SONG OF THE JEWISH EXILES.
Reading edition
“Observing many Jews walking about the place, and reposing along the brook Kedron in a pensive mood, the pathetic language of the Psalmist recurred to me as expressing the subject of their meditations;—‘By the rivers we sat down and wept when we remembered Zion.’ On frequently inquiring the motive that prompted them in attempting to go to Jerusalem, the answer was—‘To die in the land of our fathers.’”
Wilson’s Travels.
We wander where the cedars grow, And by the mountain side— And think with shame and sorrow now O’er Judah’s days of pride. Ere He who loved this holy place Left desolate his chosen race. In Kedron’s vale the clustering vine Still sheds its stores of gold— On Carmel’s top the sun-beams shine As in the days of old. The palm that waves beside the sea Is fresh—and green the olive tree. But ah! no day of hope returns For Salem’s blighted throne; Our desolated Zion mourns Her glorious beauty gone. Her withered land with carnage stained— Her fallen towers—and dust profaned. Mute is the harp whose lofty tone Made glad this sacred spot— Its broken chords are crushed and gone, Its melodies forgot.— And Zion’s place of holy birth Hath not a vestige left on earth. Yet better thus—than it should be In pristine beauty still, The theme of pagan mockery, The sport of pagan will. Better a wreck without a name, Than left a monument of shame. From earth’s remotest lands we come By the lone wilderness, To look upon our fathers’ home, Our fathers’ soil to press. And worn with exiles’ misery, Beside our fathers’ graves to die.