The Cave of Machpelah

 THE CAVE OF MACHPELAH

Calm is it in the dim cathedral cloister,
Where lie the dead all couched in marble rare,
Where the shades thicken, and the breath hangs moister
Than in the sunlit air.

Where the chance ray that makes the carved stone whiter,
Tints with a crimson or a violet light
Some pale old bishop with his staff and mitre,
Some stiff crusading knight!

Sweet is it where the little graves fling shadows
In the green churchyard, on the shaven grass,
And a faint cowslip fragrance from the meadows
O'er the low wall doth pass!

More sweet, more calm in that fair valley's bosom
The burial-place in Ephron's pasture-ground,
Where the oil-olive shed her snowy blossom,
And the red grape was found;

When the great pastoral prince, with love undying,
Rose up in anguish from the face of death,
And weighed the silver shekels for its buying
Before the sons of Heth.

Here, when the measure of his days was numbered,--
Days few and evil in this vale of tears!--
At Sarah's side the faithful patriarch slumbered,
An old man full of years:

Here, holy Isaac, meek of heart and gentle,
And the fair maid who came to him from far,
And the sad sire who knew all throes parental,
And meek-eyed Leah, are.

She rests not here, the beautiful of feature,
For whom her Jacob wrought his years twice o'er,
And deemed them but as one, for that fair creature,
- - So dear the love he bore, --

Nor Israel's son beloved, who brought him sleeping
With a long pomp of woe to Canaan's shade,
Till all the people wondered at the weeping
By the Egyptians made.

Like roses from the same tree gathered yearly,
And Hung together in one vase to keep, --
Some, but not all who loved so well and dearly,
Lie here in quiet sleep.

What though the Moslem mosque be in the valley,
Though faithless hands have sealed the sacred cave,
And the red Prophet's children shout " El Allah!"
Over the Hebrews' grave;

Yet a day cometh when those white walls shaking
Shall give again to light the living dead,
And Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, reawaking,
Spring from their rocky bed.

Mrs. C. F. Alexander.