| |
| HEARD ye, from Rama’s ruined walls, | |
| That voice of bitter weeping! | |
| Is it the moan of fettered slave, | |
| His watch of sorrow keeping? | |
| Heard ye, from Rama’s wasted plains, | 5 |
| That cry of lamentation! | |
| Is it the wail of Israel’s sons, | |
| For Salem’s devastation? | |
| |
| Ah, no,—a sorer ill than chains | |
| That bitter wail is waking, | 10 |
| And deeper woe than Salem’s fall | |
| That tortured heart is breaking: | |
| ’T is Rachel, of her sons bereft, | |
| Who lifts that voice of weeping; | |
| And childless are the eyes that there | 15 |
| Their watch of grief are keeping. | |
| |
| O, who shall tell what fearful pangs | |
| That mother’s heart are rending, | |
| As o’er her infant’s little grave | |
| Her wasted form is bending; | 20 |
| From many an eye that weeps to-day | |
| Delight may beam to-morrow; | |
| But she,—her precious babe is not! | |
| And what remains but sorrow? | |
| |
| Bereavéd one! I may not chide | 25 |
| Thy tears and bitter sobbing,— | |
| Weep on! ’t will cool that burning brow, | |
| And still that bosom’s throbbing: | |
| But be not thine such grief as theirs | |
| To whom no hope is given,— | 30 |
| Snatched from the world, its sins and snares, | |
| Thy infant rests in heaven. | |
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