Rumor has spread your numerous woes abroad The huge tongued goddess has I hope increased The sad detail, but still my beating heart With anxious fear enquires the full recital Of every outrage our dear nation suffers Which thou a witness, can’st with truth relate. But chiefly what distress drove thee from home To seek a shelter in this lonely vale. MAHALAH. Backsliding Israel, faithless to the Lord Forsook his altars and despised his laws To Ammon’s Gods they bowed the knee profane And made their children pass through fire to Moloch To Belial also paid the rite obscene And all the various Gods which Egypt owns Engaged their fickle worship, ever changing Prone to rebellion, a stiff-necked race They refused to obey the laws of God and man Our rulers warned, our prophets preached in vain Abused by vulgar tongues, by riotous disorder Rob’d of their hard earned gains, the honest Jews Escaped to foreign lands to seek that safety Israel would not give to wretched BETHULAH. Wretched country, stain to our chosen race When virtue flies to heathen lands for safety. But say what next ensu’d, how long have sinners sway’d Our happy land, happy I fear no more. MAHALAH. At first the populace with impious mirth Exulted in their fancied happiness Their boisterous pleasure pain’d the honest ear Oppression next, with wild misrule upbourne Seiz’d their defenceless, and deluded victims Now they who erst in splendid robes array’d Those delicate limbs ne’er felt the sun’s broad ray With patient labor seek and seek in vain A pittance in the field. They whose delicious board With luxuries full up o’er flowed Now ask for bread and no one breaks it to them The infants’ cries each hour assail the ear Their tongues for thirst, cleave to their little mouths Mothers with frantic pity slay their babes To save them from famine’s slow and cruel tortures The blushing maiden and chaste matron now To caves and desert woods for safety flee. Not safely even the traveller wends his way In public roads his necessary steps But in by-paths, avoids the murderous bands Which lawless range through our most wretched country. Where once the crowded street, the city rose The rank grass waves its head, o’er fallen walls The thorny thistle shakes in the sullen blast Each face a cloud of deepest sadness wears For even the base are caught in their own snares Yet still our stubborn hearts refused to bend To an offended God, or ask his mercy Till Ammon’s troops and proud Philistia’s bands