REFT of thy sons, amid thy foes forlorn,
Mourn, widowed queen, forgotten Sion, mourn.
Is this thy place, sad city, this thy throne,
Where the wild desert rears its craggy stone?
While suns unblest their angry lustre fling,
And way-worn pilgrims seek the scanty spring?
Where now thy pomp, which kings with envy
view'd?
Where now thy might, which all those kings subdued?
No martial myriads muster in thy gate;
No suppliant nations in thy Temple wait;
No prophet bards, thy glittering courts among,
Wake the full lyre, and swell the tide of song:
But lawless Force, and meagre Want is there,
And the quick-darting eye of restless Fear;
While cold Oblivion, 'mid thy ruins laid,
Folds his dank wing beneath the ivy shade.
Ye guardian saints, ye warrior sons of heaven, To whose high care Judæa's state was given, O wont of old your nightly watch to keep, A host of gods, on Sion's towery steepIf e'er your secret footsteps linger still By Siloa's fount, or Tabor's echoing hill; If e'er your song on Salem's glories dwell, And mourn the captive land you loved so well; (For oft, 't is said, in Kedron's palmy vale Mysterious harpings swell the midnight gale, And, blest as balmy dews that Hermon cheer, Melt in soft cadence on the pilgrim's ear;) Forgive, blest spirits, if a theme so high Mock the weak notes of mortal minstrelsy; Yet, might your aid this anxious breast inspire With one faint spark of Milton's seraph fire, Then should my Muse ascend with bolder flight, And wave her eagle-plumes exulting in the light. O happy once in heaven's peculiar love, Delight of men below, and saints above; Though, Salem, now the spoiler's ruffian hand Has loosed his hell-hounds o'er thy wasted land; Though weak, and whelmed beneath the storms of fate,
Thy house is left unto thee desolate;
Though thy proud stones in cumbrous ruin fall,
And seas of sand o'ertop thy mouldering wall;
Yet shall the Muse to Fancy's ardent view
Each shadowy trace of faded pomp renew:
And as the seer on Pisgah's topmost brow
With glistening eye beheld the plain below,
With prescient ardor drank the scented gale,
And bade the opening glades of Canaan hail;
Her eagle eye shall scan the prospect wide,
From Carmel's cliffs to Almotana's tide;
The flinty waste, the cedar-tufted hill,
The liquid health of smooth Ardeni's rill;
The grot, where, by the watch-fire's evening
The robber riots, or the hermit prays;
Or, where the tempest rives the hoary stone,
The wintry top of giant Lebanon.
Fierce, hardy, proud, in conscious freedom bold,
Those stormy seats the warrior Druses hold;
From Norman blood their lofty line they trace,
Their lion courage proves their generous race.
They, only they, while all around them kneel
In sullen homage to the Thracian steel,
Teach their pale despot's waning moon to fear
The patriot terrors of the mountain spear.
Yes, valorous chiefs, while yet your sabres shine,
The native guard of feeble Palestine,
O, ever thus, by no vain boast dismayed,
Defend the birthright of the cedar shade.
What though no more for you the obedient gale
Swells the white bosom of the Tyrian sail;
Though now no more your glittering marts unfold
Sidonian dyes and Lusitanian gold;
Though not for you the pale and sickly slave
Forgets the light in Ophir's wealthy cave;
Yet yours the lot, in proud contentment blest,
Where cheerful labor leads to tranquil rest.
No robber rage the ripening harvest knows;
And unrestrained the generous vintage flows:
Nor less your sons to manliest deeds aspire,
And Asia's mountains glow with Spartan fire.
So when, deep sinking in the rosy main,
The western sun forsakes the Syrian plain,
His watery rays refracted lustre shed,
And pour their latest light on Carmel's head.
Yet shines your praise,amid surrounding gloom,
As the lone lamp that trembles in the tomb :
For few the souls that spurn a tyrant's chain,
And small the bounds of freedom's scanty reign.
As the poor outcast on the cheerless wild,
Arabia's parent, clasped her fainting child,
And wandered near the roof no more her home,
Forbid to linger, yet afraid to roam:
My sorrowing fancy quits the happier height,
And southward throws her half-averted sight,
For sad the scenes Judæa's plains disclose,
A dreary waste of undistinguished woes.
See War untired his crimson pinions spread,
And foul Revenge, that tramples on the dead.
Lo, where from far the guarded fountains shine,
Thy tents, Nebaioth, rise, and Kedar, thine:
'Tis yours the boast to mark the stranger's way,
And spur your headlong chargers on the prey,
Or rouse your nightly numbers from afar,
And on the hamlet pour the waste of war;
Nor spare the hoary head, nor bid your eye
Revere the sacred smile of infancy.
Such now the clans, whose fiery coursers feed
Where waves on Kishon's bank the whispering
And theirs the soil, where, curling to the skies, Smokes on Samaria's mount her scanty sacrifice. While Israel's sons, by scorpion curses driven, Outcasts of earth, and reprobate of heaven,
Through the wide world in friendless exile stray, Remorse and shame sole comrades of their way, With dumb despair their country's wrongs behold, And, dead to glory, only burn for gold.
O Thou, their Guide, their Father, and their Lord,
Loved for thy mercies, for thy power adored: If at thy name the waves forgot their force,
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