LORD! thou didst love Jerusalem--
Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,[1]
Her power thy glory's throne.[2]
Till evil came, and blighted
Thy long-loved olive-tree;[3]--
And Salem's shrines were lighted
For other gods than Thee.
Then sunk the star of Solyma--
Then past her glory's day,
Like heath that, in the wilderness,[4]
The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
Where once the mighty trod,
And sunk those guilty towers,
While Baal reign'd as God.
"Go"--said the LORD--"Ye Conquerors!
"Steep in her blood your swords,
"And raze to earth her battlements,[5]
"For they are not the LORD'S.
"Till Zion's mournful daughter
"O'er kindred bones shall tread,
"And Hinnom's vale of slaughter[6]
"Shall hide but half her dead!"
[1] "I have left mine heritage; I have given the clearly beloved of my
soul into the hands of her enemies."--_Jeremiah_, xii. 7.
[2] "Do not disgrace the throne of thy glory."--_Jer_. xiv. 21.
[3] "The LORD called by name a green olive-tree; fair, and of goodly
fruit," etc.--_Jer_. xi. 16.
[4] "For he shall be like the heath in the desert."--_Jer_. xvii, 6.
[5] "Take away her battlements; for they are not the LORD'S."--_Jer_. v.
10.
[6] "Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that it shall no
more be called Tophet, nor the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, but the Valley
or Slaughter; for they shall bury in Tophet till there be no place.
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