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Home  »  The Poets’ Bible  »  Jerusalem

W. Garrett Horder, comp. The Poets’ Bible: New Testament. 1895.

Jerusalem

Thomas Toke Lynch (1818–1871)

SEE, bannered armies hem

The favoured city round;

Vain are thy towers, Jerusalem;

False art thou found:

With hills divinely girt

And massive walls of stone,

Impregnable to others’ hurt

Lost by thine own.

Thy Temple, like a gem,

Adorns thee, faithless bride;

Thy God, O fair Jerusalem,

Hath left thy side:

Ah, happy one and blest,

A golden-feathered dove,

When like the jewel on thy breast,

Shone forth thy love.

A fruitless, fallen stem,

Low on the miry earth

Lies beautiful Jerusalem,

Spoiled of her worth;

Fire through her branches runs,—

Consume her! she hath sinned;

Like ashes now her scattered sons

Fly on the wind.

My soul lament for them;

Learn from this fatal fall;

For of a new Jerusalem

Sons are we all:

Round us are mightier towers,

A brighter heaven above;

O, be the Lord’s, as He is ours,

In faithful love.