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JERUSALEM.

(For the Mirror.)

  City of God—­thy palaces o’erthrown—­
  Thy nation branded—­tribes o’er earth dispersed: 
  Thy temple ruin’d, and thy glory fled,—­
  Speak of thy impious crimes, thy daring guilt,
  And tell a tale whose lines are traced in blood.

               No more from hence ascends
  The sacrificial smoke; the priest no more
  Sheds blood of lambs, to expiate thy crimes—­
  Crimes foul as hell—­crimes which the blood of Him,
  Who came from heaven to die for guilty man,
  Alone could purge,—­and innocence impart. 
  Here holy David tuned his harp to strains
  Sublime as those of angels, when he sung
  In dulcet melody the praise of Him
  Who should redeem from guilt the sons of man,
  And rescue who in Him believed from death—­
  That second death—­of which the first is type. 
  Here lived—­here died—­whom prophets long foretold,
  Whom angels worship and whom seraphs praise,
  The Son of God, mysterious God-Man: 
  He was rejected by the Jew; and here—­
  To fill the awful measure of their guilt—­
  At noon, a deed was done, without a peer;
  A deed, unequalled since the world began,
  The masterpiece of sin, of crime the chief;
  At which the sun grew dark, earth’s pillars shook,
  Chaotic gloom as erst o’erspread the land,
  And nature frowned at insults paid her God—­
  The crucifixion of His only Son.

    Here now the banner of the prophet false,
  Unfolds its silken folds to taunt the Jew;
  The moslem minarets lift high their heads. 
  And raise their summits in the placid sky—­
  As tho’ to rouse from his deep lethargy
  The hardened Jew; to wrest from Paynim hordes
  The Holy City, once the abode of God.

    But shall Mohammed’s banner ever float
  On Salem’s ruins?  Shaft her sacred dust
  Where Christ has shed His blood, by infidels
  Be ever trodden down?  Shall her temple
  Prostrate lie, to cause the impious mock
  Of Mussulmen for ever?  It may not be. 
  Ere many years wane in eternity,
  That banner shall be plucked from its proud height—­
  Those tow’ring minarets shall fall to earth
  And God again be worshipp’d thro’ the land. 
  David’s fair city shall be then rebuilt;
  Her pristine beauty shall be far surpassed
  By more than mortal splendour; her temple
  Point high its turrets to the skies—­and He,
  The God of Hosts with glory fill the place!

S.J.

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PARLIAMENTS, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

(For the Mirror.)