Sir Moses Montefiore

SWEET blue-eyed Charity, devout and calm,

Hath been the dear companion of his days,

How hath he hearken’d to her prayerful lays,

Sad-voic’d and plaintive as an angel’s psalm!

She pointed and he hasten’d where the palm

Sighs faintly in the pitiless Syrian rays,

Where men sank gasping on the lone highways

And cried aloud for succor and for balm.

The sick he heal’d, the fallen rais’d he up;

Light track’d his footsteps through the darksome land—

And sav’d, men wept and bless’d him in their tears.

Come, friends, lift we on high the loving cup

And hail with greetings from our distant strand

This hero crested with his hundred years!