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| FAIR shines the moon, Jerusalem, | |
| Upon the hills that wore | |
| Thy glory once, their diadem | |
| Ere Judah’s reign was o’er: | |
| The stars on hallowed Olivet | 5 |
| And over Zion burn, | |
| But when shall rise thy splendor set? | |
| Thy majesty return? | |
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| The peaceful shades that wrap thee now | |
| Thy desolation hide; | 10 |
| The moonlit beauty of thy brow | |
| Restores thine ancient pride; | |
| Yet there, where Rome thy Temple rent, | |
| The dews of midnight wet | |
| The marble dome of Omar’s tent, | 15 |
| And Aksa’s minaret. | |
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| Thy strength, Jerusalem, is o’er, | |
| And broken are thy walls; | |
| The harp of Israel sounds no more | |
| In thy deserted halls: | 20 |
| But where thy Kings and Prophets trod, | |
| Triumphant over Death, | |
| Behold the living Son of God,— | |
| The Christ of Nazareth! | |
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| The halo of his presence fills | 25 |
| Thy courts, thy ways of men; | |
| His footsteps on thy holy hills | |
| Are beautiful as then; | |
| The prayer, whose bloody sweat betrayed | |
| His human agony, | 30 |
| Still haunts the awful olive shade | |
| Of old Gethsemane. | |
| |
| Woe unto thee, Jerusalem! | |
| Slayer of Prophets, thou, | |
| That in thy fury stonest them | 35 |
| God sent, and sends thee now:— | |
| Where thou, O Christ! with anguish spent, | |
| Forgav’st thy foes, and died, | |
| Thy garments yet are daily rent,— | |
| Thy soul is crucified! | 40 |
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| They darken with the Christian name | |
| The light that from thee beamed, | |
| And by the hatred they proclaim | |
| Thy spirit is blasphemed; | |
| Unto thine ear the prayers they send | 45 |
| Were fit for Belial’s reign, | |
| And Moslem cimeters defend | |
| The temple they profane. | |
| |
| Who shall rebuild Jerusalem? | |
| Her scattered children bring | 50 |
| From Earth’s far ends, and gather them | |
| Beneath her sheltering wing? | |
| For Judah’s sceptre broken lies, | |
| And from his kingly stem | |
| No new Messiah shall arise | 55 |
| For lost Jerusalem! | |
| |
| But let the wild ass on her hills | |
| Its foal unfrighted lead, | |
| And by the source of Kedron’s rills | |
| The desert adder breed: | 60 |
| For where the love of Christ has made | |
| Its mansion in the heart, | |
| He builds in pomp that will not fade | |
| Her heavenly counterpart. * * * * * | |
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