I danced before you in the Satrap's hall;
For you I trained my small elastic feet.
I wore your garlands, bowed and carried all
Your flowery offerings. Freely did I eat
Of your rich banquet, cruel people, cold
And scornful people!, Gifts ye cast me now,
Because I sit alone and have grown old
Of sick'ning lees of wine, no wreaths for brow
Not ambergris nor cassia do ye bring,
Nor frankincense, nor any precious thing!
You only laugh and thrust your stinging words At 'Azubah, stabbing her heart like swords.
Ye fondled once my black, smooth hair, and said,
"See how her tresses glisten in the light!"
Ashes are now strewn upon my faded head,
No longer lives in eyes of mine the sprite
Of joyance. All my face is worn and wan,
My gold-embroidered raiment is threadbare;
The sea-shell color from my cheek hath gone,
I sit and wrap myself in sack-cloth wear.
"Who cares for 'Azubah?" I say and sigh.
Forsake me cruel people; pass me by;
No pleasance grant me, sing me no joy-song,
Too old I am and weak, erst fair and strong.
Ah! surely God shall cause to flow for me
Some rills of comfort through the wilderness
And cause to grow some balm-exhaling tree
On the wide desert of my loneliness!
I must not sit in hopeless solitude
List'ning to the merry voices in the street, Nursing my horrid pain to quietude,
Envious of sunny faces I may meet.
'Azubah, once all joyless, joys shall glean,
The desert shall be fruitful and grow green ;-
God whispers me! So feed me with your scorn,
Oh! ingrate people, while I sit forlorn!
CHARLES LEON GUMPERT.
Puissance of the Jew
FOR, if we be not of the lost Ten Tribes,
At least we have procured them harbourageA shelter from the flouts, the sneers, the gibes Of malice that befits not this fair age!
Turn where you will, each blood-stained, guilty page, The foreign hatred ever doth abide,
The Jew is menaced still from every side.
Are there not signs that still God loveth them?— Whate'er they touch turns golden in their hands, And stone by stone the new Jerusalem
Is rising 'mid the waste of other lands,
For as their Wealth, so too their Power expands— From East to West the sky is all aflame
With dawning greatness of the Jewish name!
THRICE happy nation! Favorite of heaven!
Selected from the kingdoms of the earth,
To be His chosen race, ordained to spread
His glory through remotest realms, and teach
The Gentile world Jehovah's awful name.
Mock on! Mock on!
MOCK on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Mock on, mock on, 'tis all in vain ;
You throw the sand against the wind
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine,
Blown back they blind the mocking eye
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
To feel Thy love
Like shepherding—
Like brooding dove,
Like eagle's wing!
As mothers speak
To sons distrest,
The sore and weak
Thou comfortest.
Oh! worth the cost,
And welcome pain!
World's love well lost
Thy love to gain.
We will serve Thee,
As Jacob swore,
"This God shall be
Mine evermore!"
His oath we swear,
His blessing take;
Thy yoke we bear
For Thy name's sake!
Go forth among this homeless race,
This landless race that knows no place
Or name or nation quite its own,
And see their happy babes at play.
Palace or Ghetto, rich or poor,
As thick as birds about your door
At morn some sunny Vermont May,
Then think of Christ and these alone.
Yet we deride, we jeer, we gibe
To see their plenteous babes; we say
"Behold the Jew and all his tribe."
Yet Solomon upon his throne
Was not more kingly crowned,
More surely born to lord, to lead,
To sow the land with Abram's seed,
Because their babes are healthful born
And welcomed as the welcome morn.
Hear me this prophecy and heed,
Except we cleanse us kirk and creed,
Except we wash us word and deed,
The Jew shall rule us-reign the Jew.
And just because the Jew is true,
Is true to nature, true to truth;
Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth,
Who bore us David, Solomon-
The Babe that far, first Christmas dawn.
The nation, aye, the Christian race,
Here fronts its Sybil, face to face,
And I must say, say now to you,
Whate'er the cost, of fortune, fame,
The Christian is a thing of shame-
Must say because I know it true,
The better Christian is the Jew.
ISRAEL, thy glory gleamed
Through long ages long ago;
O Israel, a David dreamed
Within thy tents of snow;
Thy warriors wise, and brave, and good,
Thy women queens of womanhood,
A pillared cloud, and manna food,
O Israel, sweet Israel.
O Israel, again I see
Thy chariot in the sky!
The seed of Abraham shall be
Through all eternity;
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