Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Jerusalem
By Bayard Taylor (1825–1878)F
Upon the hills that wore
Thy glory once, their diadem
Ere Judah’s reign was o’er:
The stars on hallowed Olivet
And over Zion burn,
But when shall rise thy splendor set?
Thy majesty return?
Thy desolation hide;
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,
And Aksa’s minaret.
And broken are thy walls;
The harp of Israel sounds no more
In thy deserted halls:
But where thy Kings and Prophets trod,
Triumphant over Death,
Behold the living Son of God,—
The Christ of Nazareth!
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,
Still haunts the awful olive shade
Of old Gethsemane.
Slayer of Prophets, thou,
That in thy fury stonest them
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!
The light that from thee beamed,
And by the hatred they proclaim
Thy spirit is blasphemed;
Unto thine ear the prayers they send
Were fit for Belial’s reign,
And Moslem cimeters defend
The temple they profane.
Her scattered children bring
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
For lost Jerusalem!
Its foal unfrighted lead,
And by the source of Kedron’s rills
The desert adder breed:
For where the love of Christ has made
Its mansion in the heart,
He builds in pomp that will not fade
Her heavenly counterpart.