Jepthah's Daughter
On the hills of Mizpah bloomed the mountain
maid,
Blue the skies above her where she strayed;
As the light gazelle she sealed the rocky slope,
Adah, child of love and hope.

Gone from the mountain, lost to her home,
Called in life's beauty to the tomb;
Wake the wild lamenting in lonely glen,
She will never come home again.

Glad was her upraising, when, with maiden mirth
And merry timbrel, she came forth;
But, alas, the death march! day of utter gloom!
Twas the signal of her doom.

O, the grand deliverer of mountain maid!
"Keep the vow, my father," thus she said;
"Shall a Mason's daughter fear for truth to die?
There's a home beyond the sky."

From the hills of Mizpah, let her story  rise, -
"Death before dishonor" - to the skies;
While seasons bloom on mountain free,
Adah, we will weep for thee!


From Macoy's 1866 Ritual