Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.

Introductory to Syria

The Wild Gazelle

By Lord Byron (1788–1824)

THE WILD gazelle on Judah’s hills

Exulting yet may bound,

And drink from all the living rills

That gush on holy ground;

Its airy step and glorious eye

May glance in tameless transport by:

A step as fleet, an eye more bright,

Hath Judah witnessed there;

And o’er her scenes of lost delight

Inhabitants more fair.

The cedars wave on Lebanon,

But Judah’s statelier maids are gone!

More blest each palm that shades those plains

Than Israel’s scattered race;

For, taking root, it there remains

In solitary grace:

It cannot quit its place of birth,

It will not live in other earth.

But we must wander witheringly

In other lands to die;

And where our fathers’ ashes be,

Our own may never lie:

Our temple hath not left a stone,

And Mockery sits on Salem’s throne.