O Land, a-stoop with penitential years, Thou tragedy of treason to thy God, Where Sons of Allah hold with foot unshod The altar-place of Judah's fruitless tears! Moriah's hill! Blood-sacrifice of old When David slew on Ornan's threshing floor; Where Abram's knife was lifted, long before The mornings flushed thy temple's dome of gold. Thou Zion walls where Jacob's children pray Above the vaults which hid a nation's shame! O Syrian sun, how canst thou bare thy flame? Weep, Israel, weep! Alas for Calvary's day! Thou Nazareth, we wonder at thy dower, Thou Olivet and Lebanon afar, Meek Bethlehem that stayed the wandering star, We're dumb before the mystery of thy power. Gethsemane, with olive twilight dim, We stand where Jesus held the cup of woe; We feel the angel forms still come and go Among the changeless trees that sheltered Him. Garden which saw love's sacrificial birth, Where olives, bent with thrice a thousand years, Still droop above our sacrament of tears,— O God! to kneel upon the self-same earth! |