Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/258

diction, a majestic flow, a compass and accumulation of imagery, belong to the one, which do not appear in the other; but then this later prophet, in some places, approaches that style of definite prediction which was to be carried still further by his successors.

If what already (Chap. IV.) we have said concerning Palestine, as the fit birth-place and home of Poetry be warrantable, as well as the contrary averment concerning the levels of Mesopotamia, then the fact that the Prophets of the Captivity, Ezekiel and Daniel especially, are prophets not poets, will seem to be, at least, in accordance with a principle, even if it may not be adduced as a proof of it. The captives of Judæa carried with them the Hebrew lyre; but, seated disconsolate by the rivers of Babylon, they refused to attempt to awaken its notes, and themselves lost the power to do so. On the banks of the Chebar (great canal) and on the banks of the mighty Hiddekel, visions of awful magnificence were opened to the seer's eye; and he describes what he saw: but his description is strictly prosaic; nor does the sublimity of the objects that are described at all enkindle the imagination of the reader. The reader, to become conscious of their sublimity, must carry himself into the midst of the scene, and picture its stupendous creations for himself. A passage in Isaiah (chap, vi.) similar to that which opens the prophecy of Ezekiel, produces, by its very brevity, an effect