Classic Poem

For ever, Gilboa , be curst thy hated Name,
Th'eternal Monument of our Disgrace and Shame!
For ever curst be that unhappy Scene,
Where Slaughter, Blood, and Death did lately reign!
No Clouds henceforth above thy barren top appear,
But what may make thee mourning wear:
Let them ne're shake their dewy Fleeces there,
But only once a year
On the sad Anniverse drop a remembring Tear:
No Flocks of Off'rings on thy Hills be known,
Which may be Sacrifice our Guilt and thine attone:
No Sheep, nor any of the gentler kind hereafter stay
On thee, but Bears, and Wolves, and Beasts of prey,
Or men more savage, wild, and fierce than they;
A Desart may'st thou prove, and lonely wast,
Like that, our sinful, stubborn Fathers past,
Where they the Penance trod for all, they there transgrest:
Too dearly wast thou drench'd with precious Blood
Of many a Jewish Worthy, spilt of late,
Who suffer'd there by an ignoble Fate,
And purchas'd foul Dishonour at too high a rate:
Great Saul 's ran there amongst the common Flood,
His Royal self mixt with the baser Crowd:
He, whom Heav'ns high and open suffrage chose,
The Bulwark of our Nation to oppose
The Pow'r and Malice of our Foes;
Ev'n He, on whom the Sacred Oyl was shed,
Whose mystick drops enlarg'd his hallow'd Head,
Lies now (oh Fate, impartial still to Kings!)
Huddled and undistinguish'd in the heap of meaner things.