O, but to look on Pa­les­tine,
To press its hal­lowed sod,
And turn these wan­der­ing feet of mine
Where priest and seer have trod—
To feel its wild in­spir­ing air
Mine inmost spi­rit fill,
With throbbing heart to bow me there,
Though Judah wan­ders still.

The Cross and Cres­cent in the light
Of Ju­dah’s sun­set shine,
And on our ru­ined Tem­ple’s site
The Turk hath built his shrine;
And through each dim and an­cient street,
And on the ho­ly hill,
The Mos­lem treads with care­less feet,
For Ju­dah wan­ders still.

Where turn the As­sy­ri­an co­horts now?
Where treads the Per­sian host?
Where lifts the Mede his haugh­ty brow,
And what his vaunt­ing boast?
The cap­tive hosts which owned their sway,
And bowed beneath their will,
Earth’s generations pass away,
But Judah wanders still.

And where the mistress of the world,
Imperial, ancient Rome?
And where the eagle that unfurled
His wing o’er tower and dome?
And thou, O classic Greece, mine eye
Looks over vale and hill,
To mark thy fanes in ruins lie,
While Judah wanders still.

Yes, wanders forth o’er polar snows,
Beneath an Arctic sky;
To climes where blooms the tropic rose,
And burning deserts lie;
From north to south, form east to west,
O’er stream and vale and hill,
There in his weary, dark unrest,
Must Judah wander still.

Through every land unchanged they go,
That every eye may trace—
What lip and brow may plainly show—
The lineage of our race.
Ours is the outcast’s dreary lot;
Yet, firm in heart and will,
We turn to one belovèd spot,
Thou Judah wanders still.

O when shall come the glorious time,
When o’er the rolling main
Shall turn from every land and clime
The exiles home again—
When, the long years of wandering o’er,
We stand on Zion’s hill,
And Gentile tongues shall say no more
That Judah wanders still?

Elizabeth G. Barber Barrett (1827–1863)