Jerusalem.
3
O days divine! of you may mortal sing,
When God himself was Israel's Guard and King?
Will not the eloquence of earthly speech
Fail from a height, which fancy scarce can reach?
To know Creation's Monarch ever nigh,
A staff in sorrow, and a friend in joy;
To see Heav'n's glories visibly display'd,
And all its Seraphim in light array'd;
These were thy rights, O Israel, this thy boast,
These the high joys, thy disobedience lost.
Bear witness, Hermon, thou whose dewy sod.
Has felt the footstep of a present God;
And, Carmel, thou, whose gales, with incense fraught,
The murmurs of a voice divine have caught;
What dreams extatic o'er the vot'ry stole,
How swell'd the pious transport in his soul;
Ev'n now, when o'er your long-forsaken sweets
The pilgrim lingers, in your lov'd retreats,
Steal visionary forms along the vale,
And more than music whispers on the gale.
O had I pinions,[1] fleet as those, that bear
The dove exulting through the realms of air,
Then would I visit every holy shade,
Where Saints have knelt, or prophets musing stray'
When God himself was Israel's Guard and King?
Will not the eloquence of earthly speech
Fail from a height, which fancy scarce can reach?
To know Creation's Monarch ever nigh,
A staff in sorrow, and a friend in joy;
To see Heav'n's glories visibly display'd,
And all its Seraphim in light array'd;
These were thy rights, O Israel, this thy boast,
These the high joys, thy disobedience lost.
Bear witness, Hermon, thou whose dewy sod.
Has felt the footstep of a present God;
And, Carmel, thou, whose gales, with incense fraught,
The murmurs of a voice divine have caught;
What dreams extatic o'er the vot'ry stole,
How swell'd the pious transport in his soul;
Ev'n now, when o'er your long-forsaken sweets
The pilgrim lingers, in your lov'd retreats,
Steal visionary forms along the vale,
And more than music whispers on the gale.
O had I pinions,[1] fleet as those, that bear
The dove exulting through the realms of air,
Then would I visit every holy shade,
Where Saints have knelt, or prophets musing stray'
