Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
Jerusalem
By John Gardiner Calkins Brainard (1795–1828)F
Godfrey’s and Baldwin’s,—Salem’s Christian king;
And holy light glanced from Helena’s naves,
Fed with the incense which the pilgrim brings,—
While through the panelled roof the cedar flings
Its sainted arms o’er choir and roof and dome,
And every porphyry-pillared cloister rings
To every kneeler there its “welcome home,”
As every lip breathes out, “O Lord, thy kingdom come.”
And a clear voice called Mussulmans to prayer.
There were the splendors of Judæa’s thrones,
There were the trophies which its conquerors wear,
All but the truth, the holy truth, was there;
For there, with lip profane, the crier stood,
And him from the tall minaret you might hear,
Singing to all whose steps had thither trod,
That verse misunderstood, “There is no God but God.”
And did the turbaned Turk his sins confess?
Those mighty hands the elements that wield,
That mighty Power that knows to curse or bless,
Is over all; and in whatever dress
His suppliants crowd around him, He can see
Their heart, in city or in wilderness,
And probe its core, and make its blindness flee,
Owning him very God, the only Deity.
Proud Julian; when (against the prophecy
Of Him who lived and died and rose again,
“That one stone on another should not lie”)
Thou wouldst rebuild that Jewish masonry
To mock the eternal Word. The earth below
Gushed out in fire; and from the brazen sky
And from the boiling seas such wrath did flow
As saw not Shinar’s plain nor Babel’s overthrow.
Tremble; and headlong to the grassy bank
And in the muddied stream the fragments fall,
While the rent chasm spread its jaws, and drank
At one huge draught the sediment, which sank
In Salem’s drained goblet. Mighty Power!
Thou whom we all should worship, praise, and thank,
Where was thy mercy in that awful hour,
When hell moved from beneath, and thine own heaven did lower?
Say, gate of Bethlehem, did your arches quake?
Thy pool, Bethesda, was it filled with showers?
Calm Gihon, did the jar thy waters wake?
Tomb of thee, Mary—Virgin—did it shake?
Glowed thy bought field, Aceldama, with blood?
Where were the shudderings Calvary might make?
Did sainted Mount Moriah send a flood
To wash away the spot where once a God had stood.
Of all profane and of all holy things,
Where Jew and Turk and Gentile yet concur
To make thee what thou art, thy history brings
Thoughts mixed of joy and woe. The whole earth rings
With the sad truth which He has prophesied,
Who would have sheltered with his holy wings
Thee and thy children. You his power defied;
You scourged him while he lived, and mocked him as he died!
That caught the first light which its Maker made,—
It led the hymn of other orbs on high;
’T will shine when all the fires of heaven shall fade.
Pilgrims at Salem’s porch, be that your aid!
For it has kept its watch on Palestine!
Look to its holy light, nor be dismayed,
Though broken is each consecrated shrine,
Though crushed and ruined all which men have called divine.