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From “Ivanhoe”
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved, | |
| Out from the land of bondage came, | |
| Her fathers’ God before her moved, | |
| An awful guide, in smoke and flame. | |
| By day, along the astonished lands, | 5 |
| The cloudy pillar glided slow: | |
| By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sands | |
| Returned the fiery column’s glow. | |
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| There rose the choral hymn of praise, | |
| And trump and timbrel answered keen, | 10 |
| And Zion’s daughters poured their lays, | |
| With priest’s and warrior’s voice between. | |
| No portents now our foes amaze, | |
| Forsaken Israel wanders lone: | |
| Our fathers would not know Thy ways, | 15 |
| And Thou hast left them to their own. | |
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| But, present still, though now unseen! | |
| When brightly shines the prosperous day, | |
| Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen | |
| To temper the deceitful ray. | 20 |
| And O, when stoops on Judah’s path | |
| In shade and storm the frequent night, | |
| Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath, | |
| A burning and a shining light! | |
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| Our harps we left by Babel’s streams, | 25 |
| The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn; | |
| No censer round our altar beams, | |
| And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn. | |
| But Thou hast said, “The blood of goat, | |
| The flesh of rams, I will not prize; | 30 |
| A contrite heart, a humble thought, | |
| Are mine accepted sacrifice.” | |
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