Weep ye not for the dead: they sleep
In hallowed slumbers, calm and deep;
Their bed, the scenery of their birth,
The dust around them, Hebrew earth!

They cease — and yet bemoan them not:
Their tombs are in the blessed spot
Where hearth, and home, and altar stand,
With Aaron's shrine and Judah's land!

But weep ye sore for us: we go
Where rivers of the stranger flow,
And Gentile winds must bear along
The Lord's — the God of Jacob's song!

We travel to the graves unknown —
To die, in cities not our own;
False feet our sepulchres will tread,
A breathing nation of the dead.

Bel's loathsome land! and Nebo's sky!
Our flesh will shudder where we lie; —
Bone to his bone will cleave and creep
From the vile earth around our sleep.

But they — the dead by Jordan's stream —
They hear those waters where they dream:
The floods that fall by Abraham's cave,
And Rachel's tomb, and Isaac's grave!

Then mourn ye not for them: their sleep
Is pure and blessed, calm and deep;
But grieve, yea, grieve for us: we go
Where rivers of the stranger flow!

No more! no more! oh, never more
The hills, the trees, the ocean-shore!
Ah! Salem, Gilead, Lebanon,
The Lord, the Lord your God, is gone!