Jerusalem, Jerusalem,
How glad should I have been,
Could I, in my lone wanderings,
Thine aged walls have seen!—
Could I have gazed upon the dome,
Above thy towers that swells,
And heard, as evening’s sun went down,
Thy parting camels’ bells:—
Could I have stood on Olivet,
Where once the Saviour trod,
And, from its height, looked down upon
The city of our God!
For is it not, Almighty God,
Thy holy city still,—
Though there thy prophets walk no more,—
That crowns Moriah’s hill?
Thy prophets walk no more, indeed,
The streets of Salem now,
Nor are their voices lifted up
On Zion’s saddened brow;
Nor are their garnished sepulchres
With pious sorrow kept,
Where once the same Jerusalem,
That killed them, came and wept.
But still the seed of Abraham
With joy upon it look,
And lay their ashes at its feet,
That Kedron’s feeble brook
Still washes, as its waters creep
Along their rocky bed,
And Israel’s God is worshipped yet
Where Zion lifts her head.
Yes;—every morning, as the day
Breaks over Olivet,
The holy name of Allah comes
From every minaret;
At every eve the mellow call
Floats on the quiet air,
“Lo, God is God! Before him come,
Before him come, for prayer!”
I know, when at that solemn call
The city holds her breath,
That Omar’s mosque hears not the name
Of Him of Nazareth;
But Abraham’s God is worshipped there
Alike by age and youth,
And worshipped,—hopeth charity,—
“In spirit and in truth.”
Yea, from that day when Salem knelt
And bent her queenly neck
To him who was, at once, her Priest
And King,—Melchisedek,
To this, when Egypt’s Abraham
The sceptre and the sword
Shakes o’er her head, her holy men
Have bowed before the Lord.
Jerusalem, I would have seen
Thy precipices steep,
The trees of palm that overhang
Thy gorges dark and deep,
The goats that cling along thy cliffs,
And browse upon thy rocks,
Beneath whose shade lie down, alike,
Thy shepherds and their flocks.
I would have mused, while Night hung out
Her silver lamp so pale,
Beneath those ancient olive trees
That grow in Kedron’s vale,
Whose foliage from the pilgrim hides
The city’s wall sublime,
Whose twisted arms and gnarled trunks
Defy the sithe of Time.
The Garden of Gethseman
(John Pierpont)
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Based on Topics: God Poems, Time Poems, Nature Poems, Youth Poems, Name Poems, Morning Poems, Truth Poems, Prayers Poems, Cities Poems, Garden PoemsBased on Keywords: moriah, sithe, overhang, kedron, king-, hopeth, charity-, gethseman, melchisedek