Poems : Medley and Palestina / by J.W. DeForest [electronic text]

The Judgment.

Thus sayeth Jehovah, the Lord: Go speak to the mountains of Zion, Yea, cry to the valleys and waters: Behold, I arrive with a sword, Behold, I come up like a lion; I come to destroy your high places, To spoil and defile them with slaughters. Your idols shall fall on their faces, Your altars shall totter and crumble, Your soothsaying prophets shall die, And there, where your graven gods tumble, The slain of your people shall lie. The hand of my fury shall blight And wither and utterly humble The oaks of your heathen delight, The beautiful groves that ye cherish. The breath of my anger shall waste Your armies with sudden affright And fill your strongholds with amaze. Your populous cities shall perish, The warders shall fall in their haste, Shall stumble and die in their flight And cumber with corpses the ways. Yea, mingled with imageries shattered In temples and groves and by waters; Yea, piled around altars bespattered By victims of Baalim abhorred; The bones of your sons and your daughters Shall whiten unburied and scattered, To witness that I am the Lord.