How tenderly the trembling light yet plays Of peace in some green paradise like this. The brazen trumpet and the loud war-drum The peaceful Summer day hath never closed To slay his fellow with unholy hand; The maddening voice of battle, the wild groan, And the shrill shriek of mortal agony, Have never broke its Sabbath solitude. PALESTINE. BY JOHN G. WHITTIER. BLEST land of Judea! thrice hallowed of song, Where the holiest of memories pilgrim-like throng; In the shade of thy palms, by the shores of thy sea, On the hills of thy beauty, my heart is with thee! With the eye of a spirit, I look on that shore, Blue sea of the hills! in my spirit I hear Where the Lowly and Just with the people sat down, Beyond are Bethulia's mountains of green, And I pause on the goat-crags of Tabor to see The gleam of thy waters, oh dark Gallilee! Hark, a sound in the valleys! where swollen and strong, Thy river, oh Kishon, is sweeping along ; Where the Canaanite strove with Jehovah in vain, And thy torrent grew dark with the blood of the slain. There, down from his mountains stern Zebulon came, For the arm of the Lord was Abinoam's son ! There sleep the still rocks and the caverns which rang When the Princes of Issachar stood by her side, Lo! Bethlehem's hill-site before me is seen, And Bethany's palm-trees in beauty still throw PALESTINE. I tread where the TWELVE in their wayfaring trod; 203 I stand where they stood with the CHOSEN OF GOD: Where his blessing was heard, and his lessons were taught, Where the blind were restored, and the healing was wrought. Oh, here with his flock the sad Wanderer came, The founts where he drank by the wayside still flow, And throned on her hills sits Jerusalem yet, But with dust on her forehead, and chains on her feet: For the crown of her pride to the mocker hath gone, And the holy Shechinah is dark where it shone ! But wherefore this dream of the earthly abode Not in clouds and in terrors, but gentle as when In love and in meekness he moved among men; And the voice which breathed peace to the waves of the sea, In the hush of my spirit would whisper to me! And what if my feet may not tread where He stood, Nor my eyes see the cross which He bowed him to bear, Yet, Loved of the Father, thy spirit is near, To the meek, and the lowly, and penitent here, Oh, the outward hath gone!-but in glory and power, The SPIRIT Surviveth the things of an hour; Unchanged, undecaying, its Pentecost flame On the heart's secret altar is burning the same! |