Classic Poem

Dear Bethlehem, the proud repose
Of conscious worthiness is thine.
Rest on. The Arab comes and goes,
But farthest Saxon holds thy shrine
More sacred in his stouter Christian hold
Than England's heaped-up iron house of gold.

Thy stony hill is heaven's stair;
Thine every stone some storied gem.
Oh, thou art fair and very fair,
Thou holy, holy Bethlehem!
Thy very dust more dear than dust of gold
Against my glorious sunset waters rolled.

And here did glean the lowly Ruth;
Here strode her grandson, fierce and fair,
Strode forth in all his kingly youth
And tore the ravening she-bear.
Here Rachel sleeps. Here David, thirsting, cried
For just one drop from yonder trickling tide.