Here is an interesting story about someone who wrote of Zion a while back. And look where it got him...
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It is written in the Book of Genealogies [Sefer Yuchasin] that Master Judah Halevi was fifty years old when he went to the Land of Israel, as can be seen from his poems. I have a tradition from a certain elder that when Halevi reached the gates of Jerusalem, he tore his clothes and walked with his knees on the ground to fulfill the scripture: “For Your servants take pleasure in her stones and cherish her soil” [Tehillim 102:15]. He was reciting the lament he had composed, “Jerusalem! Have you no greeting [Tziyon, ha-lo tishali],” when an Arab, observing his fervor, was overcome with religious zeal against him. He bore down on him with his horse, trampled him, and killed him.
R. Gedalya Ibn Yahya, Shalshelet ha-Kabbala, trans. Raymond P. Scheindlin in Song of the Distant Dove, p. 249.