It was amid the ga­ther­ing gloom,
The deep pre­sag­ing woes,
The night-fall of her hast­en­ing doom,
That Ju­dah’s light arose.

It was while yet that vi­tal beam
Upon her bo­som lay,
Her glo­ry van­ished like a dream
Her scep­ter passed away.

It came—her own Mes­si­ah’s reign,
The king­dom of her God,
Told by the star on Beth­le­hem’s plain,
The voice on Jor­dan’s flood.

Told by each deep pro­phet­ic word,
That said The Lord is nigh;
Responding from the earth that heard
The an­them from the sky.

Told by the gifts with which He came,
In ages past de­fined—
The her­ald foot­step for the lame,
And day­light for the blind.

By sounds which deaf­ened ear awoke
While all the world was dumb;
As if it first the si­lence broke,
To say, The Lord is come!

By pow­er to loos­en speech­less tongue
Which, to the list­en­ing ear
That now up­on its ac­cents hung,
Could say The Lord is here.

Told by au­thor­ity that gave
Its man­date to the deep:
That bid the whirl­wind and the wave
In calm obe­di­ence sleep.

Told by the sym­pa­thy severe,
That o’er the suf­fer­ing bled;
That groaned to see the mourn­er’s tear
And then awoke the dead.

Told by the mir­acles di­vine,
Magnificent and mild,
That awed the priest­hood at the shrine,
The thou­sands in the wild.

But Ju­dah turned from Da­vid’s son,
In His ap­point­ed hour—
Nor owned that meek and Migh­ty One,
In gen­tle­ness of pow­er.

Saw not, in grace and gran­deur meet,
Messiah’s god­like charms,
The low­ly bless­ing at His feet,
And child­hood in His arms.

Marked not her Sov­er­eign from on high,
When on the wave He trod;
Nor heard the star­tled de­mon’s cry
Before the Son of God.

Then, Ju­dah, then thy heart de­nied
The Ho­ly and the Just;
Yet still His Spir­it o’er thee sighed,
And mourned thee in the dust.

Thy child­ren, on the mount­ain steep,
Beheld His sor­rows flow,
In tears which on­ly He could weep,
That read thy doom of woe.

Thy fu­ture record, wide un­rolled,
Before His vi­sion lay;
Thy de­so­la­tions, yet un­told—
Thy dark and bit­ter day.

’Tis past—that form no more ap­pears,
Thine eyes no long­er see
The ma­jes­ty of love in tears,
Jerusalem, for thee!

Thine hands have done the deed ac­cursed—
And wrath up­on the stain
Rolls o’er thee, like an ocean burst,
For God’s Mes­si­ah slain.

The shud­der­ing earth con­fessed His doom,
The uni­verse His cry;
And death came wan­der­ing from the tomb,
To mark that He could die.

Soon were His se­pul­cher and shroud
Beneath thy burn­ing wall;
And He up­on the judg­ment cloud,
That thun­dered o’er thy fall.