1   The King was on his throne,      The Satraps throng’d the hall;   A thousand bright lamps shone      O’er 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. 2   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. 3   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 pass’d 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!”