The Wild Gazelle

THE WILD gazelle on Judah’s hills
  Exulting yet may bound,
And drink from all the living rills
  That gush on holy ground;
Its airy step and glorious eye
May glance in tameless transport by:

A step as fleet, an eye more bright,
  Hath Judah witnessed there;
And o’er her scenes of lost delight
  Inhabitants more fair.
The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah’s statelier maids are gone!

More blest each palm that shades those plains
  Than Israel’s scattered race;
For, taking root, it there remains
  In solitary grace:
It cannot quit its place of birth,
It will not live in other earth.

But we must wander witheringly
  In other lands to die;
And where our fathers’ ashes be,
  Our own may never lie:
Our temple hath not left a stone,
And Mockery sits on Salem’s throne.