The King was on his throne
The Satraps throng´d the hall
A thousand bright lamps shone
O r that high festival.
A thousand cups of gold
In Judah deem´d divine —
Jehovah´s vessels hold
The godless Heathen´s wine!
In that same hour and hall
The fingers of a hand
Came 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 wax´d 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 no more.
A captive in the land
A stranger and
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 pass´d away,
He, in the balance weigh´d,
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!
1815 , by George Gordon Noel Byron , Lord Byron (1788-1824) , „“Vision of Belshazzar““
vertont von: Isaac Nathan (1790-1864) , „“Vision of Belshazzar““, published 1815, from Hebrew Melodies
übersetzt von Franz Theremin (1780-1846) und dann vertont von Johann Karl Gottfried Loewe (1796-1869) , „“Belsazar´s Gesicht““, op. 13 no. 2 (1825), veröffentlicht 1826