The Fall Of Jerusalem
By Alfred Lord Tennyson
Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
Thou art low! thou mighty one,
How is the brilliance of thy diadem,
How is the lustre of thy throne
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame
Darkend by the shadowy pinion
Of the Roman bird, whose sway
All the tribes of earth obey,
Crouching neath his dread dominion,
And the terrors of his name!
How is thy royal seatwhereon
Sate in days of yore
Lowly Jesses godlike son,
And the strength of Solomon,
In those rich and happy times
When the ships from Tarshish bore
Incense, and from Ophirs land,
With silken sail and cedar oar,
Wafting to Judeas strand
All the wealth of foreign climes
How is thy royal seat oerthrown!
Gone is all thy majesty:
Salem! Salem! city of kings,
Thou sittest desolate and lone,
Where once the glory of the Most High
Dwelt visibly enshrind between the wings
Of Cherubims, within whose bright embrace
The golden mercy-seat remaind:
Land of Jehovah! view that sacred place
Abandond and profand!
Wail! fallen Salem! Wail:
Mohammeds votaries pollute thy fane;
The dark division of thine holy veil
Is rent in twain!
Thrice hath Sions crowned rock
Seen thy temples marble state,
Awfully, serenely great,
Towering on his sainted brow,
Rear its pinnacles of snow:
Thrice, with desolating shock,
Down to earth hath seen it drivn
From his heights, which reach to heaven!
Wail! fallen Salem! Wail:
Though not one stone above another
There was left to tell the tale
Of the greatness of thy story,
Yet the long lapse of ages cannot smother
The blaze of thine abounding glory;
Which thro the mist of rolling years,
Oer historys darkend page appears,
Like the morning star, whose gleam
Gazeth thro the waste of night,
What time old oceans purple stream
In his cold surge hath deeply lavd
Its ardent front of dewy light.
Oh! who shall eer forget thy bands which bravd
The terrors of the deserts barren reign,
And that strong arm which broke the chain
Wherein ye foully lay enslavd,
Or that sublime Theocracy which pavd
Your way thro oceans vast domain,
And on, far on to Canaans emerald plain
Led the Israelitish crowd
With a pillar and a cloud?
Signs on earth and signs on high
Prophesied thy destiny:
A trumpets voice above thee rung,
A starry sabre oer thee hung;
Visions of fiery armies, redly flashing
In the many-colourd glare
Of the setting orb of day;
And flaming chariots, fiercely dashing,
Swept along the peopled air,
In magnificent array:
The temple doors, on brazen hinges crashing,
Burst open with appalling sound,
A wondrous radiance streaming round!
Our blood be on our heads! ye said:
Such your awless imprecation:
Full bitterly at length twas paid
Upon your captive nation!
Arms of adverse legions bound thee,
Plague and pestilence stood round thee;
Seven weary suns had brightend Syrias sky,
Yet still was heard th unceasing cry
From south, north, east, and west, a voice,
Woe unto thy sons and dauthers!
Woe to Salem! thou art lost!
A sound divine
Came from the sainted, secret, inmost shrine:
Let us go hence!and then a noise
The thunders of the parting Deity,
Like the rush of countless waters,
Like the murmur of a host!
Though now each glorious hope be blighted,
Yet an hour shall come, when ye,
Though scatterd like the chaff, shall be
Beneath one standard once again united;
When your wandering race shall own,
Prostrate at the dazzling throne
Of your high Almighty Lord,
The wonders of his searchless word,
Th unfading splendours of his Son!