The Jewish Pilgrim

ARE these the ancient holy hills

Where angels walked of old?

Is this the land our story fills

With glory not yet cold?

For I have passed by many a shrine

O’er many a land and sea;

But still, oh! promised Palestine,

My dreams have been of thee.

I see thy mountain cedar green,

Thy valleys fresh and fair,

With summers bright as they have been

When Israel’s home was there.

Tho’ o’er thee sword and time have passed,

And cross and crescent shone,

And heavily the chain has pressed

Oh! they are still our own.

Thine are the wandering race that go

Unblest through every land,

Whose blood hath stained the polar snow,

And quench’d the desert sand.

And thine the home of hearts that turn

From all earth’s shrines to thee

With their lone faith for ages born

In sleepless memory.

For throngs have fallen, nations gone

Before the march of time,

And where the ocean rolled alone

Are forests in their prime.

Since gentile ploughshares marr’d the brow

Of Zion’s holy hill

Where are the Roman eagles now?

Yet Judah wanders still.

And hath she wandered thus in vain

A pilgrim of the past?

No! long deferred her hope hath been

But it shall come at last.

For in her wastes a voice I hear,

As from a prophet’s urn,

It bids the nations build not there

For Jacob shall return.

Oh! lost and loved Jerusalem

Thy pilgrim may not stay

To see the glad earth’s harvest home

In thy redeeming day.

But now resigned in faith and trust

I seek a nameless tomb;

At least beneath thy hallowed dust

Oh! give the wanderer room.

Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD