Palestine (poem)

Palestine is an 1803 romantic long poem by noted clergyman Reginald Heber, successfully entered for the Newdigate Prize.

Heber had been helped in this composition by Sir Walter Scott, a family friend, before the future novelist's years of fame.

[2] "None who heard Reginald Heber recite his ‘ Palestine’ in that magnificent theatre, will ever forget his appearance-so interesting and impressive.

It was known that his old father was somewhere sitting among the crowded audience, when his universally admired son ascended the rostrum; and we have heard that the sudden thunder of applause which then arose so shook his frame, weak and wasted by long illness, that he never recovered it, and may be said to have died of the joy dearest to a parent's heart."

[3] A later biographer, Derrick Hughes, finds its contemporary acclaim puzzling: "It is not a good, not even a mediocre poem; it is leaden".