Jonathan's Gift
by Maria Grace Saffery
(Salisbury, Wiltshire, UK)
Ancient gazelle mosaic
Caesarea, Israel
"The beauty of Israel
is slain upon thy high places:
how are the mighty fallen!"
2 Samuel 1:19
O chieftain, in thy life was seen
That friendship in immortal mould,
To which ambition’s hope is mean,
And woman’s kindest thought is cold.
Gilboa, let thy mountain-heath
Like Jesse’s gentle harp complain;
There Israel’s beauty bowed in death,
There Jonathan, my friend, was slain!Cain's Rage
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Maria Grace Saffery, 1773-1858,
Baptist poetess and hymn writer,
from, Poems on Sacred Subjects, 1834.
This poem is in the public domain
Gazelle mosaic from Caesarea, Israel,
photo by Dr. Avishai Teicher
is in the public domain
via Wikipedia Commons.
The Hebrew word translated beauty
means antelope, roe or gazelle.
"The beauty of Israel" is David's
romantic reference to Jonathan.
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