Poems (David)/The Mosque, rising on the site of the Temple

by Edith Mary David

THE MOSQUE, RISING ON THE SITE OF THE TEMPLE.

HIGH on the spot where once the Temple rose,
Still glancing down where pebbly Kedron flows,
Frowns the tall Mosque, with its haughty dome,
O'er looks the spot where now with wail and moan,
The outcast Jews, with sad and mournful state,
Deplore their glorious temple's fallen fate!
Fled thou bright pearl, and shattered now,
The gem that crowned Moriah's brow.
On that site once given by a hand Divine
The heathen Turk, the lowly Christians find!
Great was thy fall when reddening all the sky,
Thy burning walls met the great Roman eye:
In vain they strove to save thy glorious fane,
And now a type of wrath, alas! thy name!
Thou hast sunk down to ashes, and to rust;
And now upon thy glorious honoured dust
Rises the haughty Omar's noble fane.
And spring up all thy glories claim!
Thy prototype most proudly rises now,
Grand in its fast decay o'er Judah's brow.
Like thee its minarets and lofty towers,
All still rise, as when amidst thy power
Thou stoodst the mystic type of future bliss,
Of higher joys and purer happiness.
Yet still doth the alien Mosque arise,
Pointing her white dome towards the skies;
Its pinnacles are uprising as thine before
Rose up in far mightier grandeur of yore.
Christ o'er the powers of evil did prevail,
And Satan from thee he turned to fail;
On some lone mountain's high and craggy brow,
Far in the wilderness, and e'en forgotten now.
Ah! alien Mosque, who in thine exalted state,
Uprises on the now more sadly fallen great!