
 Who art so very shrewd to criticize 
 
 The doings of the Lord, that the great work 
 
 On Carmel is not lost. The wrath, indeed, 
 
 Of Jezebel hath driven the prophet forth ; 
 
 But Obadiah — thus much did I learn 
 
 Before I left Samaria — hath prevailed 
 
 Upon the king and queen, who stood in awe 
 
 Of a great insurrection, to relax 
 
 The sternness of the edicts which forbade 
 
 Worship of Israel's God, and to concede 
 
 More toleration than hath been allowed 
 
 Since when the prophets of the Lord were slain. 
 
ACT III. 
 
 Scene I. An inner chamber in Ahab's -palace. 
 Ahab and Jezebel. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 
 fY lord, what is the matter? On thy brow 
 I looked to see the streaks of joyful dawn, 
 And it is midnight with thee. All the land 
 
 Rings with thy name. No shout of victory, 
 
 Exultant o'er the baffled Syrian, 
 
 Leaps like a bright bird to the sky, but bears 
 
 The name of Ahab on its azure wings. 
 
 I never was so proud to call thee mine. 
 
 In peace — my lord will pardon me — sometimes 
 
 Thou hast been too effeminately kind 
 
 To slaves and traitors ; and no vagrant knave 
 
 Who calls himself a prophet, and assumes 
 
 107 
 
108 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 To smite thee with the word of Jah, but strikes 
 A tremor through thy joints. In war alone 
 Thou standest forth the hero unimpeached ; 
 Brave, — ah, perhaps too passionately brave,— 
 A wife may say so ; wise to plan the fight ; 
 In action prompt, calm, irresistible. 
 The Syrians thou hast vanquished, and their king 
 Has thanked thee for his life. Yet now thou droop'st, 
 And lookest with fixed eye on vacancy, 
 And castest thee, all silent, on thy bed, 
 And turnest from me, though I bring to thee 
 A cup of purple wine. What ails my lord ? 
 Ahab. 
 The thing will pass, my Jezebel, and yet 
 It pains me shrewdly. And, in sooth, 'tis strange, 
 There being many causes for great joy, 
 That one small mischief should embitter all. 
 But thus it is one glistening poison-drop 
 On arrow-point will taint the healthy blood 
 Of strongest warrior, turning it to fire 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 1 09 
 
 Or acrid gall, and making life one pain. 
 Thou knowest Naboth's vineyard? — how it lies 
 Upon the fairest slope of JezreePs hill, 
 Cleaving our garden-ground in twain ? — 
 
 yezebel. 
 
 I know. 
 
 What then ? I half anticipate thy speech, 
 
 And yet it seems impossible. 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 I met 
 
 Naboth within his vineyard, yestermorn. 
 
 I offered him to buy his bit of land 
 
 At its full value, or, if he preferred, 
 
 To let him have, elsewhere, a better vineyard. 
 
 yezebel. 
 
 You honored thus that peasant ! Ahab, thou 
 
 Art but an infant in thine innocence 
 
 And soft good-nature. I have known a king, 
 
 Who scarce had deigned to send a page to tell 
 
 This fellow that his vineyard was required 
 
no THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 By his anointed master. Well — what next ? 
 Ahab. 
 He told me of his God and of His law, 
 And " Jah forbid it me," he said, " that I 
 Should sell my father's heritage." 
 yezebel. 
 
 He did! — 
 I knew it, — though it seems to laugh belief 
 To bleakest scorn. I knew it, for I know 
 The spirit of this people, and the vast 
 And iron-fronted impudence with which 
 For Jah and for his code, and for themselves, 
 Who are, forsooth, his chosen, they demand 
 Supremacy o'er men and gods alike. 
 Oh, were I not a woman and thy wife, 
 Almost methinks that I could mock thee, Ahab. 
 This is the fruit of all thy moderation, 
 Thy sweet conciliatory schemes, thy care 
 That, when the ruffian of Gilead fled 
 After the Carmel massacre, his dupes 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. n 
 
 Should have soft terms, and not, as I advised, 
 
 Be bidden, under pain of instant death, 
 
 Jah to renounce and bow the knee to Baal. 
 
 You were so gentle, and your Obadiah 
 
 So thoughtful and so wise. " The Hebrew faith " — 
 
 I mind your reasons well — " had so deep hold 
 
 Upon the heart and soul of Israel, 
 
 Arid the wild work on Carmel had so stirred 
 
 The popular imagination, that need were, 
 
 Although Elijah had been forced to flee, 
 
 For caution and concession." Take the thanks, 
 
 Most gracious monarch, take the humble thanks 
 
 Of subjects loyal, grateful, and obedient. 
 
 If Naboth flouts thee, never say that I 
 
 Taught him his lesson. — Art thou Israel's king? 
 
 Is it a sceptre or a withered reed 
 
 Thou holdest in thine hand ? — But be at rest. 
 
 I will refix thy wavering diadem, 
 
 And break the neck of traitorous insolence. 
 
 The vineyard of this Naboth shall be thine, 
 
112 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A little gift from thine own Jezebel. 
 Thy lords expect thee at the banquet. Rise, 
 Anoint thine head, put on thy royal robes, 
 And haste thee to the hall. I follow soon. 
 
 [Ahab goes. Jezebel -paces the chamber in agita- 
 tion, talking with herself. ~\ 
 
 How shall it be? — To force the pampered slave 
 To come with ashes on his head and kneel 
 Before the king and beg him to accept 
 The vineyard ? No ; that were not half enough ; 
 My vengeance still would yearn like famished wolf, 
 Balked of its prey. — To strike him to the ground 
 By javelin-thrust from a sure hand, and while 
 He wriggled in the spasms of death, to yell 
 This in his ear, " The vineyard is the king's " ? 
 No, no : revenge is hungry still, for thus 
 No fine humiliation lights upon 
 The law and power of that same Jah whom he 
 Invoked as his protector. — Ha ! I have it ! 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 113 
 
 Yes, yes — now let me see — I have it clear. 
 
 Naboth shall die, in all the people's sight, 
 
 For blasphemy against this very Jah 
 
 In whom he trusts. The elders of his town 
 
 Shall be my ministers. O sweet revenge 
 
 Beyond all precedent ! To mock the man, — 
 
 To set him high and then to hurl him low, — 
 
 To make him feel, while blackness wraps his soul, 
 
 That his Jehovah hath forsaken him ! 
 
 This will be vengeance worthy of my sire. 
 
 The faction will guess well what means the blow, 
 
 And abject terror will invade their hearts 
 
 And chill the marrow in their bones. — Ho ! boy, 
 
 Bid Azim to attend me instantly. 
 
 [She writes vehemently upon her tablets. Azim 
 enters.] 
 
 Azim. 
 I wait on your command, most gracious queen. 
 
114 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 yezebel. 
 Azim, once more I do entrust to thee 
 An urgent task. The King of Israel 
 Hath been subjected to vile contumely 
 By an audacious underling, who thinks 
 That the outworn and childish laws of Jah 
 Shall thwart the royal wish. Such treasonous fools 
 Must with swift stroke be smitten on the head, 
 Even to perishing. These letters here 
 Set forth the time and manner. Bear them, thou, 
 In thine own hand to Jezreel, and there 
 Commit them to the elders with this word ; 
 " The slightest deviation from the sense, 
 Or softening of the sentence, shall bring down 
 The scathing wrath of Ahab and of me 
 Upon their town." The royal hand and seal 
 Attest them. 
 
 Azim. 
 I shall do thy will, O Queen. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 1 15 
 
 Scene III. Jezreel. An inner chamber in the house 
 of the Chief Elder. The dead of night. The 
 Chief Elder, Gershom ; Milchi and Ehud. 
 Azim attends. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 Brethren, ye have been summoned at this hour 
 By express mandate from the king and queen. 
 The royal messenger, the valiant Azim, 
 Will state his errand. 
 
 Azim. 
 Elders, I have come 
 To put these letters in your hands. 'Tis yours 
 To give them carefullest consideration. 
 So please you, I withdraw. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 Yes, Azim, go. 
 Yet leave not, pray, the house. It may befall 
 That we shall need thy counsel presently. 
 
 [Azim withdraws and the door is shut. 
 With your consent, I break the seal and read 
 
Il6 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 These letters. They are written in the name 
 Of Ahab, but I think I know the hand 
 That it is not the king's. What say'st thou, Ehud? 
 Thou know'st the royal writing, king's and queen's. 
 Ehud. 
 
 The writing is Queen Jezebel's. 
 All. 
 
 Ah, then, 
 The words are tongues of fire. "Let us beware. 
 Chief Elder reads. 
 
 " King Ahab greets the elders bearing rule 
 In Jezreel. In your town there lives a man, 
 Called Naboth, who hath grievously reviled 
 The queen and me. Him therefore shall ye bring 
 To condign punishment. Ye shall proclaim 
 A solemn fast, and ye shall set the man 
 In highest place, and bid him read the law 
 And teach the people. But ye shall look out 
 Men fitted for the purpose, who shall come, 
 When he is in his glory, lifted up, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 117 
 
 With all eyes fixed upon him, and shall swear 
 That he has Jah blasphemed and cursed the king. 
 Then shall ye stone him until he be dead, 
 According to the law. Be prompt. Farewell." 
 Such are the letters. Brethren, speak your minds. 
 \_Nb one speaks for some minutes.] 
 Milchi. 
 I wonder not that we have sat in silence. 
 The business is most painful. Might we not 
 Call Azim in again ? If fame speaks truth, 
 He knows the mind of Jezebel as few. 
 He can apprise us whether she hath set 
 Her heart unchangeably upon this thing. 
 
 Ehud. 
 No use of that. Mere waste of time. The queen 
 Knows her own mind, which is, perhaps, too much 
 To say for some. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 I do agree with Milchi. 
 
Il8 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 No harm can come of knowing if the queen 
 Is likely to take vengeance deep should we 
 Make bold to disobey her, or, at least, 
 To practise some evasion of the last 
 And sternest penalty that law exacts 
 While seeming to obey her. 
 
 Ehud. 
 
 I shall not talk. Have Azim in. Despatch. 
 
 [Azim enters. 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 We have- read the letters, Azim, of the queen, — 
 I mean the king — your pardon, — but the hour 
 Is late, and I am weary. We would know 
 If that our sovereign and his royal spouse 
 Have set their very hearts upon this thing. 
 Their will, we need not say, is law to us : 
 But think'st thou, Captain, if we were to send, 
 In deepest humbleness and loyalty, 
 Our joint petition to their Majesties, 
 To seek in this some other instruments, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 119 
 
 Or somewhat mitigate the punishment, 
 That they would heed our prayer ? 
 
 Azim. 
 
 Elders, I know 
 
 That if ye hesitate one day, one hour, 
 
 To do the bidding of these letters, ye 
 
 And your fair town shall feel the utmost wrath 
 
 Of Ahab and of Jezebel. 
 
 Ehud. 
 
 Of course ! 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 We thank thee, Azim, and within an hour 
 
 We give to thee our message to bear back 
 
 Unto Samaria. [Azim withdraws. 
 
 Now, what shall we do ? 
 
 Ehud. 
 
 The bidding of the queen. The man must die ; 
 
 And we must be his murderers. That is all. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 Ehud, you put it coarsely, — far too coarsely. 
 
ISO THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 It is not thus by any means the thing 
 Presents itself to me. There is, no doubt, 
 A deviation from the regular course 
 In bringing Naboth thus to punishment. 
 But are we not, as loyal subjects, bound 
 To deem it certain that the king and queen 
 Have perfect knowledge of his wickedness ? 
 When I can satisfy myself that justice 
 Is done substantially, I can wink 
 At some irregularity of means. 
 Ehud. 
 
 Ha! ha! 
 Well, I am bad enough, but not so bad 
 As your high reverence sitting there aloft, 
 Sublime. I take my conscience by the throat, 
 When it rebels, and choke it. For the time 
 It lies as dead ; but when it does revive, 
 It can perform its office healthfully. 
 Your conscience is so drunken and bemused, 
 So drugged with plausibilities and lies, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 121 
 
 That it has ceased to know the right from wro.ig. 
 
 Naboth blaspheme his God and curse his king ! 
 
 )|p. when my olives yield me hemlock juice, 
 
 And my cow brings forth adders. No, my friends, 
 
 Naboth has angered Jezebel, and dies. 
 
 I cannot save him, but I shall not lay 
 
 A stain upon his honorable name. 
 Chief Elder. 
 Ehud, your frankness I admire, and smile 
 At what is personal in your remarks. 
 You take this up too sharply. Truth to speak, 
 Both you and Naboth lack one precious thing, — 
 Discretion, moderation, due regard 
 For the unwritten law, the unseen nudge, 
 The hint to yield when yielding is your game, 
 Which he who cannot take is sure to be 
 Dead-beaten some day in the social squeeze. 
 Let us be practical in this affair. 
 Grant that we would not, of ourselves, have sought 
 Occasion against Naboth : very well ; 
 
122 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 This proves that we are but the hands or tools 
 
 Of those who really slay him. At the worst 
 
 Here is a different thing from murdering him, 
 
 As Ehud puts it ; — let us be exact. 
 
 But I will speak as plain as Ehud does, 
 
 And show him that he stands not quite alone, 
 
 A pillar white of salt veracity, 
 
 Reproving our defections. Tell me this, — 
 
 Has not friend Naboth been a trouble to us ? 
 
 I nudge the sides of wise men — take the hint. 
 
 For my part, frankly, I do love not well 
 
 To feel that eagle eye on all I do. 
 
 Doth Moses let us muzzle up the ox 
 
 That treadeth out the corn ? Good Milchi, you 
 
 And I and Ehud have a natural right 
 
 To put a toothsome morsel now and then 
 
 Between our lips in all this public toil. 
 
 I see you comprehend me, Milchi ; thanks 
 
 For that intelligent and kindly smile ; 
 
 It much encourageth me. To be brief: 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 123 
 
 Jezreel will be a far more pleasant place 
 
 When this oppressively high-minded man, 
 
 This lily-fingered, virtuous personage, 
 
 Has been disposed of by Queen Jezebel. 
 Milchi. 
 1 most sincerely thank thee for thy words ; 
 
 They have brought sweetest comfort to my mind, 
 
 Judicious Gershom. At the first, I own, 
 
 The thing looked rather black ; but now new light 
 
 Dawns over it. He is a painful man, 
 
 Deny it whoso list, — this Naboth is, — 
 
 To have in any city : apt to speak 
 
 In sharp tones, wounding sensibilities 
 
 Finer perhaps than his ; unable quite, 
 
 In matters of morality and truth, 
 
 To comprehend a motive if it lies 
 
 Beneath the surface, and its nature is 
 
 Involved and subtle ; fiercely positive 
 
 That you must never sign a compromise 
 
 'Tween truth and falsehood. Now I love to see 
 
124 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Lies standing janitors at gate of truth, 
 
 Clad in her livery and serving her. 
 
 Look round the land ; I ask you, could we have 
 
 So much of purest truth from Jah's own Book, 
 
 Preached everywhere, but for the compromise 
 
 So recently effected between Baal 
 
 And Israel's Jehovah ? Many men, 
 
 Of rank and inflence famed upon the coast 
 
 Of Tyre and Sidon, thus have been induced 
 
 To listen to the truth, and who can tell 
 
 What good has thus been done ? All settlement 
 
 Has drawbacks, I admit ; but tell me, pray, 
 
 Where is perfection ? Now this Naboth lacks, 
 
 As Gershom beautifully did explain, 
 
 That gift and grace, so fruitful in dear peace, 
 
 In light, in sweetness, in the honey-dew 
 
 Of bright tranquillity for home and heart, 
 
 Accommodation. The fierce Gileadite 
 
 Who shouted " God or Baal " from Carmel's head 
 
 Has no more thorough-going partisan 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 125 
 
 Than Naboth. Such a man is dangerous, 
 
 And most of all in times like ours, when minds 
 
 Are much divided on important points. 
 
 I should be very pleased, myself, to see 
 
 Jah's worship universal, and his rite 
 
 Alone permitted ; but the royal league 
 
 With Tyrus and the influence paramount 
 
 Of our Sidonian queen forbid the thought. 
 
 Make, then, the most of things. This policy, ( 
 
 This compromise with Baal and Ashtoreth, 
 
 Seems really to have won for Israel 
 
 The aid of several rival deities. 
 
 Hence, probably, the victories of late 
 
 Gained over Syria, and the peace and wealth, 
 
 And safety from invasion, we enjoy 
 
 In this our Jezreel. But I grant that these 
 
 Are minor benefits ; and what I most 
 
 Insist upon is that in spiritual things, 
 
 In high religious matters, much is gained 
 
 By moderation and by acquiescence. 
 
126 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Will any candid, reasonable man 
 
 Affirm that there is honor done to God, 
 
 When crazy Heman and a half-starved knot 
 
 Of rebel hill-men, meeting in some hole 
 
 Among the rocks, sing hymns, and pray, and raise 
 
 Elijah's cry, and swear they never will 
 
 Bow down to Baal, — honor done, I say, 
 
 To God by these ill-mannered, vehement men, 
 
 So great as that which doth redound to him 
 
 From the decorous, regulated rites 
 
 Which law permits us here in Jezreel ? 
 
 Well, now, what is the upshot of all this ? 
 
 Plainly, that our precise and captious friend, 
 
 Who can be also fiercely hot at times, 
 
 This undisguised, unflinching partisan 
 
 Of the old faith and worship, constitutes 
 
 A serious danger to the town. I ask, 
 
 Is it not better that one citizen, 
 
 This Naboth, should be sacrificed, than that 
 
 The whole of Jezreel should be visited 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 127 
 
 With Jezebel's displeasure ? Let one man 
 Die, then, for all the people. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 Milchi, thou 
 Hast wisely spoken. So we are agreed. 
 Friend Ehud, thou canst doubtless find two men 
 Who will enact the form which Jezebel 
 Hath so precisely specified, — I mean, 
 Will bear the witness that shall be required. 
 Ehud. 
 May all the gods that strive for this poor land, 
 With Satan to assist, torment my soul 
 And vex my body, if I do this thing ! 
 You rather kill brave Naboth than forego 
 The patronage of Jezebel and Ahab 
 For this your town. The pious Milchi here 
 Stands better with the palace than myself, 
 And hath more property in Jezreel. 
 Let him arrange the business. 
 
128 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Milchi. 
 
 Really, now, 
 This is impossible ; for my acquaintance, 
 Even to its farthest limit, is confined 
 To persons of respectability. 
 Of course I could inquire and look abroad ; 
 But then the time is short. A knowing head 
 And cunning hand are needed for this work. 
 The common people, I have often marked, . 
 Are much in love with Naboth. 
 Ehud. 
 
 Gershom, then. 
 He can at any moment lay his hand 
 Upon a brace of robbers or of thieves, 
 Who, for the regular price, will swear away 
 The life of honest men. Since Baal came in, 
 Such ware has always come to market quick, - 
 Supply to meet demand. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 I call this hard. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 129 
 
 But if I must, I must. I undertake 
 To manage the affair. Bid Azim come. 
 
 [Azim enters.~\ 
 Azim, convey unto the king and queen 
 Our humble thanks for their most gracious words, 
 And for the signal trust reposed in us. 
 Their high commands we shall, with utmost speed, 
 And nicest accuracy, execute. 
 
 Scene IV. The Queen's Chamber in the royal -palace 
 at Samaria. 
 Jezebel and Azim. 
 Azim. 
 The elders humbly promise, gracious queen, 
 To do thy bidding and the king's at once. 
 Ere that a week hath fled, this man will die. 
 But pardon me that I do hint a doubt 
 Whether the step is altogether wise. 
 All will, I trust, be well ; — but yet, but yet — 
 
130 TBE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 yezebel. 
 Doubt me no doubts, friend Azim, nor subdue 
 Your soldier's voice from battle shout and chant 
 Of victory to murmuring " yet, but yet." 
 I tell thee that this people must be taught 
 Obedience and submission. Do you say 
 That since the mitigation of the laws 
 Against the worship of the Hebrew God, 
 They have been loyal, and with one accord 
 Of smiling dauntlessness have put to flight 
 The Syrian armies ? Why, even children cease 
 To stamp and beat the nurse when all they want 
 Is yielded to their cries. Those murders foul 
 Done upon Carmel should have been avenged 
 With sternest justice ; but, instead of that, 
 They were rewarded. The soft-hearted king, 
 Worked on by Obadiah, gave full scope 1 
 To the old superstitions of the land ; 
 And now, of course, these same are made a perch 
 On which most insolent peasants take their stand, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 131 
 
 To peck our eyes out. Come, no more, I beg, 
 
 Of this vile Naboth. I am glad at heart. 
 
 Let us be merry for an hour ; I see 
 
 Luli approaching, and he leads with him 
 
 My little niece, who came, but three weeks back, 
 
 From Tyrus. 
 
 [Luli and Elissa enter. ,J 
 Well, Elissa, where have you 
 And Luli been love-making all this time ? 
 Elissa. 
 Oh, no, dear aunt, we have not been love-making, 
 But Luli has been very good to me, 
 And shown me the king's horses, and the flowers 
 About the fountain. 
 
 yezebel. 
 And do they outshine 
 The flowers of Tyrus blooming by the sea ? 
 Are they as bright as those around thy home ? 
 Elissa. 
 Not quite so bright, dear aunt, not quite, I think, 
 
132 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And not so many of them, oh, not near ! 
 Jezebel. 
 I fear you will not do for court, Elissa ; 
 You cannot flatter. 
 
 Elissa. 
 But Sichaus says, 
 Dear aunt, that we should never fail to speak 
 The very truth ; and surely he is right, 
 For he is high-priest unto Herakles. 
 Jezebel. 
 Oh, you quaint, knowing thing ! — and has Sichaeus 
 Been teaching you already ? Little bride, 
 You must not yet with bridal earnestness 
 Bind your young brow. Although thou art betrothed 
 Unto Sichaeus, he is not thy lord, 
 And thou must show him that thou still art free. 
 Elissa. 
 Ah, but Sichaeus is so kind, so wise, 
 So tender with me. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 133 
 
 Jezebel. 
 What, in love at ten, 
 You artless-artful, funny little maid? 
 A model woman cut in ivory, 
 Of tiny size, but perfect at all points. 
 Come, kiss me. Sing us now your little song, 
 Demurely sentimental, like yourself. 
 
 \Elissa sings.] 
 
 Leave the bonny babble floating, 
 
 Faint, fair, and gay, 
 Leave the bonny bubble floating, 
 
 Leave, leave, I say. 
 
 On the bonny bubble floating 
 
 Gaze while you may, 
 Crimson, orange, pearly, golden, 
 
 Brighter than day. 
 
 Leave the bonny bubble floating, 
 
 Oh, could it stay ! 
 Look, a wandering wind hath smote it, 
 
 Gone, gone for aye ! 
 
 Jezebel. 
 Was ever little girl so mournful-wise ! 
 
134 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Luli, I'm sure this is a wonder-child ; 
 You poets will all sing of her, one day. 
 You're hut a minstrel, not a rhythmic seer, 
 Or you would tell us how it all will be : 
 What dainty woes shall fill those eyes with tears ; 
 What magic cave will glimmer on her love ; 
 What hero she will greet with calm, proud brow 
 And gentle scorn, till he despair and die ; 
 What stalking warrior's glozing tales will pierce 
 Her guarded bosom. Will she stand at eve, 
 When the cold moonbeams kiss the shivering sea, 
 All nature silent round her, while she weeps, 
 Gazing on one black ship, that slowly glides 
 Into the farther gloom and heeds her not ? 
 
 But we shall think no more of these things now : 
 Another kiss, my mimic heroine ; and, here — 
 I shall not ask thee if thy Tyrian grapes 
 Outbloom this cluster, but the Eshcol vines 
 Are commonly held worthy of the taste 
 Of kings or gods. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 135 
 
 Elissa. 
 Oh, thank you, aunt, so many ! 
 I like the grapes of Eshcol. 
 
 yezebel. 
 
 Now enough 
 Of this. A touch of livelier song to tune 
 The air to gay vibration. Luli, come — 
 
 \_Luli sings.] 
 
 The Sea, the Sea, the gray old Sea, 
 
 What a merry and brave old heart has he 1 
 
 A fellow of infinite jest and whim, 
 
 And nothing can come amiss to him. 
 
 If the winds are hushed, he cares not, he, 
 
 He can sleep till they wake, whensoever that be, 
 
 With his head on the grand piled clouds of dawn, 
 
 And his feet where the evening's veils are drawn. 
 
 He can sleep, all silent, without a breath, 
 
 So smiling-placid, like happy death. 
 
 Do you think him dead ? Let Westwind try 
 
 With the tiniest toe-stroke passing by ; 
 
 He flashes awake, but not angry, no ! 
 
 He never mistakes a pat for a blow. 
 
 That he's somewhat dull, we must admit, 
 
 No jest so old but he laughs at it ; 
 
 So when Westwind comes with her dainty kick 
 
136 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The laugh-light breaks through his eyelids quick, 
 
 And a million million ripplings twinkle, 
 
 Each a smile, though each a wrinkle. 
 
 For he loves as well as when first 'twas seen 
 
 The dance of the waves in their gold and green, — 
 
 Those robes, which the waves have worn so long 
 
 That they're too old-fashioned for modern song, — 
 
 The dance of the young waves, boys and girls, 
 
 With clapping of hands and tossing of curls, 
 
 And leaping and sweeping in breathless glee, 
 
 No leaves of the forest e'er tossed so free ; 
 
 No flowers of the garden e'er gleamed so bright 
 
 As the changing tints on their garlands white, 
 
 Their garlands of spray with rainbow glows, 
 
 Glinting of sapphire, blushing of rose, 
 
 Melting of violet, softly fair, 
 
 Scarlet of poppy and tulip rare, 
 
 Magical glimpses of varying flame, 
 
 Only in beauty ever the same. 
 
 And the dancers tire not, the day live-long, 
 
 Nor music they want but the Westwind's song ; 
 
 And they never tire through the livelong night, 
 
 But flash and whirl in the pale moonlight. 
 
 And then, when the grim winds wake and say 
 
 They hate this nonsense of young folks' play, 
 
 "I'm ready, I'm ready," old Ocean jeers, 
 
 " I'll fight as I've fought you these thousand years, 
 
 You ruffian Northwind scowling there, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 137 
 
 Take your hand, d'ye hear, out of my white hair ! 
 
 Ha ! that was a buffet between my eyes, 
 
 But the harder you hit the higher I rise. 
 
 The clouds rush down, and the moon on high . 
 
 Glides off in fear to the farther sky ; 
 
 In the murk I kindle lights of my own, 
 
 From the charging surges' white crests thrown. 
 
 The lightning I quench in the sea-trough hoar, 
 
 And the thunder I drown with a louder roar. 
 
 And as long as the wild winds like the fight 
 
 I never shall furl my banners white. 
 
 Their trumpets are loud and their breath is tough, 
 
 But they always have first cried, ' Hold, enough ! ' 
 
 And after their baffled squadrons yield, 
 
 I roam for a time about the field ; 
 
 A little I moan above the dead, 
 
 And smooth down each warrior's ruffled head ; 
 
 But as soon as the bugles of peace are blown, 
 
 And the golden clouds step gently down, 
 
 I laugh as before, and arrange again 
 
 That young folks' dance on the wide sea plain." 
 
 yezebel. 
 Leave winds and waves to youngling minstrels, Luli ; 
 The human heart requires the human theme, 
 That makes us fell our nature's kinsmanship. 
 
I3 8 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 \_Luli sings.] 
 
 The joys that are so old 
 Yet ever, ever young ! — 
 The soft hand's trembling hold, 
 The glance half-shy, half-hold, 
 The stammering story told 
 When the stars looked down, 
 When the stars looked down ; 
 By the cedar in the dell, 
 In the cleft beside the well, 
 In the vine-bower's secret cell, 
 When the heart was young, 
 When the heart was young ; 
 And the accents, faint and broken, 
 And the tow in whispers spoken, 
 And the bosom's better token 
 As we clasped and clung, 
 As we clasped and clung ; 
 Oh, the joy that is so olden, 
 Tet is young, young, young ! 
 
 yezebel. 
 Better ; a little better ; but not good. 
 
 Luli. 
 Queen Jezebel, you ought to be the Queen 
 Of the nine daughters of Mnemosyne ; 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 139 
 
 My minstrel skill is all too rude for thee. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 Luli, you poets are a spindling race ; 
 Unless you're praised, you hang your heads and pout 
 Like my pet bird when, just to tease the thing, 
 I snatch from it sweet raisins that it loves. 
 Suppose I send to Argos, o'er the sea, 
 For some philosopher, some sagest man, 
 To teach us wisdom and to bright our wits 
 With reding oracles of destiny ; 
 And you go back to Sidon whence you came ? 
 We ought to learn the destiny of man, 
 And those same sages know it, do they not ? 
 
 \Luli sings.~\ 
 
 Man breathes and grows ; he waxes, wanes, 
 Has lover's pleasures, lover's pains ; 
 His sons grow up ; he droops, he dies : 
 Now tell me more than this, ye wise ! 
 
 A. faintly-glimmering meteor spark 
 One moment flits 'tween dark and dark, 
 
140 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 In darkness born, in darkness dies : 
 Now tell me more than this, ye wise ! 
 
 He ripes and ripes, he rots and rots,* 
 And that's the sum of human lots, 
 He struts, aspires — and there he lies : 
 Now tell me more than this, ye wise 1 
 
 A smile from love-lit deeps of blue 
 In eye of maiden warm and true, 
 A touch of dance, a breath of song, 
 Will help us drive the years along : 
 But take your cobwebs from the skies, 
 Ye worst of triflers, called the wise ! 
 
 yezebel. 
 
 There's sense in that, if not much melody. 
 But keep the wine-cup circling. Luli, friend, 
 I pledge thee. In the mantling lights that play 
 Upon the foam of a bright cup of wine 
 Is more of life's intense philosophy 
 Than in ten systems of those pompous fools. 
 
 • Hamlet. 
 
THE BATS OF JEZEBEL. 141 
 
 \_Luli sings.~\ 
 
 Never say that love is false, 
 
 Ye who know its rapture, 
 Though you weep to think you will 
 
 Nevermore recapture 
 Ravishment as when at first 
 On your heart the splendor burst. 
 
 Never say that love is false, 
 
 Maiden slowly dying, 
 Dying of a broken heart, 
 
 Pale and languid lying : 
 That same pain by which you die 
 Measureth love's ecstasy. 
 
 Azim. 
 Something too much of love, I think, although 
 There always hath been league 'twixt love and war. 
 Have you no green leaf for the soldier's brow ? 
 
 \_Luli sings.~\ 
 " Look,' 7 said Benhadad, " if the splintered light, 
 Flashing from three-score thousand burnished helms, 
 Blind not your eye-ball ; look, unless ye shrink. 
 The hills are white with tents, the chariots prance, 
 The banners bright of two and thirty kings 
 Float on the dallying breeze. That host is mine. 
 
H 2 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And there," he pointed, with a snort of scorn, 
 
 " A- tremble on its little scarped hill 
 
 Lies your Samaria. Follow with your eye 
 
 The few gaunt forms that creep along the streets. 
 
 Tell me, ye Hebrew Elders, tell me plain, 
 
 If all yon town, the walls, the temples, roots, 
 
 With Ahab and his warriors to boot, 
 
 Were pounded into dust, would they suffice 
 
 To yield one handful unto each of these ! " 
 
 He set his turban, laughed his laugh, then strode 
 
 Into his tent, and called the vassal kings 
 
 To quaff the sparkling wine. 
 
 A splendid smile, 
 like sword-blade flashing from a jewelled sheath, 
 Broke o'er the face of Ahab when he heard. 
 " Contemptuous king, I thank thee ; thou hast touched 
 Our Elders to the quick, and now they grant 
 Its full sweep to my sword-arm." 
 
 On the wall 
 Clustered pale women, holding starveling babes, 
 And ancient men bowed down with weight of years ; 
 And, leaning on a turret by the gate, 
 I watched what might befall. 
 
 The sun, dim red, 
 Was bending towards the west. Benhadad still 
 Sat in his white pavilion, banqueting. 
 Erom the great court of his palace marched King Aha! ; 
 Afoot he marched, no gold upon his brow ; 
 And yet a crown was there : each man that stepped 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 143 
 
 To measured music, timbrel, flute, and harp, 
 
 In the close ranks behind him, knew right well 
 
 A crown was there ; each felt the quickening sense 
 
 Of a king-soldier's leadership, that hour. 
 
 Close-lipped, calm-browed, in massive strength of limb, 
 
 Of lofty height, with vigilant great eyes, 
 
 A lion-skin across his shoulders thrown, 
 
 Marched Ahab. Once I saw him start and pant, 
 
 When his glance fell upon the haggard throng 
 
 Beside me on the wall, but then his eye, 
 
 With a fierce hungry glare in it, shot straight 
 
 Across the valley to the Syrian foe, 
 
 And he smiled, grimly calm. The gate flew wide ; 
 
 And, firmly treading, stern, in solemn joy, 
 
 The slender columns marched beyond the wall. 
 
 There went the chosen youth of Israel, 
 
 Twelve-score, all princely born, well-skilled in war, 
 
 And trained to smiling fortitude in fight. 
 
 Steadily stepping, patiently, not fast, 
 
 In purple mantles clad, to those clear tones 
 
 Of music, on they went. ' These men are mad,' 
 
 Benhadad cried ; ' this puny company 
 
 Leaving the shelter of their walls and towers. 
 
 See that ye hem them round, but smite them not; 
 
 Take them alive and have them for a mock ! ' 
 
 He reeled back to the wine-cup, laughing loud. 
 
 Steadily moves the slender column ; now 
 Its head has crossed the vale and touched the hill. 
 
144 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Steadily on and up ! The sword of Ahab 
 Has tasted blood ; among the Syrians 
 There is a rushing and a wondering, 
 And once, and twice, a warrior dashes wild 
 To take his death-stab on that stinging line. 
 But all the kings are banqueting; and kings 
 Are captains in this host ; and rule is none. 
 Through the wild sea of men and chariots 
 Still steady, steady, pushing up the hill 
 March Ahab and his column. Now they reach 
 The top ; then halt. The column is six deep, 
 Forming six files when halted, facing north. 
 Three wheel to westward ; three to eastward wheel, 
 And thus two lines, three deep, face east and west, 
 Cutting the Syrian host in two. King Ahab 
 Takes the command of that which faces west, 
 Where lie Benhadad and his riotous kings. 
 Our Azim heads the eastward-facing line. 
 Forward at once go both in diverse ways, 
 Forward against that weltering, tossing crowd, 
 Where chariots crash on footmen, horses rush 
 In maddened terror, and a storm of sounds, 
 Shouts, yells, screams, curses on the revelling kings, 
 Shakes the astonished air. But forward still, 
 Like two bright sickles among shaken reeds, 
 Go the thin Hebrew lines. At length the din 
 Startled those drunken revellers with the king. 
 They staggered forth, and some, whom fumes of wine 
 Had made audacious, to their chariots leaped 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 145 
 
 And charged the line. But their unsteady arms 
 Could aim no javelin straight ; the naked swords 
 And blood-red mantles of the Hebrew ranks 
 Dazzled their eyes ; and, with a ringing shout, 
 That reached us where we stood upon the wall, 
 The Hebrew warriors sprang on them and hurled 
 Chariots and riders over the steep cliffs. 
 
 Benhadad now was sobered from a fool 
 Into a coward. Looking on the lulls, 
 Where his great host was writhing like a snake 
 In agonies of death, and glancing next 
 Upon the plain, where wary Obadiah 
 With the main army of the Israelites, 
 Seven thousand men, all eager for the fray, 
 Was following up the triumph of the van, 
 He saw that all was lost, and mounting quick 
 His swiftest horse,and winding round the hill, 
 First westward and then bending towards the east, 
 Fled like a dastard. 
 
 When the setting sun 
 Threw his soft lances of sweet mellow light 
 Along the hills that gird Samaria, 
 The air was silent but for frolic din 
 Of girlish laughter, and the jubilant shouts 
 Of those who ran from tent to tent and searched 
 For wine, and bread, and gold, and jewellery.* 
 
 * 1 Kings xx. 15-21. 
 10 
 
146 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Azim. 
 Luli, you have surprised me, I confess. 
 
 I am a soldier, — never will pretend 
 
 To judge of minstrelsy, but this I say, 
 
 That I, who fought that day, have never known 
 
 So well as now the manner of the fight 
 
 And the true causes of the victory. 
 
 A poet has his uses, I perceive. 
 
 \Luli sings.] 
 No warrior he, no judge, no king, 
 But he gives a voice to everything. 
 He makes the flutter of a bird 
 Immortal in a spoken word, 
 And sets the murmur of the shore 
 To human woe for evermore, 
 And tells the bosom's inmost feeling 
 In crimson words, like blood-drops stealing. 
 
 yezebel. 
 And have you no word, Luli, of our home, 
 Of my dear Sidon and Mount Lebanon ? 
 
 \Luli sings.~\ 
 A hand of beauty laid among the waves, 
 Bearing a massive jewel tenderly, 
 
TBE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 147 
 
 A hand of marble which the blue sea laves, 
 
 Gliding to kiss it softly, silverly, 
 
 A radiant jewel, flashing haughtily 
 Prom myriad facets gleams of pearly light, 
 
 Which weary mariners with rapture see, 
 When to their eyes, that moisten at the sight, 
 The fair hand lifts sweet Sidon's roofs and turrets bright. 
 
 What means this gently outstretched, jewelled hand? 
 
 What music hath it for a poet's ear ? 
 Is it an emblem hard to understand ? 
 
 Or is its meaning delicately clear? 
 
 It links the earth and sea in friendship dear, 
 Seeking the ancient hatred to allay, 
 
 Hatred and terror of the ocean drear, 
 Of dismal wave, black tempest, lashing spray, 
 And claiming the broad sea for man's most spacious way. 
 
 It beckons from the East, autumnal, calm, 
 
 In signalled greeting to the vernal West, 
 Proffering amity with gracious palm, 
 
 And interchange of what each hath of best, 
 
 Not only cedar from the mountain's crest, 
 And gem and fruit and vase and broidery, 
 
 But thoughts that thrill the brain and warn) the breast, 
 Religion's lore, and wisdom's mystery, 
 And all that melts and glows in tear-dewed sympathy. 
 
 And in fair Sidon's wave-girt streets a hum 
 Of many mingling voices greets the ear. 
 
148 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Hither, with costliest burdens, merchants come 
 From the far Orient, where the day-beam clear 
 First strikes the world, and, meeting them, draw near 
 
 Strange painted wanderers, clad in wolf-skin vest, 
 With wild blue eyes, devoid of guile or fear, 
 
 Who bring their tin from Islands of the West, 
 
 Where the tired sun sinks down on ocean's heaving breast. 
 
 Here, with keen lip and ever-sparkling eye, 
 
 Trips the Achaian, bird of humankind ; 
 Here stalks in melancholy musing by 
 
 The grave Egyptian, whose entranced mind 
 
 Dreams ever of the peace it thinks to find 
 In the eternal pyramid's cold heart. 
 
 The vigilant Hebrew looks before, behind, 
 Solemn, adroit, prepared for every part, 
 Egyptian in. the fane, Achaian in the mart. 
 
 Leave we the streets ; the city's gates unfold ; 
 
 Break the soft flames of twice ten thousnd flowers, 
 Melodious light in splendor manifold, 
 
 Where rose-clad alleys lead to plaited bowers, 
 
 And love and gladness speed the enchanted hours, 
 When in the lucid morn blue shade is thrown 
 
 Far o'er the gardened plain and city's towers, 
 From the proud mountain's summit, rising lone, 
 
 The white marmoreal crest of stately Lebanon. 
 
 By paths of verdure winding under banks 
 
 Of daisied grass and scented herbage rare, 
 And placid mulberries in terraced ranks, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 149 
 
 And gray-green olives, set in order fair, 
 
 Slowly we rise through the keen mountain air, 
 Emerging on some grandly beetling brow, 
 
 While the bold breeze lifts laughingly our hair, 
 And oak and pine strike up around us now, 
 And the old cedar spreads his tranquil, fan-like bough. 
 Fantastic masonry of chiselled crags, 
 
 Sculptured by torrents in capricious glee, 
 That leap, the winter long, from clefts and jags, 
 
 With eddying storms in giant revelry, 
 
 Features the mountain ; nature's blazonry, 
 Rude though sublime : we turn away from such, 
 
 To seek a finer, subtler industry ; 
 Nor can colossal Nature please us much, 
 Compared with nature's lord's, with man's consummate touch. 
 
 Yon eagle, floating in majestic rest 
 
 Above the chasm profound in middle air, 
 Dropped he the seed on yonder giddy crest 
 
 Of peering crag to grow in beauty there, 
 
 Amid the precipices gaunt and bare, 
 Helming the grim cliff with its tender green ? 
 
 Ah no ! its sweet smile answers human care ! 
 More honorably bright its emerald sheen 
 Than ever warrior's helm in battle's tempest seen. 
 
 The broad-leafed fig-tree's tendrils gently grasp 
 
 The rock-walls of the pinnacled ravine, 
 The vine's insinuating fingers clasp 
 
 The netted wrinklings where the frost hath been ; 
 
150 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 O'er torrent foam the pine bridge hangs serene, 
 From cliff to cliff in calm aerial poise ; 
 
 The nestling village in the cleft is seen, 
 And all about the mountain is a noise 
 Of snow-fed waters mingling with the human voice. 
 
 The busy woodmen work in banded throngs, 
 From dell to dell the axe rings cheerily, 
 
 Making sweet discord with their choral songs ; 
 The hushed wail of the everlasting sea 
 Blends with the forest's music plaintively ; 
 
 Far down the smooth cerulean main is seen, 
 And, slumbering there in bright serenity, 
 
 Like mighty sea-snakes, streams of varying sheen, 
 
 Rich purple, rippling azure, clear, translucent green. 
 
 The sun draws near his evening goal ; his beams 
 
 With yellow lustre paint the cedar bough, 
 Dapple the russet sward with stealthy gleams, 
 
 And delicately touch the mountain's brow ; 
 
 Its white head hath a golden aureole now ; 
 Then sinks the night. Lo ! o'er the harbor bar 
 
 Glides the small ship with enterprising prow, 
 And treads the watery waste to lands afar, 
 Lifting an eye of hope to Sidon's Polar Star. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 The features, Luli, not the face ; and yet 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 151 
 
 I thank thee that, with reverent accuracy, 
 
 Thou hast the features followed ;* as I look, 
 
 * Except that the ancient forests of cedar have disappeared from 
 Mount Lebanon, and with them the woodmen who played a con- 
 spicuous part among the busy tenants of the mountain in the days 
 of Ahab, and that the peaks are now for the most part crowned 
 with convents, the appearance of the hill, as described by modern 
 travellers, is doubtless closely correspondent to that which it pre- 
 sented to the eyes of Luli. Lebanon is about 10,000 feet high, 
 and the summit, during the greater part of the year, is clothed 
 with snow. " The line of cultivation," says a writer, quoted in 
 Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, "runs along at the height of 
 about 6,000 feet ; and below this the features of the western slopes 
 are entirely different. The descent is gradual ; but is everywhere 
 broken by precipices and towering rocks which time and the ele- 
 ments have chiselled into strange fantastic shapes. Eavines of 
 singular wildness and grandeur furrow the whole mountain-side, 
 looking in many places like huge rents. Here and there, too, bold 
 promontories shoot out, and dip perpendicularly into the bosom 
 of the Mediterranean. The rugged limestone banks are scantily 
 clothed with the evergreen oak and sandstone with pines ; while 
 every available spot is carefully cultivated. The cultivation is 
 wonderful, and shows what all Syria might be if under a good gov- 
 ernment. Miniature fields of grain are often seen where one would 
 suppose the eagles alone, which hover round them, could have 
 planted the seed. Fig-trees cling to the naked rock ; vines are 
 trained along narrow ledges ; long ranges of mulberries, on ter- 
 races like steps of stairs, cover the more gentle declivities ; and 
 
152 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A sweet light mantles through them ; memory- 
 Kindles again the loveliness I loved. 
 Elissa. 
 Remember, Luli, that I have your promise 
 
 To take me to the grove with you to-night, 
 
 To hear the new hymn you have made in praiss 
 
 Of mighty Baal and of Ashtoreth. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 Luli, let's hear the hymn before you go. 
 
 \_Luli sings.\ 
 i. 
 Leaps upon the top of Lebanon 
 The young, magnificent Baal. 
 He throws back the mists like a. cloak 
 Floating behind him, fringed with gold. 
 His eye sends glances of white fire 
 Up the sky-roof. 
 
 The mountain feels his step, 
 And shivers through all its woods ; 
 
 The torrents hear his voice, 
 And awake from sleep. 
 
 Encircling Lebanon's crown of snow, 
 The sky is ruddy fire 
 
 dense groves of olives fill up the bottoms of the glens. Hundreds 
 of villages are seen," etc. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 153 
 
 n. 
 Sees him, from her disconsolate couch, 
 Sees him, from her snowy pillows, 
 Through her chill frozen tears ; 
 Hears his shout in the heavens, 
 Hears his chariot among the clouds ; 
 The beautiful pale Ashtoreth. 
 
 He has come 1 
 
 He has come ! 
 Her heart thrills, 
 Her pale-blue eyes open, 
 A faint blush, — faint, faint, — 
 Overspreads her countenance. 
 
 Little white flowerets peep, down-drooping 
 Pale golden flowerets, or pearly blue ; 
 Beautiful all, but faint and frail : 
 Spring's first wan flush upon down and dale. 
 
 Then she draws again her curtains close, 
 She hides in her breast her secret joy, 
 She sees him as if she saw him not. 
 
 The faint flowers die ; 
 Crocus and snowdrop fail ; 
 And Ashtoreth sitteth 
 
 Coy and shy, 
 Behind the curtains of hail. 
 
154 TBB DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 iii. 
 But Baal is awake, awake, 
 Love warmeth his heart like wine, 
 Love flames in his eye like wrath : 
 And he yokes to his car young lions, 
 Toung lions and eagles strong. 
 He calls to his love, 
 
 He speaks in song ; 
 
 His words are the rays 
 
 Of the ruddy-golden morn, 
 
 To melody streaming forth. 
 
 IV. 
 
 She will not hear ; 
 She is shy, she is coy ; 
 She trembles, she weeps 
 In the piercing thrills 
 Of her mighty joy. 
 
 v. 
 But this is a lover who knows to win, 
 Knoweth the ways of a woman's heart, 
 Knoweth the wiles of a woman's eye. 
 He comes not, he, with a downcast look, 
 He comes not, he, with a pleading sigh. 
 
 " I love thee, I love thee, and that same power 
 That makes me thy slave shall make me thy kin^; 
 
 Ha ! ha ! can the pale Earth shun the hour 
 When her veins must burn with the life of spring V ' 
 
TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 155 
 
 Then his splendor falls on her in a shower 
 Of quickening fire, and the soft winds sing, 
 
 And the world breaks into an infinite dower 
 Of gladness and life and blossoming, 
 Of love and of light and blossoming. 
 
 VI. 
 
 Fair is she in her mantle blue, 
 
 Fair is she in her kirtle green, 
 Beautiful, beautiful, falleth low 
 
 Her veil of the filmy, fine-streaked cloud, 
 White as the driven snow. 
 This is Ashtoreth, 
 This is the Bride of Baal. 
 
 VII. 
 
 Toss the joy o'er a thousand hills, 
 
 Gleaming with scarlet poppies, 
 Tenderly shed it along the vales 
 In millions of azure lilies. 
 Birds, as ye float on the fragrant air, 
 
 Taking the gleam on breast and wing, 
 Winnow it over field and town, 
 Over the broad bright world. 
 Lion that stalketh under the reeds, 
 
 Leopard that loveththe cedar shade, 
 Silvery-bearded, jocund goat, 
 Soft-eyed, delicate-footed fawn, 
 Come to the wedding, come. 
 
156 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Joy, joy is the law of the world; 
 
 Who will not dance at this bridal feast ? 
 Who will come near with a sigh profane f 
 Who will come nigh with a blasphemous tear ? 
 Joy at the bridal of Sun and Earth, 
 Joy at the marriage of Light and Life ; 
 
 Who will not joy must die. 
 Youth or maiden, sire or spouse, 
 Cold of heart and dark of brow, 
 
 Who joys not now must die. 
 The summer gladness wraps the world, 
 Baal rejoices in Asthoreth, 
 Rejoice, all men, or die. 
 
 Luli. 
 Come now, my little princess, to the grove. 
 
 [Luli and Elissa take leave. As Luli goes, he talks 
 low with himself, aside.] 
 
 How strange this woman is ! How drearily, 
 
 For all her strained attempts at merriment, 
 
 The slow hours dragged. She looks, methinks, as one 
 
 Who glories in some deed of wickedness, 
 
 Some victory of cruelty and pride, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 157 
 
 Yet finds that conquering pride is conquering pain. 
 She is not what she was when first I came. 
 More stern, more proud. The dewdrops, vanishing, 
 Have left her beauty arid, fierce, and hard. 
 Her eye to-night gleams with a ghastly Same, 
 As if she were athirst for sin. Were I 
 A Hebrew prophet, I should say that she, 
 Having committed some dire wickedness, 
 Was doom-struck to rush deeper into guilt, 
 Till all her soul were blackened. Azim stays 
 Now with her in her chamber ; though I think 
 That Azim, daring not to thwart her wish, 
 Yet loves her not as once. Ahab is hence, 
 Pressing the Syrians hard. She treads all law 
 That checks her passion, be it God's or man's, 
 Into the dust. — But, peace ! here is the grove. 
 
*58 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Scene V. 
 
 Jezebel's chamber. Daybreak. 
 
 Jezebel and Azim. 
 
 "Jezebel. 
 
 Azim, farewell ; the hills are touched with light : 
 
 We have been Baal and Ashtoreth to-night. 
 
% 
 
 ACT IV. 
 
 Scene I. The roof of Naboth's house. 
 Naboth alone. 
 
 Naboth. 
 £75 ^HE crimson helmet upon Carmel's* head 
 
 Fades to a plume of gray ; the solemn stars 
 Beam on the purple night. How fresh the air 
 Feels on my temples ! Placid lies the land, 
 Like a babe slumbering in its father's arms. 
 Is not God here ? Our father Jacob slept, 
 And in his dream the bright ones of the Lord, 
 On starry steps descending musical, 
 Blessed him with vision of their faces pure. 
 I see no angels, yet upon these hills, 
 Where cradled Israel sleeps, the child of God, 
 
 ♦The word "Carmel" means crimson. 
 159 
 
160 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Are they not watching ? Did celestial robes, 
 Then when the crags beamed silver in the moon, 
 Flash on mine eyes ? I know not ; this I know, 
 The Lord's my shepherd ; God is as the dew 
 To reverent men. Can angels softlier tread 
 Than the sweet dews, or with more gentle touch 
 Than moonlight bathe the forehead when it aches ? 
 Father, I ask no heavenlier messengers 
 To tell me of thy presence. Oh, my heart, 
 That often, like a little brook in drought, 
 Faintest and growest weary, doubt no more. 
 Exult in God. He bindeth up our wounds. 
 He goeth out to battle in our van. 
 Proud Syria veils her face to Israel. 
 Rejoice, my heart, and magnify the Lord. 
 Jehovah is my tower ; my faith stands strong 
 As Carmel yonder. r~* [Elijah appears. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Aye, when on the hill 
 Fall the fine footsteps of the stars, and soft 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 161 
 
 Come the flock's tinklings from the grassy clefts : 
 But, Naboth, when the cloud in murky pall 
 Hides Sinai forty days from human eye, 
 And Moses comes not, and the people stand 
 Haggard and wondering in the wilderness, 
 Where then thy faith ? 
 
 Naboth. 
 
 My lord Elijah, hail ! 
 What is thy servant that thou deignest thus 
 To visit him ? I pray thee, let me bring 
 Water to wash thy feet, and let me set 
 Before thee bread that thou may'st eat, and then 
 Lie on my couch and rest ; for travel-stained 
 Thou art ; and wet thy hair with drops of night. 
 Thy face is pale, and very thin, and sharp, 
 And a strange burning which I cannot rede 
 Is in thine eyes. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Kind Naboth, gentle friend, 
 I eat not, rest not. Listen. Far away, 
 
1 62 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 As evening threw the shadows of the rocks 
 
 O'er leagues of glimmering sand, and Moab's hills 
 
 Were saddening into night, the Power, the Breath, 
 
 The Spirit of the Lord, that comes and goes, 
 
 And moves me as the wind the shaken reed, 
 
 Was on me, drave me forth, and brought me here. 
 
 But now it hath departed, and I speak 
 
 With thee as friend with friend, not otherwise. 
 
 For, Naboth, 'tis a Presence wonderful 
 
 Beyond all searching ; when it lists it comes, 
 
 And when it lists it goes ; and very oft 
 
 The moment of its going is just that 
 
 When I would most entreat its tarrying. 
 
 My wish, my will, it heedeth not at all. 
 
 The terrible, strange fire that throbbed and burned 
 
 Within my bosom passeth and is gone, 
 
 And I, who was inspired, am trembling clay. 
 
 But it may be that though Jehovah now 
 
 Sends thee no message by my lip, yet I, 
 
 A simple man," but much experienced, tried 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 163 
 
 With many sorrows, and who love thee well, 
 And know thee, 'mong the faithless, faithful found, 
 Will tell thee what may profit thee ; because 
 The time is black, and evil lurketh close 
 To snare the righteous. 
 
 Nahoth. 
 Let my lord forgive 
 His servant if, with stammering, childish tongue, 
 He answereth again. But is the time 
 Indeed so black ? Did not the fire of God 
 Burn on the mount ? Doth not this people know, 
 Yea, and the heathen too, that Jah is God ? 
 Did not Benhadad, boastful of the might 
 Of Syria's horsemen and his vassal kings, 
 One score and twelve, besiege Samaria? 
 And was his host not scattered ? And again, 
 Came he not up by Aphek and the east 
 Of Jordan, an unnumbered multitude ? 
 Beneath the rolling of their chariot-wheels 
 Low thunder shook the vales ; their crested helms 
 
164 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Joined hill to hill with links of lightning-flash. 
 
 They thought, forsooth, that only in the hills 
 
 Jehovah fought for Israel, and that we 
 
 Would in the plains be vanquished. Did not then 
 
 The God of Abraham smite them, hip and thigh, 
 
 Making them as the dust on threshing-floor ? 
 
 Are these black times or bright ? The king himself 
 
 Respects the law of Moses, and the rights 
 
 Of Israel's free-born sons. Give ear, my lord. 
 
 But five days back, I walked i' th' cool o' th' morn 
 
 Within my vineyard. It adjoins the king's. 
 
 Ahab was there. He knows me well, for oft, 
 
 In eddying battle by his chariot-wheel 
 
 Have I close ridden, and perchance my shield 
 
 Hath caught a Syrian javelin going swift 
 
 To pierce his heart. With courteous mien, and hand 
 
 Waved graceful thus, he called me. But his eye 
 
 Had not the clear, straightforward, joyful flash 
 
 It shows on battle mornings in the field. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 165 
 
 Would I, he asked, be willing to give up 
 My fathers' vineyard ? Either he would pay 
 Its worth in money, or would give, elsewhere, 
 Another better vineyard. In the strength 
 Of God and of the law, I said him nay. 
 He started, much surprised, and looked at me. 
 A cloud passed o'er his visage ; but no word 
 Fell from his lip. He shrank away, abashed. 
 Are these black times, Elijah ? 
 Elijah. 
 
 Naboth, friend, 
 Brave, loyal, simple-minded, now my heart 
 Grows sadder than before, and bodeful thoughts 
 Roll darkly o'er my mind. 'Tis perilous 
 For private men to dare the wrath of kings. 
 Some say their touch can cure ; their look can kill 
 With surer efficacy. Little dreamed 
 Uriah, brave and gentle, when he fell, 
 That the death-blow was signalled by the hand 
 
1 66 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Of loved and honored David. 
 
 NabotJi. 
 
 What, my lord, 
 Is this thing that thou sayest ? Doth the law 
 Not straitly charge the men of Israel 
 To keep their heritage and sell it not ? 
 Is not the law God's voice, and can it be 
 That he who keeps the law, in keeping it, 
 Brings evil on himself? 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 Ah, who can say, 
 " I know the purposes, the ways of God " ? 
 In Syria, in the land of Israel, 
 In Judah's cities and by all the way 
 Of Moab and of Edom till thou come 
 To Egypt, men who see me turn and say, 
 " There goes Elijah, he who speaks with God, 
 He who can bid the rain be garnered up 
 Behind the steely windows of the sky, 
 Or pour in floods, he who from scabbard draws 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. l6>J 
 
 Jah's sword, the lightning, he to whom God's will 
 Is spread out in its clearness, broad and bright, 
 Like fig-leaf in the sun : " 'tis thus they prate. 
 Alas ! not one of all the chattering crowd 
 But speaks of God more glibly than Elijah. 
 Dear Naboth, let me speak a while with thee, 
 And mark thou patiently while I rehearse 
 Some of God's dealings with my soul, and how 
 He lifted me so high that on my gaze 
 Brake the great sea of human ignorance ; 
 And I learned lessons which are hard to learn, 
 Wonder and silence and implicit trust. 
 
 Oh, the old days and Gilead's mountain-land ! 
 The long bold ridge of hill, the wooded bays 
 Cliff-sheltered from the blast, the girlish brooks 
 That leap from crag to crag, and whirl and dance, 
 With clapping of white hands and ringing laugh, 
 Along the rich-grassed pasture ! Myriad flocks, 
 Dappling the hills with softest summer snow, 
 
168 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And herds wide-wandering in the fertile vales. 
 
 The white tent of my mother, beautiful 
 
 Upon its daisied swell, a precipice 
 
 Rising abrupt behind ; before a bend 
 
 Of slender stream, that brought a little stripe 
 
 Of blue sky from above, a little curve, 
 
 And yet enough to show the arm of God, 
 
 Our fathers' God, drawn round us tenderly. 
 
 The psalm that rolled afar among the hills 
 
 From answering companies when all the west 
 
 Was barred with purple, edged with burnished gold, 
 
 Where angels stood, prolonging the last notes 
 
 Of our eve song, and calling forth the stars 
 
 To tell God's glory to the listening night ! 
 
 In Gilead dwelt a people serving God, 
 Him and him only, keeping Israel's law 
 And honoring the king. But travellers brought 
 Sad news and strange. Ahab, the Lord's anointed, 
 Had ta'en to wife a heathen, Jezebel, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 169 
 
 Zealous for Sidon's idols. Night by night 
 The groves, lit up with many-colored lamps, 
 Thrilling with music's soft, lascivious tones, 
 Saw Israel's daughters weave the wanton dance 
 With priests of Ashtoreth, while circling glooms 
 Fitted a worship which was blasphemy 
 Conjoined with lewdness. Suddenly at last 
 Our vales were filled with wailings, and we saw, 
 Way-worn and faint, their garments red with blood, 
 The prophets of the Lord, the remnant saved 
 From Jezebel's fierce cruelty. My soul 
 Was stirred and changed within me. What ! could I, 
 While thus my land was smit with pangs of death, 
 Follow the flock in peace among the hills ? 
 Gather them in the noontide 'neath the shade 
 Of some tall rock, and watch the slender kids 
 Look for their little shepherdess and bleat 
 To wake her from her sleep amid the flowers ? 
 Laugh in the light of dawn and lay me down 
 To rest at even ? feel the delicate joy 
 
170 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Of golden afternoons by mountain wells ? 
 Grow mirthful at the step, upon the sward, 
 Of comely woman, dream of bridal hours, 
 And little maidens at my knee, and boys 
 To breast with me the cliffs, and tend the flocks 
 When I grow old ? — 
 
 Ah me ! And then it came. 
 With shuddering and with rapture, woe that wept, 
 And joy that pierced and burned, I felt the Breath 
 Of God upon me. Seemed a crown was pressed 
 Down on my brow, a crown with glory touched, 
 Yet stinging as with points of twisted thorn. 
 I started up ; I spake no parting word 
 To father, mother, sister ; left the flock 
 To wander in the dusk. The starry host 
 Were rushing forth into the night ; the roar 
 Of wakening lions crashed among the hills. 
 All night I went. At midnight rose the moon, 
 And flung the mountain-wall of Gilead 
 In massive black along the silvered plain. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 171 
 
 Then Jordan gleamed out like a sword across 
 
 My path. I cleft the tall reeds of the bank 
 
 With eager arms. A lion, as I went, 
 
 Glared fierce, in act to spring : I turned mine eye, 
 
 And back it shrank. I dashed into the stream. 
 
 The cold waves felt the fire of God, and from 
 
 My mantle stroke the startled river fled. 
 
 Day beamed out calm, like God's approving brow. 
 
 The people stared at me, but scarce I marked. 
 
 Still on I went, nor stopped for food or drink, 
 
 Until I met the king. 'Twas in the way 
 
 Hard by the city wall, where first the hill 
 
 That bears Samaria rises from the plain 
 
 And fronts the east. Far as the eye could reach, 
 
 The flowers of virgin summer blushed and bloomed. 
 
 The air breathed fragrance, and the little hills 
 
 Shouted in scarlet gladness, all one blaze. 
 
 The chaliced lilies, white and azure, showed 
 
 The eyes of tender dew, not yet dried up, 
 
 With which they greet the morn ; the wedded vines 
 
172 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Were proud with infant clusters. White clouds sailed 
 
 To gentle wafture of the western wind 
 
 Along the glistening deeps of rainy blue. 
 
 Blank satisfaction smiled on Ahab's face, 
 
 And haughty and serene beside him sat, 
 
 Within his chariot, crowned with gold and pearls, 
 
 Sidonian Jezebel. A chosen troop 
 
 Of Tyrian horsemen pranced before ; behind 
 
 Rang the sweet air with music, thrilling clear 
 
 From trump and flute. Upon a crag I stood, 
 
 And fixed mine eye on Ahab j when he saw, 
 
 He started, quailed, and could not choose but look. 
 
 I lifted up my voice and said, " O king, 
 
 Sure as the Lord God liveth, before whom 
 
 I stand, from this day forth no dew shall wet 
 
 The grass at dawn, no rain shall fall, except 
 
 According to my word." 
 
 There was a change 
 That moment in the sky and on the earth. 
 The sun drank up the clouds like cups of wine, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 1 73 
 
 And glared, red-eyed, alone. The dewy drops 
 
 On lily and on vine flashed ofF in films 
 
 Of thin white vapor, rushing to the sky. 
 
 The wind moaned low and died. The air grew hot 
 
 And touched the brow like fire. On Ahab's face 
 
 Came .whiteness as of utter fear. He sat 
 
 In quivering terror, dumb. But Jezebel 
 
 Half started from her place ; upon the king 
 
 Darted one scornful look ; and then, on me 
 
 Flashing a glance that struck like javelin 
 
 Between my eyes, " Captain," she cried, " thy life 
 
 For his. How canst thou let the king and me 
 
 Be flouted by this insolent ruffian, one, 
 
 As I suppose, who has escaped the doom 
 
 Prepared most justly for the traitorous knaves 
 
 Who call themselves Jah's prophets ! Seize him ; quick ; 
 
 Hurl him down headlong from the city wall 
 
 Upon the knife-edged stones." I heard no more, 
 
 No more I saw ; for over jutting ledge 
 
 And olive-tufted knoll, I know not how, 
 
174 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 I was borne gently down and far away. 
 
 Then the great drought prevailed through all the land. 
 Upon the fields, instead of bladed grass, 
 Lay a white scurf as on a leper's face. 
 The drought pierced to the core of the gray hills 
 And drank their secret wells. In the sere woods 
 The buds half opened in the hope of spring, 
 Then shrivelled like the hands of dying babes, 
 And made no summer. *Mid the branches bare 
 The voice of birds went silent, and the beasts, 
 With black tongues hanging from their mouths, and eyes 
 Sunk in their sockets, gazed into the pools 
 But found no water. Mountain villages 
 Grew silent on the hill and stood as tombs. 
 Oh, it was weariness unspeakable 
 To see nor fresh green leaf, nor yellow grain, 
 Nor purple grape, nor blue corn-flower, nor spark 
 Of scarlet poppy, nor white, sailing cloud. 
 No color on the world ! The woven robe 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 175 
 
 Of air and moisture laid upon the earth, 
 To make her beautiful and draw the love 
 Of us her children, had been lifted off 
 In God's fierce anger. The old mother face 
 Had lost its tenderness of smiles and tears. 
 And ever in the distance, day and night, — 
 I dwelt then at Zarepta, in the west, — 
 Moaned the great sea, unhelping, salt and sad. 
 Yes, it was heavy on man's soul, and yet, 
 Naboth, — I will not hide it from my friend, — ■ 
 Low-whispering in the chambers of my heart 
 Lurked still this thought : " It is as /did say," 
 And pride found food even in that agony. 
 
 Why should I, point by point, rehearse to thee 
 What thou rememberest well, the glory wrought 
 Upon Mount Carmel : the bared sword of God, 
 The mighty acclamation of the throng? 
 But know thou this, that, as I stood alone 
 Against Baal's hundreds, armed with might Divine, 
 
176 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Through the deep chambers of my heart there rang 
 
 The tones of ancient prophecy, which said 
 
 That to his folk Jehovah would raise up 
 
 A prophet like to Moses, whom they all 
 
 Would follow and obey. Pride's whisper then, 
 
 Faint as the serpent's rustle among stones, 
 
 Glided into my heart that I was he ; 
 
 That Ephraim, melting at my voice, would give 
 
 The hand to Judah, and they both would go, 
 
 With weeping loud for that great weight of joy, 
 
 Up to God's house in company, and then 
 
 That all earth's nations would bow down the knee 
 
 To David's seed on Zion hill enthroned. 
 
 Thou dost remember well how, at the last, 
 
 The heavens grew black with clouds, the rising wind 
 
 Sang from the sea, the vivid lightnings played, 
 
 And, with a thunder-crack that shook the hill, 
 
 Sprang to the earth the cataracts of rain. 
 
 O Naboth, how my spirit burned in me ! 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 177 
 
 Since that dread hour when first, on Gilead's hills, 
 
 The Breath of God fell on me, never yet 
 
 Had joy and exultation thrilled my breast 
 
 With such a flood of rapture. Down I rushed, 
 
 Called to the king to mount his chariot 
 
 And urge his horses, lest the trampling floods 
 
 Should bar his way. Since earliest glimpse of dawn 
 
 I had not tasted food, and sore my toil 
 
 In slaying those false prophets. Now the night 
 
 Had fallen. But the terrible joy that rang 
 
 Within my swelling bosom gave me strength, 
 
 And by the chariot of the king I ran, 
 
 Up the long hills, across the vales, and through 
 
 The rising torrents, 'mid the streaming rain. 
 
 I thought, " The king will gladly take me in 
 
 And set me on his right hand, so that I 
 
 May execute the judgments of the Lord, 
 
 And be a greater Moses in the land." 
 
 So ran I till we came to Jezreel, 
 
 And Ahab reined up at his palace door. 
 
178 TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 There in the porch stood Jezebel. The lamps 
 
 Streamed on her tiar of emeralds and gold. 
 
 Her slender form was draped in snowy white 
 
 With delicate lines of saffron. I could see 
 
 That when her smile fell into Ahab's eyes 
 
 His soul died in him, — all the king died down, — 
 
 Leaving the weak voluptuary. She, 
 
 With sweetest accents and a twinkling eye : 
 
 " My lord is weary, and the time has come 
 
 For balmy sleep ; the prophet too hath need- 
 
 Of rest, for he hath had a heavy day." 
 
 The face of Ahab radiated. He strode 
 
 Elate into the palace, thinking, sure, 
 
 That I came after ; and I did assay 
 
 To follow : but when he had passed, she turned ; 
 
 With dextrous, silent motion held the door 
 
 Half shut ; and met me with a sudden change. 
 
 Her face was white with wrath. Like coals of fire 
 
 Flashed her fierce eyes, contracted serpent-like, 
 
 And through clenched teeth her words came hissing, hot : 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 179 
 
 " Hence, miscreant, murderer, hence ; thy hands are red ; 
 
 Thy wolfish face", thy mantle, and thy beard 
 
 Are dripping with the blood of better men 
 
 Than thou. Thou thought'st to hurl me from my seat, 
 
 But I shall teach thee, fool, to dread the wrath 
 
 Of Jezebel. Crouch in some rayless hole, 
 
 Fit for a savage beast, till dawn, and then 
 
 Expect my messenger ; hence, miscreant, hence ! " 
 
 She closed the door and left me with the night. 
 
 I stood astonied, dumb ; to my mouth's roof 
 
 Clung my parched tongue. I looked that the white flame 
 
 Of God's great sword would cleave the clouds again 
 
 And smite the lewd enchantress. All was still, 
 
 Save that the wind moaned, and the rain fell fast. 
 
 Gone from my bosom was the Breath of God 
 
 That bore me up through that tremendous day. 
 
 Down on the sodden ground I grovelled prone, 
 
 And trembled like an infant in the cold. 
 
 Thus passed an hour ; but then my heart revived, 
 
180 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And I bethought me of the clangorous shout 
 Raised by the people when Jehovah showed 
 His might on Carmel. " At the dawn," I said, 
 " Israel will rise with five-score thousand spears, 
 And Jezebel will bow her haughty head 
 Before God's prophet, executing wrath." 
 That moment flapped an owl above my head 
 And hooted. Scarce I marked, but cast my eyes 
 Along the east, and searched the heavens for morn. 
 At the first glimpse of light, I went and stood 
 Upon the road that leads to Jezreel 
 From Carmel. Brightly came the day. The rain 
 Had ceased ; the sky, deep, palpitating, soft, 
 Beamed like a blue eye that had shed its tears. 
 About the doors began to be a hum 
 Of morning sounds, — clear voices and light laughs. 
 I stood and watched ; for surely, thought I, they 
 Will call to mind God's work upon the hill, 
 And look around for him who, yesterday, 
 Called down celestial lightning. But it seemed 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 181 
 
 As if the whole had glided far away 
 
 Into fforgetfulness, like twilight dream. 
 
 I could refrain no longer, but went on 
 
 From group to group, and cried aloud that all 
 
 Who served the God that spake by fire should haste 
 
 To fell the groves of Ashtoreth, and slay 
 
 Her prophets, making thus the work complete. 
 
 They listened reverently, bowed low, and then, 
 
 One" after one, began to make excuse. 
 
 " The rain has come ; thanks be to God for ram ! 
 
 But yet, good lord Elijah, wherefore serves 
 
 The rain unless we prop the drooping vines, 
 
 And lead the flocks to pasture, and put in 
 
 The tender herb to strike in the moist ground ? 
 
 We will complete the work of God, of course ; 
 
 But let us first repair the damage done 
 
 By the long drought a little. Only wait." 
 
 So said they all ; save one, a swarthy man, 
 
 With restless eyes, that sparkled snakishly, 
 
 No child of Israel he, but hither brought 
 
1 82 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 By Jezebel from Sidon in her train. 
 
 Close to my ear he slid and whispered low, 
 
 " Is your Jah yet athirst? That goodly heap 
 
 Of corpses, more than two and twenty score, 
 
 Yielded it not enough of blood to serve 
 
 For two days' drinking? Must again, to-day, 
 
 Fresh victims die ? " I lifted up my hand 
 
 To smite the bold blasphemer on the mouth. 
 
 But he was lithe and nimble, shunned the blow, 
 
 And ran into the city. Then a band, 
 
 A little band, scarce fifty men in all, 
 
 Drew nigh from Carmel. Naboth, thou wast there, 
 
 And thy brave sons, the stripling Jonah, too, 
 
 And some few more. And these alone remained 
 
 From the unnumbered host of yesterday. 
 
 My heart sank utterly. What cared those men 
 
 Whether Jehovah was their God or not? 
 
 If Baal had sent them rain, Baal had they served. 
 
 O Naboth, this is why my heart is sad, 
 
 And why I say the times are black ; because 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 183 
 
 The heart of Israel has forsaken truth 
 
 And rooted into heathen godlessness. 
 
 Upon thy face were tears. But little time 
 
 Was left for solace. From the city gate, 
 
 A horseman, riding swift, approached and reined 
 
 His horse before me. " Unto thee," he said, 
 
 " I come. Queen Jezebel hath sent by me 
 
 Her message. May the everlasting gods, 
 
 Her fathers' and her own, whose dwelling-place 
 
 Is the great sea and the sun's car of flame, 
 
 Do unto her the same, or more, if, ere 
 
 The dawn again shall redden on these hills, 
 
 Thou art not smitten dead." He turned his horse, 
 
 And rode back swiftly, as he came. Save thine, 
 
 Each face grew pale. Thou only liftedst up 
 
 Thy sword, and, standing by my side, didst call, 
 
 With clear, unfaltering voice, upon the men 
 
 Of Israel to stand firm, and trust the might 
 
 Of God and of his prophet. Even then 
 
 Loud rang the trumpet from the town ; we heard 
 
184 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The sound of trampling horses. Suddenly 
 A panic terror shook the little band. 
 They fled confusedly, and with brief farewell 
 We parted, you and I. The widow's son 
 Still held to me. Forth issuing from the town, 
 The horsemen, thinking, doubtless, I had fled 
 Along the way to Carmel, urged their steeds 
 Towards the west. We girded up our loins, 
 The youth and I, and ran until we came 
 To Judah's land ; and there he left me too. 
 I bade him go ; and yet a searching pang 
 Struck torny heart, for was he not the last 
 Of all the mighty throng of yesterday ? 
 
 I could not tarry among living men, 
 So bitterly I yearned to pour my heart 
 Before my God alone. Once more I ran ; 
 By devious paths, up lonely hills, through glens 
 Afar from human footstep ; on, still on. 
 The exulting sun strode grandly to the west, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 185 
 
 And on the radiant heavens lit fantasies 
 Of streaming splendor wildly bright, yet all 
 In tenderest modulation harmonized, 
 Of white and blue and scarlet, curtaining 
 God's azure tent. The pulsing-glory fell 
 Along the world from ruddy hill to hill ; 
 And overhead, in mantling, glittering light, — 
 Millions of waving wings, all crimson flame, — 
 A mightier glory answered it again. 
 Methought that there was music in the heavens. 
 And in that rapture of the earth and sky 
 Which seemed to mock my bitter agony, 
 I fled in speechless anguish. 
 
 On, still on, 
 Till every step and voice of humankind 
 Or lowing cattle, or of bleating sheep, 
 Was far behind, and gaunt the desert stretched 
 Before me. Then upon the naked sand 
 I sank as dead. My stiffening limbs I felt 
 Stone-heavy on the dust. And yet mine eyes 
 
1 86 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Closed not in sleep, but burned like balls of fire, 
 And all my soul was racked with misery. 
 No heaven-sent raven brought me flesh or bread, 
 No friendly woman led me to her house. 
 The night had fallen, and I was desolate ; 
 Companioned by the desert crags, that showed 
 Gray spectral faces in the waning moon. 
 The screech-owl hooted, and the beasts of night 
 Prowled round with hungry glances ; from their caves 
 The satyrs laughed and gibbered. Naboth, then 
 A fearful thought clutched coldly at my heart. 
 It seemed that, in those harsh, discordant sounds, 
 I heard the shriekings of the priests of Baal, 
 Whom I but yesterday had slain. Ah, friend, 
 Filled with God's Breath, the prophet may become 
 Like to the angel armed that holds the sword 
 Of death, and smites the little babe, nor hears ■ 
 The mother's wailings shrill ; but when the Lord 
 Calls back his breath, and leaves his servant weak, 
 Far weaker than before, ah, woe is me ! 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 187 
 
 Then human blood hangs heavy on the hands 
 
 Of mortal men. And I was gentle once ; 
 
 For shepherds commonly are tender men, 
 
 And delicately raise the orphan lambs 
 
 Left by the mothers of the flock, and lay 
 
 Them softly on the bosom. Praised be God, 
 
 I did not charge him foolishly, or ask 
 
 Why he had called me from the folding hills 
 
 And morning softness of my Gilead home. 
 
 It was not I elected to become 
 
 The instrument of his great power. — But no ! — 
 
 Even then I did not question what the" word 
 
 Of Jah had rendered plain. This thing 1 did ; — 
 
 With weeping loud and rending of the hair, 
 
 I prayed that God would let me die, for now 
 
 'Twas plain that I was not the chosen one, 
 
 Like unto Moses, whom the Lord would bring 
 
 To give his people peace, and reunite 
 
 Israel and Judah ; no, 'twas very clear 
 
 That I no better than my fathers was, 
 
1 88 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 As in my foolish vanity I deemed. 
 
 Therefore I prayed, with wringing of my hands 
 
 And rending of my hair, that I might die ; 
 
 And still I prayed, and still the screech-owl's yells, 
 
 And the wolf's snarl, the satyr's horrid laugh, 
 
 Mingled with my loud plaining in the night. 
 
 At last I heard as in a dream when men 
 
 Are weary unto death, and all those sounds 
 
 Sank far away into the hollow dark ; 
 
 And then I knew not, suffered not, for sleep, 
 
 Deep sleep, fell on me, sleep without a dream. 
 
 A grave, sweet melody that floated faint, 
 Farther and farther going ; tremblings soft 
 Of light about mine eyes ; a gentle touch, 
 That thrilled through all my frame : and I awoke. 
 In that same moment, I beheld three forms — 
 Three woman forms, but fairer, clothed in white, 
 With golden harps, and also, as I think, 
 With crowns, but that might be their golden hair — 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 189 
 
 Glide silent up a moss-green hill, where lay 
 A white cloud of the dawn ; they entered in ; 
 A flush of rose-light mantled through its snow, 
 And from that footstool green it floated up, 
 Like morning prayer to heaven. 
 
 The sky was still. 
 Not any pomp of clouds ; a pale white dawn ; 
 Gray dews and films of vapor pearly-blue. 
 Then I was ware of some one near to me ; 
 And as the light all gathers from the sky 
 Into the first pure star that pulses keen, 
 Like a clear eye above the evening hill, 
 So gathered all my soul into my gaze 
 On him ; yes, Naboth, for it was a man, 
 As it might be a shepherd of the hills, 
 Or carpenter, or toil-worn fisherman, 
 A homely man ; and yet an angel ; nay, 
 The Angel of the Covenant himself, 
 The Lord Jehovah. Ask not how I knew ; 
 No prophet knoweth how he knoweth God, 
 
19° THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Or how he knows that God's Breath moveth him. 
 
 I know not how I live, yet cannot doubt 
 
 That here I am. The light that showeth God 
 
 Burns up both doubt and proof, as the full sun 
 
 Quencheth both moon and stars in blaze of day. 
 
 Silent and wondering I gazed r and low 
 
 Within my bosom whispered pride : " Now list, 
 
 This Man will mysteries unfold, and tell, 
 
 In words like those which angels hear in heaven 
 
 With bended brows while all the skies are mute, 
 
 What mean the dreadful dealings of these days, 
 
 And justify the ways of God to me 
 
 His prophet." This he said, " Arise and eat." , 
 
 Upon a smooth rock at my side I saw 
 
 A baken cake, a little water cruse. 
 
 I ate, I drank. He spake no other word : 
 
 But, as I ate, soft stealing through my frame, 
 
 An infinite of solacement and rest 
 
 Possessed my soul ; my temples ceased to throb ; 
 
 The fever left my brow and hand ; new life, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 191 
 
 In finest tinglings, thrilled through all my frame. 
 
 Oft have I seen in Gilead's vales a flock 
 
 Careering with loud cries and bounding wild 
 
 O'er crag and into torrent, frantic made 
 
 By some fierce terror of the wood ; and then, 
 
 When they beheld their shepherd, heard his voice, 
 
 They gathered silently about his feet, 
 
 And lay down placid there and went to sleep. 
 
 So all my raging, wandering thoughts came home 
 
 To this Man's feet, his presence folding them 
 
 In perfect safety and in sweet content. 
 
 I knew all now, all I behoved to know. 
 
 God could-match Jezebel ; the world would stand 
 
 On sure foundations, and the lustrous heavens 
 
 Glow in calm splendor, though Elijah rent 
 
 His hair and fretted like an angry child. 
 
 All I had really wanted I had got, 
 
 A draught of water and a piece of bread. 
 
 The Breath of God descended yet again 
 
192 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And led me on along the desert waste 
 
 For many days, till Horeb's forehead gaunt, 
 
 With gray peaks diademed and tressed with cloud, 
 
 Sprang from the hot sand into middle air. 
 
 There, in a caverned gorge that pierced the hill, 
 
 Near to the summit, was I placed, to wait 
 
 The hour of revelation : soon it came. 
 
 From that high cleft methought that I beheld 
 The world and all its glory at my feet. 
 Men built them palaces of joy and hope, 
 Fair as the exhalations of the dawn. 
 Slim pinnacles, aerially poised, 
 Brightened the sunlight with their liquid gems. 
 The fronts, the arches, gables, gleamed and glowed 
 With delicatest wreaths of carven stone 
 Ai ranged in subtle-sweet imagining, 
 Loveliest forms and colors, lily-blooms 
 And tendrilled vines, and neck of dove and limb 
 Of mountain fawn, and princely human shapes. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 193 
 
 The morning light moved slowly, lovingly, 
 Amid that beauty, which it kissed to blush 
 Of melting iridescence ; then it stole 
 Through trellised windows into pictured halls, 
 Pure ivory corridors and vistas long, 
 Where its white beam fell, shattering gloriously, 
 On silver tissue, cloth of gold, and silk 
 Of varying sheen, and sparkling jewellery, 
 Keen diamond, ruby warm, and emerald. 
 With costliest odors swooned the enchanted air. 
 But in the secret chambers shrines were lit 
 To Belial ; and the pictures on the wall 
 Were cunning ministries to demon lusts, 
 The foes of God and man ; and blasphemy 
 Was wafted in the music as it stole 
 From room to room ;, and men went languidly, 
 All virtue lost, all manhood's strength relaxed, 
 In dissolute pallor and voluptuous sin. 
 
 Then as I looked, a sudden, rushing wind, 
 13 
 
.194 - THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 A mighty wind, that rent the affrighted air, 
 Smote all those sun-gilt palaces, and swept 
 Their pageantry away like shrivelling films 
 Of painted gossamer at early morn. 
 
 But when the wind had passed, men rose and reared 
 A stabler masonry. Foundation-stones 
 Of adamant, with iron clamped, were set 
 Deep in the rocky framework of the world. 
 The strength of hills — great fronts of precipice, 
 Taking the light in broad resplendent gleams — 
 Cornice of crag, and splintered pinnacles 
 Of perdurable granite. Beauty smiled 
 Upon the face of strength ; and men, elate, 
 Wrote everlasting on their battlements. 
 And were they better, were they happier ? 
 Woe never left their eyes, and in their hearts 
 Was rooted scorn for God, and bitter-cold 
 And cruel selfishness to brother men. 
 For Belial's melting strains, the grating sound 
 
TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 195- 
 
 Of Moloch's torture-engines. Vanity 
 
 Shrank down, but pride stood up, the deadlier sin. 
 
 And thus I knew God was not in the wind'; 
 
 Then, like a deep thunder heard afar, a groan 
 Burst from the bosom of the mournful earth, 
 And shook her, as in spasm of mortal shame, 
 That quivered to her utmost mountain-tops. 
 With one tremendous crash the city fell. 
 The opening earth closed quick on tottering towers 
 And living men, then yawned and closed again. 
 Long rents and ghastly chasms broke wide, and showed 
 The couch of fire beneath, where wrinkling coiled 
 The dragon Earthquake. Shrieks of pain arose, 
 Mad cries of fright and yells of agony. 
 But not one heavenly visitant was there : 
 No soft-voiced pity, no sweet human love, 
 No selfless fortitude or faithfulness, 
 No pure religion, bowing low the head, 
 To take the stroke in meek humility : 
 
196 TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Men fought for lucre in the earthquake's jaws, 
 And Murder stalked abroad with reeking knife, 
 And through the dusk two spectral phantoms loomed, 
 In grisly conflict hideously opposed, 
 Fool Superstition, maniac Blasphemy. 
 God was not in the earthquake. 
 
 Then I saw 
 On every mountain peak a tongue of flame, 
 And from the mass of ruins, vibrating 
 With th' earthquake's throes, fierce conflagration broke. 
 Slow burned the quenchless flame, — down, clown, — until 
 It reached the bones of men, and sent its sting 
 Into the heart. They gnawed their tongues for pain, 
 But, while they gnawed them, cursed their God aloud, 
 And turned with frantic passion to invent 
 New forms of sin, more exquisitely bad 
 In poisonous death to all humanity, 
 And subtler blasphemy that yearned intense 
 To spit its venom in God's face and die. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 197 
 
 " Woe's me," I wept ; "He is not in the fire." 
 
 Long, long I gazed in sad astonishment 
 Upon the broad field of the mournful world ; 
 At last, I knew not wherefore, did mine eye 
 Fix upon One that moved among the crowds 
 In homely raiment clad ; a few poor men 
 Followed him, half-ashamed ; then more intense 
 Became my gaze, for now I knew 'twas he 
 Who gave me of the water and the bread. 
 His words were very simple. " Love your God, 
 And love your brother ; speak the truth ; admit 
 No compromise with evil. Choose the right, 
 With poverty, with death, with social shame. 
 Ye cannot be, at once, alive and dead. 
 Possess in quietness the gifts of God, 
 The corn, the purple grape. Have faith in him, 
 And take his light as lily of the field. 
 Seek ye no joy that is your own alone, 
 Or strikes a pang to any sentient thing. 
 
io- 8 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Be thine the victor-thrill when evil sinks 
 Transfixed by good, to rise transformed. Believe 
 In me, the way, the truth, the life ; in me, 
 The power, the light, the love ; in present God, 
 Revealed as Kindness. I am Christ, the King 
 Of Israel and of man." I heard amazed ; 
 Yet, dimly syllabled within my heart, 
 The prayer arose that he indeed might reign 
 Upon Mount Zion : he, so winning- wise, 
 So gently just ; strong, too, I thought, to quell 
 His people's foes. Great David's battle-arm, 
 With Solomon's calm brow and sovereign eye, 
 Would meet in him ; the heathen he would smite 
 Until they owned his sway, and all the earth 
 Would ring with hymns of praise to Israel's God. 
 
 So mused I, lying there in vivid trance, 
 And, as I mused, forgot, the while, to look 
 Upon the vision. 
 
 Suddenly the air 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 199 
 
 Was rent with clamors and upbraidings loud. 
 
 " Thou Israel's King ! Thou fellow ! Where thy crown, 
 
 Thy sceptre ? Where thy sword of fire to burn 
 
 The wicked, and to pierce the hearts of all 
 
 Our enemies and thine ? " They gnashed their teeth 
 
 In hissing fury ; - rushed on him with yells 
 
 Of frantic anger, scourged him, bound a crown 
 
 Of thorns about his brow, then thrust him forth 
 
 And nailed him to a tree ; and I beheld 
 
 His white face in the twilight, moist with dew 
 
 Of lingering agony ; but through the pain 
 
 Love glowed ineffable, arid overcame. 
 
 Around the cro.ss, with cries of scorn and hate, 
 
 Weltered a rancorous crowd, that mocked and laughed. 
 
 His lip moved faintly, and these accents came : 
 
 " Father, forgive ; they know not what they do." 
 
 A still small voice, and spoken low in pain ; 
 
 A human voice, and yet as full of God 
 
 As the white heaven where stands the Eternal Throne. 
 
 Yes, God was in the voice. 
 
200 TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 He bowed his head, 
 And hung, a lifeless form, upon the tree. 
 And round that form, methought that I beheld, 
 In adamantine pride and scornful hate, 
 The principalities and powers of earth, 
 The mighty idols that have blinded men, 
 Tier above tier, in ranged hierarchies, 
 Nations majestic in their sceptred pride, 
 Armies whose trumpets spoke the law o' th' world. 
 All scowled defiance on that pallid form. 
 It seemed the frailest thing, as there it hung, 
 Between the stars of God and graves of men, 
 The frailest thing in all this universe. — 
 Then in the vision, many, many years, 
 By centuries, by thousands, rolled away ; 
 And toning, toning on, in spheric chime, 
 That still small voice made melody divine ; 
 And one by one those idols from their thr6nes 
 Fell, crumbling into dust. And one by one 
 Those nations failed like sere leaves of the wood ; 
 
THE HAYS OF JEZEBEL. 201 
 
 Those armies slumbered in a stony sleep. 
 
 The cycles of the world were long, the ear 
 
 Of man was heavy, but the still small voice 
 
 Went sounding, sounding on immortally. 
 
 A thousand years were short for men to catch 
 
 One of its tones ; they learned the simplest last. 
 
 And often they that loudliest named the name 
 
 Of him that hung upon the tree, did most 
 
 To drown that voice ; and many woe-worn men, 
 
 And tender, tremulous women, died in fire, 
 
 Half-conscious that a smile fell through the smoke 
 
 Upon them from the Cross, and that the words 
 
 Which the priests gnashed at, howling " blasphemy " 
 
 And " infidelity," were truer far 
 
 To the deep melody of that small voice 
 
 Than chants that rolled and rang in choral peal 
 
 Through proud cathedrals. Ah, methought that Form 
 
 Writhed on the cross as host met host in clash 
 
 Of internecine fury, echoing each 
 
 The name of Christ ; and Christian kings knelt down 
 
202 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 To wring the heart's blood to the latest drop 
 
 From anguish-smitten nations, and then turned 
 
 White eyes of grateful homage on that Form. 
 
 Slowly, so slowly i in the human heart 
 
 Died the base worship of brute iron strength, 
 
 But yet it died at last, to live no more. 
 
 First war was waged for justice, then for peace ; 
 
 And one, the youngest, freest of the nations, 
 
 Having made war on war with courage high 
 
 And costliest sacrifice of wealth and blood, 
 
 Resolute that the plains of her new world 
 
 Should not be drenched in perpetuity 
 
 By blood of striving peoples, but should be 
 
 A realm fraternal, federal, held the sword 
 
 With which she conqtiered for mankind, to heaven. 
 
 Untarnished by one drop of blood outpoured 
 
 After the conflict. Slowly came the dawn, 
 
 With many flaws of storm and blots of night, 
 
 But yet the radiance grew, the darkness failed ; 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 203 
 
 And, gradual, all the voices upon earth 
 
 Were modulated to the still small voice ; 
 
 And all the human faces became touched 
 
 With love-light beaming from the Crucified. 
 
 He had drawn mankind upward unto him, 
 
 And men, renewed, became indeed as God, 
 
 Not only knowing sin, but hating it, — 
 
 Not only knowing good, but loving it. 
 
 And yet, and yet, the vision was most strange, 
 
 Or past my comprehending ; where, I thought, 
 
 The pearly gates, the diamond citadels, 
 
 The golden gleams on vestments white, the crowns, 
 
 Of Shiloh's realm ? The lilies of the field 
 
 No fairer were than erst. The orient pearls, 
 
 That gemmed the world, were but the dews of morn ; 
 
 The blue sky palpitated not more soft 
 
 Than over Gilead in my youth. The change 
 
 Was in the human faces ; they were bright 
 
 With the glow of heaven, and this ambition reigned, 
 
204 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 This only in all bosoms, that from earth 
 
 One hymn of praise to God, one anthem pure, 
 
 The universal smile in music voiced, 
 
 Without the discord of a single pang, , 
 
 Should rise melodious to the wondering stars. 
 
 For man, divined by Christ, found joy divine 
 
 In mitigating anguish. Nor alone 
 
 For man had misery's. moaning given place 
 
 To joy's great music ; he had learned to feel 
 
 The tenderness of righteous sovereignty, 
 
 And over all the creatures exercised 
 
 A rule that gave them amplest happiness 
 
 Within their being's limits. Then men laughed 
 
 To think of those black times when foolishly 
 
 Their fathers deemed that setting armed heel 
 
 On foeman's neck was half so fine a joy 
 
 As to raise up his drooping form and kiss 
 
 His cheek and brow ; that lordship, sceptred rank, 
 
 Or pomp, or pride, could yield so rich a wine 
 
 Of rapture as the blush of opening flowers. 
 
THE DATS -OF JEZEBEL. 205 
 
 The frosted silver of the lily's cup, 
 Or mantling crimson of the mountain rose, 
 Or, finer essence still, tear-softened smile 
 On happy face, lit up with gratitude 
 To those who bless it. 
 
 But what more, I learned 
 Ask me not. Incommunicable thoughts 
 Rolled o'er my mind, and questions mystical : 
 How joy, the radiant child, should aye be born 
 Of. woe, the death-struck mother. Yon fire-heart, 
 The ever-burning sun, preys on itself 
 Perpetually ; and yet its burning gives 
 Delight and beauty to the world, its eye 
 Of sweet effulgence to the dew, its crown 
 Of forest to the mountain, grass for food 
 To cattle, corn and wine and palm to man. 
 And is it possible that the joy-heart 
 Of all the universe of life, which sends 
 Its mighty pulse through everything that feels, 
 Should be the Christ in pain? Ah, Naboth, now 
 
2o6 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 I know why David, smiting foes of Jah, 
 Slaying the Philistine, and pouring out 
 Fierce anger upon Rabbah, could not be 
 .The builder of the temple. Now I know 
 The blood I shed on Kishon's stones was far 
 Less blest an offering to God than cup 
 Of water given- to a thirsty child. 
 The innocent that suffers, he it is 
 Who in the Lord's great battle takes the prize. 
 Elect to suffer is elect to save. 
 And he will shine more brightly in the ring, 
 The starry ring of souls arrayed in white, 
 Arrayed in white and bearing golden harps, 
 That stand around the Throne for evermore, 
 Who, overwhelmed by dominant wrong, is slain 
 With shame, with violence, than he who goes 
 From life victorious, nor knows death at all, 
 Rapt in the chariots of God to heaven. 
 Naboth. 
 Where is my lord Elijah ? It did seem 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL 207 
 
 His eye was lifted, after but a pause, 
 To bid me mark the sequel. Now, behold ! 
 I am alone. And howls the weary wind 
 That doth precede the dawn ; howls dolefully, 
 With voice of lamentation. White mists float 
 From all the valleys, covering the hills, 
 Like to a linen cloth drawn gently up * 
 Over the face of one that lieth'dead. 
 
 Scene II. Jezreel. The Place of Public Worship 
 and Assembly. The whole congregation; the El- 
 ders on seats above the rest; Naboth in the highest 
 seat of all. 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 Our brother Naboth, known unto us well 
 For valiant soldiership and many deeds 
 Of kindness to the poor, and honored now 
 By special mandate of the king to hold 
 
 * Mr. Tennyson, I think, uses this image somewhere. 
 
208 s T-BE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The highest place in this our solemn Fast, 
 Will take the Book and read to us the Law 
 Delivered us by Moses, man of God. 
 NabotJi. 
 Fathers and brethren, in the Book Divine 
 The Lord hath written, by his servant's hand : — 
 " Thou shalt not sell this land for evermore. 
 The land is mine. Ye are my stranger guests, 
 My sojourners : " and yet again 'tis writ : — 
 " No man shall yield his own inheritance 
 To man of other kin ; but every one 
 That is of Israel shall keep his land 
 Within the circle of his native tribe." 
 Fathers and brethren, shall I, reverently, 
 Ask why our God hath given us this strict charge 
 To keep our heritage and sell it not ? 
 Is it that vi e may lift our brows in pride 
 As lords of land ? Our God abhorretii pride. 
 Is it to close the founts of charity 
 And frank good-will, that would oblige a friend 
 
TEE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 209 
 
 Or neighbor, who might much desire our land ? 
 
 Jehovah doth detest the churlish soul. 
 
 Our words, our deeds, our lands, our life itself 
 
 He willeth us to hold, not for ourselves, 
 
 But for the common benefit and joy. 
 
 This is the cause why none may sell his land : — 
 
 Our Lord is gracious and compassionate ; 
 
 His justice, from its equal wings outspread 
 
 In blessing o'er the land, sheds dews of love ; 
 
 And he would have us nestle to our homes 
 . And hold them as our special gift from him ; 
 
 So that while, gliding by our pleasant hills, 
 The quiet waters linger in our vales, 
 While breaks the scarlet gleam of many flowers, 
 In dazzling sheen, beneath the sky of spring, 
 While lilies blow, while olives bear their fruit, 
 While vine-leaves cling about the cottage porch, 
 Their voices shall be ever in our ears, 
 As of a thousand angel witnesses, 
 In delicate'acclaim, reminding us 
 
2IO THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Of our dear Father's kindness. It may be 
 
 That other lands bear statelier crowns of palm, 
 
 More wealth of yellow corn, and lordlier bloom 
 
 Of flowers resplendent ; but could any be 
 
 So sweet to us, so moving to our hearts, 
 
 So musical with tenderest memories, 
 
 As the dear land that we have always known ; 
 
 The fig-tree up to which our mothers held 
 
 Our little hands, when we were in their arms ? 
 
 The very vine from which, with trembling joy, 
 
 We culled a cluster ere we went, at eve, 
 
 To see the maiden of our earliest love ? 
 
 Ah, no ! Our Father knoweth that no place 
 
 Can tell so much of him as home — What now? 
 
 \_Commotion among the people. Two men press 
 through, making their way with an appearance of 
 great agitation to the raised seats of the Elders. 
 They face Naboth, and one of them cries aloud.'] 
 
 First son of Belial. 
 " What now ? " Come down, exalted infamy, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 21 1 
 
 Come down, thou pale hypocrisy, thy guilt 
 
 Already whitens thy false face. Let me, . 
 
 Fathers and brethren, from the holy Book 
 
 Read words more meet for Naboth's lying lip 
 
 Than those he read erewhile. 'Tis written thus : 
 
 " He that blasphemeth God's most holy name 
 
 Shall die the death ; the congregation all 
 
 Shall stone him." Naboth, thou art a blasphemer 
 
 Against God and the king ! My friend, good Peleg, 
 
 And I were walking, three days back, at eve 
 
 Beside his house, this Naboth's. Him we saw, 
 
 And heard with perfect clearness, for, ye know, 
 
 The vineyards of the terrace on the hill 
 
 Hang o'er and almost touch his wall. Of course 
 
 He neither heard nor saw us as we sat 
 
 Behind the screening vine-wreaths. We beheld 
 
 Him and a heathen guest, we know not whom, 
 
 In confidential. colloquy ; and when 
 
 The evening sank, and all was very still, 
 
 And he believed that no true Israelite 
 
212 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Heard what he said ; he told that heathen man, 
 With vaunting words and gestures arrogant, , 
 That he had bearded and defied the king, 
 Even King Ahab, and that, as for him, 
 He feared no God whatever, Jab. or Baal, 
 But made a show of pious exercise 
 And spoke in reverent phrases, because thus 
 Alone a man could lead a quiet life 
 Among the Hebrews, prone beyond all folk 
 To tyrannies of slavish superstition. 
 And then the heathen grinned, and gave the hand 
 To Naboth, and they drank great draughts of wine, 
 And cursed the king and God, and laughed aloud. 
 I ask thee, Peleg, is not this the truth ? 
 Second son of Belial. 
 
 The words which thou hast spoken are the truth. 
 The jirst of the Elders. 
 
 Naboth, what dost thou answer ? Thou may'st speak. 
 Naboth. 
 
 What should I answer ? Come around me, sons, 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 213 
 
 As we have stood together in the fray. 
 
 I can butsay that I am innocent 
 
 Of these great sins. The honor hath been mine — 
 
 I thank the Highest for it — with my shield 
 
 To guard my sovereign's head in fight. The men 
 
 Who noW accuse me know that this is true. 
 
 Why should I, then, speak treason, or revile 
 
 My lord the king ? As for the other charge, 
 
 The deadlier blasphemy, if ye, my friends, 
 
 Elders and brethren of my town, to whom 
 
 Is known my going out and coming in, 
 
 Can deem that the white witness of my brow 
 
 Is not truth's healthful word, but leprosy 
 
 Attesting guilt profane, my lips could shape 
 
 No argument of force to change your thought. 
 
 The Lord Jehovah dealeth wondrously 
 
 With Naboth and his house. But if his smile 
 
 Fell warm upon us many years, 'tis meet 
 
 That when the cloud of this great agony 
 
 Curtains day's sky with black, we trust, him still. 
 
214 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 In death's dark valley we shall hear his voice, 
 And he will lead us unto pastures green, 
 Where living waters flow for evermore. 
 And standing here between the life and death, 
 We give him earnest thanks that never one 
 Of Naboth's house hath bent the knee to Baal. 
 We thank him, too, for this, that unto me 
 It was vouchsafed that I, a free-man born, 
 Subject to Israel's God and Israel's law, 
 Should vindicate that law against the king, 
 And, with the law, the people's liberty, 
 Refusing to yield up my heritage. 
 Nay, start not, Milchi ; hear me to the end. 
 I see it written on thy quailing face 
 That well thou knowest what, ere many days, 
 All Israel will know, that we are slain, 
 By wicked plot, to feed the ravenous spite 
 Of Jezebel, and crush a Hebrew man 
 Who dared to stand erect before his king 
 On earth, appealing to his King in heaven. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 215 
 
 Oh how, even in this death-black hour, the thought, 
 
 That I have always stood with those who faced 
 
 In truceless opposition Jezebel, 
 
 Comes like a mighty angel sent from God 
 
 To give me comfort. Oh, consoling joy, 
 
 To know that she will never set her foot 
 
 On Naboth's neck until she tread on clay ! 
 
 We die free Israelites, but, Gershom, you 
 
 And Milchi live as slave, the basest slaves, 
 
 Who murder at command. 
 
 Milchi. 
 
 I needs must speak, 
 Though much averse to even seem to deal 
 Harshly with Naboth. But by words like these — 
 Cast out in. wholesale random accusation 
 Of high and low, from Jezebel the queen 
 To my poor harmless self — by words, I say, 
 Of venomed slander and of loud conceit, 
 As if he only were true Israelite, 
 And as if seemliness and gratitude 
 
216 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Did not require from men of Jezreel 
 Respect for that august and liberal queen, 
 To whom the city owes so much, — by these 
 He but suggests what I would fain have held 
 For quite impossible, that he is not 
 - Prepared to meet by counter-evidence 
 The charge which we have heard.. 'Tis not his place — 
 I beg that he will let me say as much — 
 To teach chief elder Gershom and myself 
 Our duty, and 'tis monstrous even to hint 
 That justice hath been tampered with by us. 
 But the main point is this. He hath been bid 
 To answer to a clearly worded charge 
 Of import terrible, but most precise. 
 He wanders into sweeping calumnies, 
 Such as we cannot and we dare not hear. 
 I firmly call him, therefore, to the point. 
 Naboth. 
 God be our help ! I speak no other word. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 217 
 
 Chief Elder {after a -pause). 
 This ostentatious silence I regret. 
 I hoped, with my good brother Milchi here, 
 That Naboth, whom we all were wont to love, 
 Would state some fact, — but one, — to break the proof 
 So circumstantially laid before us 
 By two sworn witnesses. They say a man 
 Was with him on his roof at eventide 
 Three days ago. Can he explicitly 
 Declare that no such man was there, and bring 
 Either some valid witness, or adduce 
 Some well-attested circumstance, to prove 
 His declaration true ? He shakes his head. 
 I grieve most bitterly. But are there two, 
 Or, to stretch forms of law for justice' sake, 
 Is there even one, in all this crowd, to swear, 
 Of his or her own knowledge, that these men, 
 Naboth's accusers, at the place and hour 
 Which they have specified, were otherwhere ? 
 I pause for a reply. 
 
3l8 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Woe worth the day ! 
 There is no answer ! Naboth's guilt is plain. 
 The law must have its course, and — for I hear 
 Some of the common people murmuring — 
 Let there be no delay ; away with him ! 
 
 \_A commotion in the assembly. A loud voice heard. 
 Heman, endeavoring to make his way to the raised 
 seats, sfieaks.~\ 
 
 Heman. 
 
 Help, all true Israelites ; these Elders, false 
 
 To God and to the people and themselves, 
 
 Are murdering the best man in Jezreel : 
 
 Naboth is victim of some cursed plot, 
 
 Some devilish lie — 
 
 Milchi. 
 
 This is insufferable. 
 
 Friend Heman, peace ! Your wanderings on the hills 
 
 Have heated your imagination, till you see 
 
 No solid world around you, but a whirl 
 
 Of your wild dreams and fancies. 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL.. 219 
 
 Heman. 
 
 Milchi, down 
 Upon thy face and eat the dust, God's grant 
 To thee and other serpents ! Hypocrite, 
 Blandest and sweetest, plausiblest and worst, 
 In all the land of Israel — 
 
 Chief Elder. 
 
 Officers, 
 Drive this rude fellow forth ! He well deserves 
 Chastisement stern ; but any one may see 
 That he is light of head, and we do wish 
 To deal in every case with gentleness. 
 
 [Heman is hustled from the hall The officers then 
 seize Naboth and his sons and hurry them to execu- 
 tion^ 
 
 Scene III. A hill-side. 
 Heman alone. 
 Heman. 
 O God of Israel, how it wrung the heart 
 
220 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 To see him as the stones came hurtling thick ! 
 
 Himself he had forgotten utterly, and faced 
 
 Death with unflinching eye. But when he saw 
 
 His innocent boys about him smitten hard, 
 
 The red blood springing on their white young brows, 
 
 Nature overmastered him, he clamored loud, 
 
 And wildly held his arms and face between, 
 
 To meet the stones and shield them, till he fell. 
 
 Shame on the earth that opened not her jaws 
 
 To hurry down his murderers to hell ! 
 
 Shame, tenfold shame, upon my countrymen 
 
 That saw him perish ! Israel is lost ; 
 
 Baseness and cowardice and godlessness 
 
 Have eaten out its heart. I can but weep. 
 
ACT V. 
 
 Scene I. T%e garden of the Palace at Jezreel. 
 Ahab and Jezebel 
 
 Ahab. 
 rES, that will do. A road can softly bend 
 Round yonder swell, and so approach the house: 
 The ground, I hear, takes kindly to all sorts 
 Of useful herbs, far kindlier than that 
 Which thus we rescue, leaving free the space 
 Beneath our palace windows for the sweep 
 Of one pure curve in undulation fine, 
 Tree leading tree, sward brightening into flowers, 
 Flowers melting modestly again to green, 
 In placid breadth of beauty. Not till now 
 Did I dare hope that all the high-toned joy, 
 Which the eye, educated to a sense of form 
 
 221 
 
222 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 And hue in landscape, woos into the soul, 
 Could glad me looking from my palace white 
 O'er the sweet hills and plains of Jezreel. 
 Jezebel. 
 Ay, and to whom does Ahab owe all this ? 
 Not only that she flung the froward slave, 
 Who barred his path, like carrion 'neath his wheel, 
 But that in princely Sidon, long ago, 
 She showed him what was beauty? Say, lord, 
 When Argive kings and chiefs desire to send 
 A present unto one they honor most 
 Or dearliest love, whether a woven robe, 
 Of colors blended like the rose and snow 
 Of morning's earliest blush, or goodly vase 
 Of silver, lipped with gold, and of a form 
 Compared with which, in beauty's pricelessness, 
 The silver and the gold were nothing worth, 
 Where do they seek it? 
 
 Ahab. 
 
 Oh, I know ; but now 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 223 
 
 This Jezreel will be Sidon ; will it not, 
 
 Mine irresistible ? — Hush ! look you there — 
 
 A cold pang thrills me through from head to heel — 
 
 It is Elijah. 
 
 Elijah. 
 King of Israel, 
 Give ear unto my words. Thus saith the Lord : 
 Hast thou done murder, and so speedily 
 Taken possession ? Doth the innocent blood 
 Not speak to Me against thee from the ground ? 
 I will bring evil on thee and thy house. 
 Thy branch shall wither. Him of Ahab's name 
 That dieth in the city dogs shall eat, 
 And him that falleth in the field the fowls 
 Shall tear ; and in the place where Naboth fell 
 The dogs shall dip their tongues in Ahab's blood. 
 
 yezebel. 
 Thou haggard, rude, and frenzy-tainted man, 
 How dar'st thou thus insult thy lord, the king? 
 
224 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Elijah. 
 I have a message, Jezebel, for thee. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 For me ? — I do defy thee and thy Jah : 
 Begone, or slaves shall whip thee from the place, 
 A public scorn. 
 
 Elijah. 
 Cease raging, Jezebel. 
 I see the quivering of thy livid lip 
 And thy cowed eye ; the Light that, speaks from mine 
 Hath quelled thee. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 Nay, presume not thou too far ; 
 But, — for I see the king is moved, — I will 
 Consent to reason with thee. Tell me, then, 
 Why, from the first, when I was young and came 
 From mine own people and my land to be 
 The Queen of Israel, cherishing the wish, 
 Dear as an infant growing 'neath my heart, 
 That my adopted country should rejoice 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 225 
 
 And prosper in my reign, thou didst assay 
 To do me wrong, to thwart me, to o'erthrow 
 The gods I worship ? 
 
 Elijah. 
 Because, from the first, 
 Thou, Queen of Israel, madest it thine aim 
 To quench the nation's vital spark, to kill 
 That which is Israel's soul, inbreathed from heaven ; 
 To change the Hebrew worshipper of One, 
 A Spirit, infinite, invisible, 
 Into a heathen bowing reckless down 
 To many things called gods. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 
 Thou knowest well 
 In the beginning we allowed the rite 
 Of Israel's God, demanding nothing more 
 Than that great Baal and radiant Ashtoreth 
 Should be supremely honored. 
 Elijah. 
 
 To consent 
 
226 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 To this, on part of any Israelite, 
 Had been the deadliest treason. 
 yezebel. 
 
 Is it thou, 
 Thou only, then,, that knowest what is due 
 From Israel's children to their land, their law, 
 And their Jehovah ? Did not Solomon 
 ' Build unto Jah a house and serve him well ? 
 Was not his prayer for wisdom ? Was not he 
 The wisest deemed of all the race of men ? 
 Yet did he not, in ripeness of his years, 
 Cast glances round of genial sympathy 
 To neighboring monarchs ? Did he not permit 
 The gods of all the nations to be shrined 
 Upon Mount Zion ? Did he not relax 
 The iron rigor of your Sinai law, 
 Embathe his soul in beauty's dewy gleam, 
 Encourage dance and song, and own the might, 
 Ay and the right, above all rules morose, 
 Of passion tempesting the human breast? 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 227 
 
 Hard prophet, hast thou never heard of love, 
 That thou shouldst fiercely hate my Ashtoreth, 
 And call the joy with which she fills the frame, 
 Till the brain reels, and the bliss, piercing sweet, 
 Flutters upon the brink of madness, when 
 The lit grove wavers in the midnight dance, 
 Mere fervor lewd of harlot-priestesses ? 
 Wise Solomon knew better ; but it seems 
 That we are wiser now than David's son. 
 Elijah. 
 In his last years the throne of Solomon 
 Seemed to the general eye to stand secure, 
 But Nathan, Gad, and all the prophets knew 
 That he had left the Strength of Israel, 
 And that his pride, though casting to the sky 
 Its branching splendors like a cedar tall, 
 Covered a heart of tomb-like hollowness. 
 His duty and his glory as a king, — 
 To tend his people as the flock of God 
 Committed to his keeping, — to protect 
 
228 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 The poor man's right, — to fill the reservoirs 
 Of justice, and conduct its healing streams 
 In many channels throughout all the land, — 
 To swell the multitude of happy homes, — 
 To garner up the love of grateful hearts, — 
 To lend to prudence, truth, and fortitude, 
 To temperance, chastity, and uprightness, 
 To all the virtues that make nations whole 
 And prosperous and glad and peaceable, 
 The winning majesty and gracious charm 
 Breathed from the face of a beloved king, — 
 All this — the finest joy of kingliness — 
 He had forgotten ; courting, in its stead, 
 A surface-glitter, false and valueless, 
 Magnificence not rooted in the soil, 
 Fantastic, brought from far, an alien show ; 
 Vying in earthly grandeur with the thrones 
 Of heathen monarchs, negligent of all 
 The jewels set by God in David's crown. 
 Therefore the wisest erst of living men 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 229 
 
 Became a dotard, sated,*listless, worn, 
 Of clouded eye and rambling utterance, 
 In dozing indolence unheedful all 
 If God or Baal were worshipped ; lapped in dream 
 That lies and truth are much about the same, — 
 That souls can feed on poison as on bread, — 
 That love, which, glowing in the rudest hut, 
 Turns stone and wood and clay to starry gold, 
 A heavenly lamp to suit the heavenly flame, 
 Is all the same as lusfs enchantment foul 
 Within the tainted groves of Ashtoreth, — 
 That beauty— 
 
 yezebel. 
 What do Hebrews know of beauty ? 
 Thy words are words of puffed-up Ignorance, 
 Which, rolling eyeballs blind as stones around, 
 Swears that there is no fretted jewel-work 
 Of sparkling fire upon the midnight sky, 
 No golden rain when trailing clouds at eve 
 Pass o'er the sea between you and the sun, 
 
230 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 No flower, no emerald grass, no plumy palm, 
 Nothing but uniformity of rock, 
 Black, changeless, hard, yet not so iron-hard 
 As the law frowning from its grisly brow. 
 Elijah. 
 
 Error and falsehood are of myriad kinds, 
 The Right is one for ever. Upon truth 
 Rests worship ; upon law reposes love ; 
 And beauty dwells with purity alone : 
 The real these ; the shows are million-fold. 
 Jezebel. 
 
 Thy rigid uniformity is death. 
 Show me two stars upon the crown of night 
 That shed the self-same ray ; two virgin flowers, 
 Though growing on one stem, alike in all ; 
 Two waves like-tinted in their gold and green ; 
 Two human faces featured in one mould ; 
 Two seasons of the year that wear the same 
 Embroidery of leaf and blade. 'Tis change, 
 Leaping in freedom, scorning all restraint, 
 And mocking at the wrinkled, back-bent crone. 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 23 1 
 
 Law, limping after ; 'tis variety, 
 Exulting in gay freakishness of will, 
 That nature loves. Even passion has its hour, 
 As well as tame domestic love ; you put 
 Snow-hearted Winter for the throbbing Spring. 
 Elijah. 
 Variety is infinite as He 
 Of whom it is the reflex ; lawlessness 
 Is the code of hell. Around the central truth, 
 That God is one, cluster all kindred truths, 
 All kindred beauties, and all kindred loves, 
 In varying splendor, gracious and benign, 
 Stem, branch, and dewy leaf, and flower and fruit, 
 Around one temple-porch, a-climb to heaven. 
 Love has a voice as varied as if each 
 Particular star upon the firmament 
 Were a melodious bird of varying tune : 
 'Tis lust that narrows man, and puts the heart 
 Of beast within his frame, and a brute man 
 Is ever worst and loathsomest of brutes. 
 Beauty and joy are countless in their modes 
 
332 THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 As the lights twinkling on a wood when shines 
 Clear noontide after rain, and mighty wind 
 Tosses the leaves. The truth makes beautiful ; 
 The truth makes free ; the truth makes glad ; the truth 
 Makes happy, healthy, holy. Tainted worse 
 Than air of sepulchres, or flitting hues, 
 Wan yellow flames, and lights of livid green, 
 That haunt the naked corpse whose unclosed eyes 
 ■Yearn for the kindly hiding of the grave, 
 Is that which, in the name of Ashtoreth, 
 Thou callest love and beauty. 
 
 yezebel. 
 
 Hard to bear 
 Such words of insolence ! Yet tell me this : 
 Is arrogance a virtue ? Hast thou heard 
 That there is sin in pride ? Why, then, do ye, 
 The Hebrews, sole among the nations spread 
 Upon the equal breast of mother earth, 
 Exclude all gods except your own ? deny 
 That other gods exist? refuse to share 
 The general harmony, and to extend 
 
TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 233 
 
 That courteous tolerance to neighbor gods, 
 Which neighbor peoples do not grudge to yours ? 
 Elijah. 
 A nation shall be true unto itself: 
 An alien life means falsity and death. 
 No place, no name, no right to land or life 
 Hath Israel save as chosen by the Lord 
 To testify for him : to set the fact 
 Of his existence, oneness, sovereignty, 
 Massively visible, before the world : 
 To be a hieroglyphic for mankind ; 
 A word writ large in city, hill, and plain ; 
 A javelin, hurled by his own hand among 
 The heathen nations, startling, making room, 
 Like lightning-flash amid the oaken boughs, 
 By special means, exceptional and strange, 
 For God's own nation. Part us from his voice, 
 His hand, his eye, his personal governance, 
 What afe we ? Bondmen broken from the yoke 
 Of our Egyptian masters ; robbers armed, 
 Who came, with red exterminating knife, 
 
234 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Into our neighbor's house ; infringers rude 
 
 Of the unsyllabled yet solemn pact 
 
 That knits the family of brother men 
 
 In amicable league and friendly peace : 
 
 God's people, or the enemies of mankind ; 
 
 A prophet-nation, chosen of the Lord 
 
 To preach his word, or else a maniac wild 
 
 Whom men should seize and fetter. In ourselves, 
 
 We are a puny breed, a feeble folk ; 
 
 Led by our KING, we are a sacred band. 
 
 Armored iri light and helmed with righteousness, 
 
 Bearing the ark that shrines the truth divine 
 
 Which shall regenerate a death-struck world. 
 
 O Jezebel, hadst thou but known thy day, 
 
 Hadst thou but heard the Voice that called to thee, 
 
 When thou, still young, from Sidon's coasts didst come 
 
 To reign in Israel ; hadst thou loved the light, 
 
 And turned from idols to the living God ; 
 
 Hadst thou been wedded truly to the land, 
 
 An Israelite indeed in faith, hope, love ; 
 
 Oh, how serene with heaven's best blessedness, 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 235 
 
 How richly dowered in joy of doing good, 
 How full of love and peace, thy life had been ! 
 A Ruth in crowned and radiant graciousness, 
 A Deborah in regal strength of soul ; 
 Around thee, as we learned to love thee well, 
 The air would all have rung with welcoming ; 
 Thy voice and that of Ahab would have been 
 A rallying sound to bring again to one 
 Our Ephraim's and Judah's scattered flock ; 
 And glory brighter than of David's throne 
 Had beamed from Dan even to Beersheba. 
 And now thy day is past : thy night draws near. 
 Jezebel. 
 
 I will no longer speak with thee : begone ! 
 Elijah. 
 
 But I must speak, and thou shalt hear, thy doom. 
 Ere many moons had seen thee Israel's queen, 
 With impious cruelty thou dipp'dst thy hand 
 In blood of God's own prophets. Far away 
 In Gilead, where I dwelt in peacefulness, 
 The mighty wail of Israel reached mine ears 
 
236 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Over the prophets fallen. Since that day. 
 With cruel wile, with steadfast subtlety, 
 With dark Satanic sorcery, thou hast striven 
 To make this people unclean as thyself; 
 And last, and worst, because a poor, brave man, 
 True to himself, his land, his God, was bold 
 To face the king as free man„ought to face, 
 And to deny his covetous request, 
 Thou hast most basely murdered him. 
 
 Jezebel. 
 
 Nay, this 
 
 Is all too much. My lord, my husband, what ! 
 
 Dost thou stand by and hear me thus reviled ? 
 
 This fellow is a rebel, and would raise 
 
 Commotion in the land, and bid the folk 
 
 Forget their duty unto thee and me — 
 
 Elijah. 
 
 Woman, when such as thou is on a throne, 
 
 It is not sacrifice of lamb or kid, 
 
 It is not prayer at morn or even-tide, 
 
 That is a people's service worthiest 
 
THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 237 
 
 Of God's acceptance. No. It is to leave 
 The babe in crib, the lamb within the fold, 
 The priest beside the altar, and to draw 
 The sword of vengeance, spread the flag, and preach 
 God's message of revolt. Hush ! Hear me still. 
 Unto all time the name of Jezebel 
 Shall be the synonyme and type abhorred 
 Of those great curses that afflict mankind : 
 The curse of lust, that leads man ever down 
 From heaven's blue smile of maiden charity ; 
 The curse of tyranny, that kills the sense 
 Of majesty in man, clothes murderous wrong 
 In the most honorable garb of law,' 
 That turns the despot, human at the first, 
 Into a torturing demon, and his slaves 
 Into a ring of demon-worshippers. 
 This is the sin of sins, the murder-sin 
 Against the soul of mankind. Lust may be 
 The feverish leaping of the blood, — disease 
 Which health will chase ; rebellion against law, 
 
238 THE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Though bitter evil, may be but a fit 
 Of transient delirium, strength abused, 
 Not strength abolished ; but the race or tribe 
 That willingly accepts a tyrant's chain, 
 Content to take his word for law, content 
 To merge the general reason and the sense 
 Of common life and free-born patriotism, 
 Of common wealth and common law, and all 
 That banded free-men cherish and defend, 
 In craven admiration of his power, 
 Or skill, or knowledge, genius, yea, or wish 
 To serve his country, — this same race is lost. 
 The warrant for its death hath been made out 
 In the high court of God ; and it shall die 
 And rot into the dust. Be the pretence 
 More shining than Sidonian blazonry,. — 
 Call it obedience, order, due respect 
 For that which is above you, — what you will ; 
 Be the bribe carried in the tyrant's hand 
 , Desirable beyond all utterance, — 
 
THE DAYS OF JEZEBEL. 239 
 
 Security for property and life, 
 
 Peace in the city, plenty in the store, 
 
 And empire over half a world, — no less 
 
 He who shall cast a stain on liberty, 
 
 Or palliate the rule of one sole will 
 
 O'er any nation imaging the God 
 
 Whose children are the common brood of men, 
 
 Is traitor to his kind, and poisoner 
 
 Of the living wells where drinks the soul of man. 
 
 Among such traitors-, badly eminent, 
 Stands wicked Jezebel. 
 
 Thus saith the Lord : 
 From that same tower where thou so oft hast planned 
 Thy sacrilegious murders, plotted oft 
 Against the God of Israel, revelled wild 
 In guilt adulterous, thou shalt be hurled 
 Down headlong, shrieking in thy mad despair. 
 Horse-hoofs shall trample on thy crashing bones. 
 Dogs licked the blood of Naboth ; but his limbs 
 
240 TEE DATS OF JEZEBEL. 
 
 Were stiff and cold before they came to him. 
 Whilst thou art quivering in the pangs of death, 
 While ear still hears and flesh still feels, the dogs 
 Shall rush upon thee, rend thee, tear thy flesh. 
 And drink thy blood. 
 
 yezebel. 
 Inhuman savage, peace ! 
 
 \_S7ie draws a dagger from her girdle and flies at 
 him, attempting to stab him. He disappears.] 
 
 Where is he ? Gone ! Oh that this biting steel 
 Had pierced his heart ! 
 
 Well ? good my lord the king, 
 Your knees still knock together ? Pry'thee look 
 A little like a man. How I despise thee ! 
 
 [ Goes. Ahab stands for a few moments, pale and 
 trembling ; then drags himself slowly from the 
 garden.] 
 
 THE END.