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THE JEWISH HOPE

“Thou art the land of all my dreams—
Thy wanderer’s heart is thine,
And oft he lingers by thy streams,
O holy Palestine!

“A stranger in a stranger’s land,
O’er hill and vale I roam;
But hope forever points her hand
Towards my fathers’ home.

“I know that Israel’s weary race
Is scorned on every shore.
They scarcely find a dwelling place
Where they were lords before.

“Yet ‘mid the darkness and the gloom,
A light begins to break;
O Israel, from the dreary tomb
Thy buried hopes awake,—

“And lips that raise the fervent prayer,
‘How long, O Lord, how long?’
Shall change the wailings of despair
To the triumphant song.

“And I may live to see the hour—
The hour that must be near—
When in his royalty and power
Our Shiloh shall be here.

“Till then my prayers will rise for thee,
Till then my heart be thine,
O land beyond the stormy sea,
O holy Palestine.”

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— April, 1891 —