Day was breaking,
When at the altar of the temple stood
The holy priest of God. The incense lamp
Burned with a struggling light, and a low chant
Swelled through the hollow arches of the roof,
Like an articulate wail; and there, alone,
Wasted to ghastly thinness, Helon knelt.
The echoes of the melancholy strain
Died in the distant aisles, and he rose up,
Struggling with weakness, and bowed down his head
Unto the sprinkled ashes, and put off
His costly raiment for the leper's garb,
And with the sackcloth round him, and his lip
Hid in a loathsome covering, stood still,
Waiting to hear his doom:--

"Depart! depart, O child
Of Israel, from the temple of thy God!
For He has smote thee with His chastening rod,
And to the desert-wild,
From all thou lov'st, away thy feet must flee,
That from thy plague His people may be free.

"Depart! and come not near
The busy mart, the crowded city, more;
Nor set thy foot a human threshold o'er.
And stay thou not to hear
Voices that call thee in the way; and fly
From all who in the wilderness pass by.