DREYFUS.

I.

"Thou who wert, and art, and ever shalt be! Show now Thy Almightiness, send Thy miracle as lightning from on high."

Nearer and nearer came the curses and shrieks and the wailing lamentations; and men and women fled, wounded, before the infamous and infuriate avengers;

Then the crash of guns and the terror of carnage and rapine unspeakable;

And, in the midst, the voice of an old man crying to heaven, and falling smitten and dead before the shrine of the God of Israel.

And, listening, I heard not only the sounds of the mimic drama-but louder and more dreadful, the panting of miserable women who welcomed death, the deliverer;

And from Kishineff and Odessa I heard, once more crying to heaven, the outpoured blood of the Jew.

II.

And still as I listened and dreamed, the crimson flood widened to a great and lustrous pool,

And looking therein I saw reflected the faces of many known well to my heart and to the hearts of all the world,

For there were the features of mighty warriors and makers of laws and leaders of men; of poets inspired and of painters and musicians; and of famed philosophers, and of men and women who loved, and labored for, their kind;

And the faces of preachers and who prophets; of those fervently cursed the unrighteous, and who to a world in darkness brought light everlasting;

And chief of all I saw in that crimson mirror the face of him whose spirit was bowed beneath the agonies of all mankind.

RICHARD WATSON GILDER (1844-1909).

Cease not their vigil through the longest night.

Love is the leader of the hearts of men!

Love is the crown and glory of the soul!

Awake, O Israel! for the day is near! The angel stands beside the troubled pool,

A song of Zion stirs the spicy branches Amidst the sacred grove of Lebanon. Crowned with her sorrows, she, the queen of grief,

From her high throne of woe shall yet pronounce

The fate of empires! Hear, O Israel! For from her lips Jehovah's voice shall speak.

Her words, winged with fire of heaven, shall be

His sacred messengers, and they shall bear

A fateful message that shall shake the world.

Through life's dark terrors she has

passed her feet

Have trod the vale of gloom; through tears her eyes

Have watched the dreadful years go, slowly, by

While on the cross of hate her own heart bled.

But not for nothing! Her true soul shall be

The oriflamme of battle and a star Whose light shall shine, unquenched, above the clouds.

To lead her people on to victory.

Awake, O Israel! lest the day pass by! On Gibeon stands the sun, and on the vale

Of Ajalon the moon is shining still. The banner flutters on the field and there

Stricken and pale, a daughter of the kings

Alone, amidst the wreck of all her hopes,

Cries out for Justice; shall she cry in vain?

ROBERT BURNS WILSON (1850-).

THE SENTINEL OF THE AGES.

UNDER shining, under shadow,

At the gates of every land, All adown the lengthening ages, Men have seen a Sentry stand; Looming grandly on the beauty

Of the blue day's crystal light, Then anon, in darkness blending With the mystery of night; While his meditations linger

Over glories that are past, And his keen prophetic vision

Sees the good to come, at last.

At the portals of some nations,

We behold him, as he stands Pale and haggard, weak and weary, With his grey head in his hands, Bowed in retrospective sorrow,

For the infamy and scorn, For the ages of oppression

By his people meekly borne; Till his features are transfigured In a blaze of wrath divine, And his glassy eyes brim over With their bitter burning wine.

At another gate we see him,
In the vigor of full prime
Mounted on a stalwart courser,
For some charge or quest sublime:
Be it to go forth to battle,

In a cause of righteous strife,
Winning liberty, or glory,

With the purchase of his life.
Or, at least, to gain his guerdon,
And be named among the great,
By the aid of wealth's distinction,
Or some service to the State.