Lines

Written on Visiting the Jewish Burying-Ground, near Columbia, South Carolina.
(From the S. C. Temperance Advocate)

One of our subscribers in South Carolina has sent us a paper containing the following effusion of a gentile friend of Israel, with a request to have it inserted in our periodical. We comply cheerfully, since we shall seize with eagerness every token of a spirit of amity towards our people, which we trust they will always on their part entertain for all mankind, without distinction of race or religion. We honour the enlightened liberality which sees in our people the germ of the civilization and the basis of the better philosophy which now rule a large portion of the world; and though long have been the years of contumely which we had to endure; though even now there are many lands where we are oppressed: we shall nevertheless entertain reciprocal kindness for all who love us, no matter in what language they worship God, no matter what ideas they entertain of his being. And Carolan himself has our best wishes for his welfare; and sure we are, that in the Israelites of his adopted country he will meet with warm friends, who will soothe his hours of sickness and loneliness, and make him think with less regret of the land of his birth which he has left behind, and which he so feelingly remembers.

Poor remnant of Israel, thy journeyings are o'er,
Thou hast crossed the deep flood, thou hast gained the blessed shore,
Thy brethren afflicted, thy country oppressed,
No more will call forth the deep sighs of thy breast.

No Rabbi prepared thee for death's solemn gloom,
No minstrels attended thee on to the tomb,
No garments rent for thee, no prayers were read,
And no flowers were strewn o'er thy last narrow bed.*

But the God of thy fathers was by thy bedside,
And bore thee in triumph through death's swelling tide,
And the kind-hearted stranger hath followed thy bier,
And the kind-hearted stranger shed o'er thee a tear.

And the sun and the moon that continued their light,
Till thy conquering sires put the foeman to flight,†
And the stars that fought for them near Kishon's deep waves,‡
Shed their purest and loveliest beams on your graves.

And why, ye fleet winds, do you pensively sigh,
As these grass-covered mounds of the dead you pass by?
And why dost thou murmur, thou broad Congaree?--
Poor remnant of Israel, they're wailing for thee.

Like you, lowly slumberers, I've wandered from home,
In the land of the stranger an exile to roam,
Like you, amid strangers, I'll sicken and die,
Like you, amid strangers, I shortly shall lie.

CAROLAN.

Columbia, S.C.

* Jewish Antiquities, vol. ii. sect. 14.
† Joshua 10.12-13.
‡ Judges 5.20, 21.