Page:Poems Kennedy.djvu/120

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There are Persian and Greek and Roman
Who held Jerusalem fief
Till out of the mists of the morning
Came the spears of the Moslem chief
And Omar was lord and ruler.
Then the red Crusaders came,
And Godfrey de Bouillon lifted
The city's Mohammedan shame.

But there in the shadow behind him
Stands Sal-adin, robed in state,
And he scowls at the modern Moslem
Who yielded the city's gate.
And so on the heights of the eons
Are gathered the clustered spears
Of the long procession of captors
Gone down with the vanished years.

And over the City of Jesus
That silence seems to fall,
For never a pagan captor
Cheers with a ghastly call;
But surely that faint, weird music
Stirring the city's vast throng
Is Allenby's greeting of glory
From David's harp of song!

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