ter, and the final
submission of the latter to her doom, are elaborated with a careful and
tender hand. From the opening to the closing line, the reader is lifted
to the level of the tragic theme, and inspired, as in the Greek tragedy,
with a pity which makes lovely the element of terror. The central
sentiment of the poem, through all its touching and sorrowful changes,
is that of repose. Observe the grave harmony of the opening lines:--

"'Twas in the olden days of Israel,
When from her people rose up mighty men
To judge and to defend her: ere she knew,
Or clamored for, her coming line of kings,
A father, rashly vowing, sacrificed
His daughter on the altar of the Lord;--
'Twas in those ancient days, coeval deemed
With the song-famous and heroic ones,
When Agamemnon, taught divinely, doomed
_His_ daughter to expire at Dian's shrine,--
So doomed, to free the chivalry of Greece,
In Aulis lingering for a favoring wind
To waft them to the fated walls of Troy.
Two songs with but one burden, twin-like tales.
Sad tales! but this the sadder of the twain,--
This song, a wail more desolately wild;
More fraught this story with grim fate fulfilled."

The length to which this article has grown warns us to be sparing of
quotations, but we all the more earnestly recommend those in whom we may
have inspired some interest in the author to procure the poem for
themselves. We have perused it several times, with increasing enjoyment
of its solemn diction, its sad, monotonous music, and with the hope that
the few repairing touches, which alone are wanting to make it a perfect
work of its class, may yet be given. This passage, for example, where
Jephthah prays to be absolved from his vow, would be faultlessly
eloquent, but for the prosaic connection of the first and second
lines:--

"'Choose Tabor for thine altar: I will pile
It with the choice of Bashan's lusty herds,
And flocks of fallings, _and for fuel, thither
Will bring umbrageous Lebanon to burn_.'

* * * * *

"He said, and stood awaiting for the sign,
And heard, above the hoarse, bough-bending wind,
The hill-wolf howling on the neighboring height,
And bittern booming in the pool below.
Some drops of rain fell from the passing cloud
That sudden hides the wanly shining moon,
And from the scabbard instant dropped his sword,