How is it that the lovely land

This Hebrew poem was composed to be recited on the Ninth of Av. It was preserved in the Nuremberg Maḥzor, copied in 1331. It is a response to the Crusader conquest of Jerusalem in 1099. An acrostic in the poem gives the name Samuel, presumably the name of the poet. The first word of each stanza, ekhah, is the first word in the book of Lamentations, usually translated as “How is it?”