| |
| THE SUN had set upon Jerusalem, | |
| And scattered rosy circles round the mount, | |
| Whereon the ruins of the Temple lay. | |
| |
| Beneath the shadow of a crumbling wall | |
| Stood Rabbi Huna. His mind was sad; | 5 |
| For on this spot, not many years before, | |
| The holy Temple shone to all the earth, | |
| And now was changed, alas! and desolate. | |
| |
| “Oh, how I love thee, my Jerusalem.” | |
| So sighed the rabbi, as he sank to rest, | 10 |
| “Oh, how I love thee, tho’ upon thy neck | |
| With crushing force the conqueror’s foot is pressed. | |
| The last rapt strains of the prophetic lyre | |
| I seem to hear across thy sloping hills. | |
| Bright visions of the glory thrill me yet, | 15 |
| When in thy prophet’s words in bridal robe | |
| Thou wast betrothed unto Israel’s God; | |
| And now—.” The rabbi faltered as he thought, | |
| Then sighing fell into a restless sleep. | |
| |
| Strange fancies came to Huna as he slept. | 20 |
| Again he trod the Temple’s sacred courts, | |
| But there no altar dripped with streaming gore; | |
| No groans of sacrificial sheep were heard, | |
| No swelling chant, no pomp of liturgy, | |
| No loudly spoken prayer, no mumbling lips, | 25 |
| No smiting of the breast, no postures vain; | |
| A reverent throng with every impulse bent | |
| To worship God in simple brotherhood. | |
| They had, indeed, their holy litanies, | |
| Which not in book or scroll alone were writ; | 30 |
| An open hand, a humble heart and mind, | |
| An overflowing fount of love and truth, | |
| With aspirations for the beautiful, | |
| The true, the good, the pure. | |
| |
| The rabbi wakes. | 35 |
| Dead sounds of tumult rouse him from his sleep, | |
| A sprawling band of Roman soldiery, | |
| With cries of triumph, track him to the spot. | |
| His helpless form the savage spears soon pierced, | |
| And with “Shema Yisroel!” Huna dies. | 40 |
| Upon his face there rests a placid smile, | |
| As if he trod the New Jerusalem. | |
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