Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.
The Voice of Rama
By George Washington Doane (1799–1859)H
That voice of bitter weeping!
Is it the moan of fettered slave,
His watch of sorrow keeping?
Heard ye, from Rama’s wasted plains,
That cry of lamentation!
Is it the wail of Israel’s sons,
For Salem’s devastation?
That bitter wail is waking,
And deeper woe than Salem’s fall
That tortured heart is breaking:
’T is Rachel, of her sons bereft,
Who lifts that voice of weeping;
And childless are the eyes that there
Their watch of grief are keeping.
That mother’s heart are rending,
As o’er her infant’s little grave
Her wasted form is bending;
From many an eye that weeps to-day
Delight may beam to-morrow;
But she,—her precious babe is not!
And what remains but sorrow?
Thy tears and bitter sobbing,—
Weep on! ’t will cool that burning brow,
And still that bosom’s throbbing:
But be not thine such grief as theirs
To whom no hope is given,—
Snatched from the world, its sins and snares,
Thy infant rests in heaven.