Page:Pleasant Memories.pdf/99

Or rove from cell to cell, whose marble door
The inhospitable tenants ope no more,
Or on their tablets read the labored trace,
That asks remembrance from a dying race,
Or mark the flowers, whose lips with fragrance flow,
The sweetest tribute to the loved below.

Poor child of Judah, exiled and oppressed,
How wrapped in shades thy lowly spot of rest!
Type of thy fate, for whom no sunbeam falls
In peace and power on Zion's sacred walls;
But by strange streams thy silent harp is hung,
And captive numbers tremble on thy tongue.
Dark is yon gate, through which thy mourners pass
To hide their idols'neath the matted grass,
And sad the dirge, no Saviour's name that knows
To gild with glorious hope their last repose.
Oh! turn thine eye from Sinai's summit red,
Our Elder Sister, fly its thunders dread,
List to the lay that flowed o'er Bethlehem's plain,
When star and angel warned the shepherd train;
Thou lov'st our Father's Book,—its seers believe,
To thy torn breast the holy cross receive,
Bind to the frowning Law the Gospel sweet,
And cast thy burdens at Messiah's feet.

But whether this secluded haunt we tread,
Where Caledonia shrouds her cherished dead,