Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.
By William KnoxNehemiah to Artaxerxes
’T
Not anguish of body or limb,
That causes the hue from my cheek to depart,
And mine eye to grow rayless and dim.
Of Salem the city of God,
In darkness now wrapped like the moon and the star
When the tempests of night are abroad.
The gates of the city are burned;
And the temple of God, where my fathers have praised,
To the ashes of ruin are turned.
Where the timbrels were wont to resound;
And the sepulchre domes, like the bones they entombed,
Are mould’ring away in the ground.
In the land that their fellows have trod,
Sit in sorrow and gloom; for a shadow like death
O’erhangs every wretched abode.
To the great and terrible God,
For this city of mine that in ruin is laid,
And my brethren who smart by His rod.
If favor I find in thy sight,
That I may revisit my home, where the wing
Of destruction is spread like the night.
From rebuilding my forefathers’ tomb,
No more shall the heart of thy cup-bearer burn
With those sorrows that melt and consume.