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--