Dirge for the Ninth of Ab*
O THOU afflicted, drunken not with wine.Cast to the earth thy timbrel; strip thee bare;Yea, make thee bald; let not thy beauty shine;Despoil of comeliness thy presence fair;Lift up a wailing on the mountain height;Turn thee to all thy borders; seek thy flight.
And cry before the Lord For thresholds waste; For thresholds waste; . Cry for thy little ones Slain of the sword; Lift up thine hands to Him, To Him implored.
How hath to Zion come the foeman dread,Into the royal city entrance found.How do the reckless feet of strangers treadWith step irreverent on the hallowed ground.Lo, when the spoilers stormed the sanctuary,They fell on priests, the guards of sacred rite,Watchmen who kept their charge, and fearlesslyStood by, unflinching 'mid the deadly fight:Until their blood was shed, profuse as whenOf yore the Nile was turned to bloody flow;Within the curtain burst unholy men,Yea, even where the High Priest feared to go.They stripped of gold thy walls' majestic heights.And the fair windows of thy narrowed lights.
And cry before the Lord For thresholds waste, For thresholds waste, Cry for thy little ones Slain of the sword; Lift up thine hands to Him, To Him implored.
* From Songs of Exile.