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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


NEHEMIAH'S NIGHT RIDE by CHARLES TENNYSON TURNER

First Line: WHEN NEHEMIAH RODE INTO THE DARK
Last Line: HARD BY HIM, AND A LOUD AND LONELY CRY!
Subject(s): JERUSALEM; NEHEMIAH (5TH CENTURY B.C.);

When Nehemiah rode into the dark,
And stones of ruin cumbered his advance,
And old localities were hard to mark,
Methinks he spent some moments in a trance
Of sounds from past and future - Abraham's foot
With Isaac's on Moriah; then the sigh
Of Moses, beyond Jordan doomed to die,
So near the soil wherein his heart had root:
'Ay!' thought he, 'and my own fond suit was met
By earthly and by heavenly sympathy!'
Then came sweet tones from far Gennesaret,
A plash, as from the casting of a net,
The noise as of a Cross grounded and set
Hard by him, and a loud and lonely cry!



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