The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 3/Hebrew Melodies/The Wild Gazelle
THE WILD GAZELLE.
I.
The wild gazelle on Judah's hills
Exulting yet may bound,
And drink from all the living rills
That gush on holy ground;
Its airy step and glorious eye[1]
May glance in tameless transport by:—
II.
A step as fleet, an eye more bright,
Hath Judah witnessed there;
And o'er her scenes of lost delight
Inhabitants more fair.
The cedars wave on Lebanon,
But Judah's statelier maids are gone!
III.
More blest each palm that shades those plains
Than Israel's scattered race;
For, taking root, it there remains
In solitary grace:
It cannot quit its place of birth,
It will not live in other earth.
IV.
But we must wander witheringly,
In other lands to die;
And where our fathers' ashes be,
Our own may never lie:
Our temple hath not left a stone,
And Mockery sits on Salem's throne.
- ↑ [Compare To Ianthe, stanza iv. lines 1, 2—
"Oh! let that eye, which, wild as the Gazelle's,
Now brightly bold or beautifully shy."Compare, too, The Giaour, lines 473, 474—
"Her eye's dark charm 'twere vain to tell,
But gaze on that of the Gazelle."Poetical Works, 1899, ii. 13; et ante, p. 108.]