How kindly would I gather thee beneath my shelt’ring wings!
Jerusalem! thou knowest not whence all thy safety springs.
O! well do I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth;
The love of thine espousals, thy faithfulness and truth;
When thou thy Lord didst follow in a land that was not sown,
In a bleak and howling wilderness—unpeopled, dark, and lone.
I led thee through the desert, and through a land of drought,
And from Egyptian bondage I brought thee safely out;
I placed thee in a fertile land, where milk and honey flow;
And now thou lovest strangers, and after them wilt go.