SECOND TRIAL.

ACTION.

I.

As some torrent, high swoln with its burden of snow,
Rushes headlong and dark on the valley below;

As the Eagle descends from her home in the rocks,
Bearing fear to the shepherd, and death to the flocks;
So swiftly and sternly they strode on their path,

In threefold array to their mission of wrath.

"Tis the mid-watch of night! for but now they had heard
The quick tread of men, and the clash (as they stirred)
Of their arms, and the sentinel give the word,
And hasten to sleep, as he hopes, till the day;
Perchance he may sleep for aye!

II.

They gain their posts! and not a sound
Disturbs the list'ning silence round,

And each may hear his breath;

Where millions all unconscious lie,
Without a dream of danger nigh,

Without a thought of death.

1 So Gideon and the three hundred men that were with him came unto the outside of the camp, in the beginning of the middle watch: and they had but newly set the watch. Judges vii. 19.

Is there no vision of the air?

No warning voice to cry, Beware!
The lion is abroad?

Where is their idol? Where is Baal?

Does he too sleep, or does he quail
Before the living God?

Frail reed on which their hopes rely!
Godless they live, must Godless die.

III.

One moment all is still as death!-
Ere they may draw another breath,
Bursts, like a thunder clap, the blare
Of the loud trump upon the air,
While thrice a hundred trumpets there
Breathe forth the note of war;
And all the echoing mountains share
And swell it from afar ;

While louder than the trumpet call,
Re-echoing through the sky,
The voice of Gideon, high o'er all,
Peals forth the battle cry.

One moment dark as is the grave!
The next three hundred torches gave

The hills, the vale to glow,

While dusky forms appeared to wave Their weapons round the foe.

IV.

Started the sleeper in fear from his bed

At that midnight alarm, as may start the dead
From their slumbers in the tomb,

At the warning peal of that trumpet dread,
That shall call them to their doom!

As the waving torch casts its glare on the ground,
What terrors arise to their fancy around!

For the shade of the hills armed foemen appears,

And the pines' waving branches their banners and spears.— "Tis the harvest of death! for Jehovah has set

Each man 'gainst his friend, and the spear is wet
In a brother's heart's blood, and they fall as fast
As the forest leaves in the first winter blast!
And the long patient camel was masterless then,
And rag'd through the host on his tyrants men ;
And the steed trampled wildly o'er dying and dead,
With his eye-ball of fire, and his nostril blood-red;
And the millions of Midian have perished or fled.—
At the blaze of a torch, at a trumpet's blast,
That proud army has vanished, its glory has pass'd"!

2 Dr Harmer in his Observations, quotes from Niebuhr an occurrence in modern Arabian History very similar in its circumstances to the defeat of the Midianites by Gideon. There is an essential difference, however, between the cases, which leaves the miraculous nature of the Bible history unaffected, namely that Gideon's party were unarmed, and there must therefore have been an entire dependence on the Divine Agency.

V.

Far, far and fast, through all that night,
The vanquish'd urged their frantic flight;
And e'er the morrow's dawning light

Looked on that scene of wrath,

Beth-shittah saw the race of fear,
Still onwards in its mad career,
Rush past upon its path;

Nor till in Jordan's wave the sun

Had bath'd, the foremost, one by one,

(Abel-meholah's borders won,)

3

Ventur❜d to pause, and dream at last,
Pursuit was baffled, danger past;
While many a straggler, far, far back,
Still heard the avenger on his track,
And struggled onwards faint and slow,
Or sank to meet the fatal blow.
For where a foe remained to kill,
Gideon and his three hundred still
Plied the avenging sword!
Stedfast in sunshine as in storm,
His hand relaxed not to perform
The labor of the Lord.

And the host fled to Beth-shittah in Zererath, and to the border of Abel

meholah unto Tabbath. Judges vii. 22.

VI.

"The fords of Jordan!-If the foe
Shall pass them, e'er another blow
Be struck to clench the first, they gain
The desert, and man tries in vain
To crown what God has done!
Haste to Mount Ephraim! away—
Tell them to place them in array,
Full on the fords, in Midian's way,
And let them finish-if they may-
What Gideon has begun."

VII.

No rest for Midian! Ephraim's sword
Awakes to vengeance at the ford.
In vain they struggle! man and horse,
The living blended with the corse,
Are whelmed together in the flood,
Which crimsons at the work of blood.
Zeeb and Oreb long could tell 5

The spot where Midian's princes fell;

* And Gideon sent messengers throughout all Mount Ephraim, saying, "Come down against the Midianites and take before them the waters unto Beth-barah and Jordan." Judges vii. 24.

5 And they took two princes of the Midianites, Oreb and Zeeb; and they slew Oreb upon the rock Oreb, and Zeeb they slew at the winepress of Zeeb; and pursued Midian, and brought the heads of Oreb and Zeeb to Gideon on the other side Jordan. Judges vii. 25.