A Song of Israel

O ISRAEL! wanderer through the weary years

Of wild unrest;

A world-wide pilgrimage of hopes and fears,

Sometimes in joy, but oft’ner far in tears,

As God knows best.

Since Jacob laid him down that night to sleep

On Bethel’s stone,

And saw the angel legions downward sweep,

Their watch around the fugitive to keep—

Never alone.

Beside the majestic Nile, on Egypt’s sand,

He pitched his tent;

There on the desert saw the uplifted hand,

In cloud and fire still pointing to the land

Of sweet content.

Beside the Euphrates, where Babylon’s wall

So proudly stood

He saw the giant empires rise and fall,

A captive exile, yet unharmed through all,

Beside that flood.

And when in wrath the Roman eagles came

To Zion’s Hill,

And drove him out in thunder and in flame,

A stranger in the earth—Jehovah’s name

Upheld him still.

See yonder, on the snow-clad Russian plain,

His children driven,

Beset and hunted by the imperial train

Like sheep by wolves. But surely not in vain

They cry to Heaven.

Far brighter than the Northern-lights that gleam

Upon the air,

The signals of the great Shekinah stream

And, like the memories of a blessed dream,

Bid him good cheer!

Good cheer, O Jacob! though a wanderer still

In all the earth.

Thy foes will but the promises fulfill

And drive the exile home to Zion’s Hill,

That gave him birth.

A nation scattered through the earth, yet one

In every land;

As the blue waters of the Gulf-stream run

Through the high seas, yet mingling still with none,

Behold God’s hand!

God speed the day when Jew and Gentiles all

Shall meet as one

At the glad welcome of their Father’s call

In the dear home where shadows never fall,

Their warfare done.

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