In Ashdod’s walls, where Philistine pride did swell,
The ark of Israel’s God they bore as captive prize,
Triumph’s trophy from Ebenezer’s field of blood,
Where once the Hebrews fled and thousands died.
Into the house of Dagon, fish-tailed deity,
Lord of grain and sea, they placed the sacred chest,
Beside his graven form of stone and gilded pride,
As if Jehovah bowed to Dagon’s manifest.

Yet when the dawn with rosy fingers touched the east,
And priests of Ashdod rose to greet their god anew,
Behold! Dagon lay prostrate, fallen face to earth,
Before the ark of Him whose name is ever true.
No storm had raged, no mortal hand had struck the blow—
Silent the night, yet dread the judgment wrought unseen.
They lifted up the broken idol, set him straight,
And trembled not, but thought the fall a chance obscene.

The second morn returned, more terrible than first:
Again the threshold showed the god in ruin low,
Fallen full upon his face before the ark divine,
His head cut off, his hands of power severed so,
Lying upon the very step where men must tread—
Only the headless, handless trunk of Dagon stood,
A mutilated stump, a mockery of might,
While Israel’s God in silence reigned as understood.

Thus was the idol-god obliterated twice:
First bowed in homage, then in pieces dashed apart;
His sovereignty decapitated, hands of strength removed,
His power broken by an invisible, almighty dart.
No craftsman’s tool, no warrior’s blade had wrought this doom—
The hand of the Lord alone had dealt the stroke unseen,
Proving that wood and stone, though carved with pomp and gold,
Before the living God are but as dust and dream.

Therefore the priests of Dagon, and all who cross that hall,
To this day shun the threshold where his fragments fell,
Lest they should tread upon the relics of his shame,
And feel the weight of judgment none can quell.
For there the Lord declared, in emblem stark and plain,
That false gods crumble when His presence draws near;
Dagon lies shattered, headless, handless, overthrown—
The Lord of Hosts alone shall reign, no rival near.