The King was on his throne,
The Satraps thronged the hall:
A
thousand bright lamps shone
O?er that high festival.
A thousand
cups of gold,
In Judah deemed divine --
Jehovah?s vessels
hold
The godless Heathen?s wine!
In that same hour and hall,
The fingers of a hand
Come forth
against the wall
And wrote as if on sand:
The fingers of a man:
--
A solitary hand
Along the letters ran,
And
traced them like a wand.
The monarch saw, and shook,
And bade no more rejoice;
All
bloodless waxed his look,
And tremulous his voice.
?Let the men of
lore appear,
The wisest of the earth,
And expound the words of
fear,
Which mar our royal mirth.?
Chaldea?s seers are good,
But here they have no skill;
And the
unknown letters stood
Untold and awful still.
And Babel?s men of
age
Are wise and deep in lore;
But now they were not sage,
They saw ? but knew not more.
A captive in the land,
A stranger and a youth,
He heard the King?s
command,
He saw that writing?s truth.
The lamps around were
bright,
The prophecy in view;
He read it on that night, -
The morrow proved it true.
?Belshazzar?s grave is made,
His kingdom passed away,
He, in the
balance weighed,
Is light and worthless clay;
The shroud, his robe
of state,
His canopy the stone;
The Mede is at his gate!
The Persian on his throne!?