Lament For Israel.

Where is thy home in thy promised land?
    Desolate and forsaken!
The stranger's arm hath seized thy brand,
Thou art bowed beneath the stranger's hand,
    And the stranger thy birthright hath taken.

Where is the mark of thy chosen race?
    Infamous and degraded!
It hath fallen on thee, on thy dwelling-place,
And that heaven-stamped sign to a foul disgrace
    And the scoff of the world, has faded.

First-born of nations! upon thy brow,
    Resistless and revenging,
The fiery finger of God hath now
Written the sentence of thy wo,
    The innocent blood avenging!

Lion of Judah! thy glory is past,
    Vanished and fled for ever.
Homeless and scattered, thy race is cast
Like chaff in the breath of the sweeping blast,
    To rally or rise again, never!

Frances Anne Kemble

Frances Anne Kemble, also known as Fanny, was a notable British actress and writer born on November 27, 1809, and died on January 15, 1893. She was a prominent figure in the 19th century literary and theatrical circles. Kemble was known for her acting prowess and her detailed journals and memoirs, which provide valuable insights into the life and times of her era.

Frances Anne Kemble

Impromptu,

Frances Anne Kemble, Simple Poetry

To Miss ---

Frances Anne Kemble, Simple Poetry

Venice.

Frances Anne Kemble, Simple Poetry

Woman's Love.

Frances Anne Kemble, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

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Fallen Is Thy Throne. (Air.--Martini.)

Fallen is thy Throne, oh Israel!
    Silence is o'er thy plains;
Thy dwellings all lie desolate,
    Thy children weep in chains.
Where are the dews that fed thee
    On Etham's barren shore?
That fire from Heaven which led thee,
    Now lights thy path no more.

LORD! thou didst love Jerusalem--
    Once she was all thy own;
Her love thy fairest heritage,^[1]
    Her power thy glory's throne.^[2]
Till evil came, and blighted
    Thy long-loved olive-tree;^[3]--
And Salem's shrines were lighted
    For other gods than Thee.

Then sunk the star of Solyma--
    Then past her glory's day,
Like heath that, in the wilderness,^[4]
    The wild wind whirls away.
Silent and waste her bowers,
  ...

Thomas Moore

The Fall Of Jerusalem.

The sunset on Judah's high places grew pale,
And purple tints shadowed the gorge and the vale,
While Venus in beauty, with dilating eye,
Out-riding the star-host, looked down from the sky
On the city that struggled with foemen below, -
Jerusalem, peerless in grandeur and woe!
O'er the fast crumbling walls thronged the cohorts of Rome,
Their batteries thundered on palace and dome,
And the children of Israel in voiceless despair
At the foot of the Temple had breathed a last prayer;
For their armies were spent in the unequal strife,
And Famine was maddening the pulses of life,
The pestilence lurked in the zephyr's soft breath,
And the gall-drops were poured from the drawn sword of Death.

The Night with starred garments moved noiseless on high,
When they felt a h...

Mary Gardiner Horsford

The Fall Of Jerusalem

Jerusalem! Jerusalem!
Thou art low! thou mighty one,
How is the brilliance of thy diadem,
How is the lustre of thy throne
Rent from thee, and thy sun of fame
Darkend by the shadowy pinion
Of the Roman bird, whose sway
All the tribes of earth obey,
Crouching neath his dread dominion,
And the terrors of his name!

How is thy royal seatwhereon
Sate in days of yore
Lowly Jesses godlike son,
And the strength of Solomon,
In those rich and happy times
When the ships from Tarshish bore
Incense, and from Ophirs land,
With silken sail and cedar oar,
Wafting to Judeas strand
All the wealth of foreign climes
How is thy royal seat oerthrown!
Gone is all thy majesty:
Salem! Salem! city of kings,
Thou sittest desolate and lone,...

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Bar Kochba.

Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpour
Of grateful homage on his fallen head,
That never coronal of triumph wore,
Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.
If Victory makes the hero, raw Success
The stamp of virtue, unremembered
Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress
Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man
Who dies for freedom, loving all things less,
Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan;
The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send
Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span -
If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend
Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise.
Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end!

Emma Lazarus

An Appeal To My Countrywomen.

You can sigh o'er the sad-eyed Armenian
    Who weeps in her desolate home.
You can mourn o'er the exile of Russia
    From kindred and friends doomed to roam.

You can pity the men who have woven
    From passion and appetite chains
To coil with a terrible tension
    Around their heartstrings and brains.

You can sorrow o'er little children
    Disinherited from their birth,
The wee waifs and toddlers neglected,
    Robbed of sunshine, music and mirth.

For beasts you have gentle compassion;
    Your mercy and pity they share.
For the wretched, outcast and fallen
    You have tenderness, love and care.


But hark! from our Southland are floating
    Sobs of anguish, murmurs of pain,
And women heart-stricken are weeping

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

By The Waters Of Babylon

B.C. 570

(Macmillan's Magazine, October 1866.)


Here where I dwell I waste to skin and bone;
    The curse is come upon me, and I waste
    In penal torment powerless to atone.
The curse is come on me, which makes no haste
    And doth not tarry, crushing both the proud
    Hard man and him the sinner double-faced.
Look not upon me, for my soul is bowed
    Within me, as my body in this mire;
    My soul crawls dumb-struck, sore-bested and cowed.
As Sodom and Gomorrah scourged by fire,
    As Jericho before God's trumpet-peal,
    So we the elect ones perish in His ire.
Vainly we gird on sackcloth, vainly kneel
    With famished faces toward Jerusalem:
    His heart is shut against us not to feel,
His ears against our cry He shutte...

Christina Georgina Rossetti