The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Volume 2 / Jewish poems: Translations

     IX.

     Ambition first!  I find no fleck thereof
       In all thy clean soul.  What! could glory, gold,
     Or sated senses lure thy lofty love?
       No purple cloak to shield thee from the cold,
     No jeweled sign to flicker thereabove,
       And dazzle men to homage—joys untold
     Of spiritual treasure, grace divine,
     Alone (so saidst thou) coveting for thine!

                     X.

     I saw thee mount with deprecating air,
       Step after step, unto our Jewish throne
     Of supreme dignity, the Rabbi's chair;
       Shrinking from public honors thrust upon
     Thy meek desert, regretting even there
       The placid habit of thy life foregone;
     Silence obscure, vast peace and austere days
     Passed in wise contemplation, prayer, and praise.

     XI.

     One less than thou had ne'er known such regret.
       How must thou suffer, who so lov'st the shade,
     In Fame's full glare, whom one stride more shall set
       Upon the Papal seat!  I stand dismayed,
     Familiar with thy fearful soul, and yet
       Half glad, perceiving modest worth repaid
     Even by the Christians!  Could thy soul deflect?
     No, no, thrice no!  Ambition I reject!

     XII.

     Next doubt.  Could doubt have swayed thee, then I ask,
       How enters doubt within the soul of man?
     Is it a door that opens, or a mask
       That falls? and Truth's resplendent face we scan.
     Nay, 't is a creeping, small, blind worm, whose task
       Is gnawing at Faith's base; the whole vast plan
     Rots, crumbles, eaten inch by inch within,
     And on its ruins falsehood springs and sin.

     XIII.

     But thee no doubt confused, no problems vexed.
       Thy father's faith for thee proved bright and sweet.
     Thou foundst no rite superfluous, no text
       Obscure; the path was straight before thy feet.
     Till thy baptismal day, thou, unperplexed
       By foreign dogma, didst our prayers repeat,
     Honor the God of Israel, fast and feast,
     Even as thy people's wont, from first to least.

     XIV.

     Yes, Doubt I likewise must discard.  Not sleek,
       Full-faced, erect of head, men walk, when doubt
     Writhes at their entrails; pinched and lean of cheek,
       With brow pain-branded, thou hadst strayed about
     As midst live men a ghost condemned to seek
       That soul he may nor live nor die without.
     No doubts the font washed from thee, thou didst glide
     From creed to creed, complete, sane-souled, clear-eyed.

     XV.

     Thy pardon, Master, if I dare sustain
       The thesis thou couldst entertain a fear.
     I would but rout thine enemies, who feign
       Ignoble impulse prompted thy career.
     I will but weigh the chances and make plain
       To Envy's self the monstrous jest appear.
     Though time, place, circumstance confirmed in seeming,
     One word from thee should frustrate all their scheming.

     XVI.

     Was Israel glad in Seville on the day
       Thou didst renounce him?  Then mightst thou indeed
     Snap finger at whate'er thy slanderers say.
       Lothly must I admit, just then the seed
     Of Jacob chanced upon a grievous way.
       Still from the wounds of that red year we bleed.
     The curse had fallen upon our heads—the sword
     Was whetted for the chosen of the Lord.

     XVII.

     There where we flourished like a fruitful palm,
       We were uprooted, spoiled, lopped limb from limb.
     A bolt undreamed of out of heavens calm,
       So cracked our doom.  We were destroyed by him
     Whose hand since childhood we had clasped.  With balm
       Our head had been anointed, at the brim
     Our cup ran over—now our day was done,
     Our blood flowed free as water in the sun.

     XVIII.

     Midst the four thousand of our tribe who held
       Glad homes in Seville, never a one was spared,
     Some slaughtered at their hearthstones, some expelled
       To Moorish slavery.  Cunningly ensnared,
     Baited and trapped were we; their fierce monks yelled
       And thundered from our Synagogues, while flared
     The Cross above the Ark.  Ah, happiest they
     Who fell unconquered martyrs on that day!

     XIX.

     For some (I write it with flushed cheek, bowed head),
       Given free choice 'twixt death and shame, chose shame,
     Denied the God who visibly had led
       Their fathers, pillared in a cloud of flame,
     Bathed in baptismal waters, ate the bread
       Which is their new Lord's body, took the name
     Marranos the Accursed, whom equally
     Jew, Moor, and Christian hate, despise, and flee.

     XX.

     Even one no less than an Abarbanel
       Prized miserable length of days, above
     Integrity of soul.  Midst such who fell,
       Far be it, however, from my duteous love,
     Master, to reckon thee.  Thine own lips tell
       How fear nor torture thy firm will could move.
     How thou midst panic nowise disconcerted,
     By Thomas of Aquinas wast converted!

     XXI.

     Truly I know no more convincing way
       To read so wise an author, than was thine.
     When burning Synagogues changed night to day,
       And red swords underscored each word and line.
     That was a light to read by!  Who'd gainsay
       Authority so clearly stamped divine?
     On this side, death and torture, flame and slaughter,
     On that, a harmless wafer and clean water.

     XXII.

     Thou couldst not fear extinction for our race;
       Though Christian sword and fire from town to town
     Flash double bladed lightning to efface
       Israel's image—though we bleed, burn, drown
     Through Christendom—'t is but a scanty space.
       Still are the Asian hills and plains our own,
     Still are we lords in Syria, still are free,
     Nor doomed to be abolished utterly.

     XXIII.

     One sole conclusion hence at last I find,
       Thou whom ambition, doubt, nor fear could swerve,
     Perforce hast been persuaded through the mind,
       Proved, tested the new dogmas, found them serve
     Thy spirit's needs, left flesh and sense behind,
       Accepted without shrinking or reserve,
     The trans-substantial bread and wine, the Christ
     At whose shrine thine own kin were sacrificed.

     XXIV.

     Here then the moment comes when I crave light.
       All's dark to me.  Master, if I be blind,
     Thou shalt unseal my lids and bless with sight,
       Or groping in the shadows, I shall find
     Whether within me or without, dwell night.
       Oh cast upon my doubt-bewildered mind
     One ray from thy clear heaven of sun-bright faith,
     Grieving, not wroth, at what thy servant saith.

     XXV.

     Where are the signs fulfilled whereby all men
       Should know the Christ?  Where is the wide-winged peace
     Shielding the lamb within the lion's den?
       The freedom broadening with the wars that cease?
     Do foes clasp hands in brotherhood again?
       Where is the promised garden of increase,
     When like a rose the wilderness should bloom?
     Earth is a battlefield and Spain a tomb.

     XXVI.

     Our God of Sabaoth is an awful God
       Of lightnings and of vengeance,—Christians say.
     Earth trembled, nations perished at his nod;
       His Law has yielded to a milder sway.
     Theirs is the God of Love whose feet have trod
       Our common earth—draw near to him and pray,
     Meek-faced, dove-eyed, pure-browed, the Lord of life,
     Know him and kneel, else at your throat the knife!

     XXVII.

     This is the God of Love, whose altars reek
       With human blood, who teaches men to hate;
     Torture past words, or sins we may not speak
       Wrought by his priests behind the convent-grate.
     Are his priests false? or are his doctrines weak
       That none obeys him?  State at war with state,
     Church against church—yea, Pope at feud with Pope
     In these tossed seas what anchorage for hope?

     XXVIII.

     Not only for the sheep without the fold
       Is the knife whetted, who refuse to share
     Blessings the shepherd wise doth not withhold
       Even from the least among his flock—but there
     Midmost the pale, dissensions manifold,
       Lamb flaying lamb, fierce sheep that rend and tear.
     Master, if thou to thy pride's goal should come,
     Where wouldst thou throne—at Avignon or Rome?

     XXIX.

     I handle burning questions, good my lord,
       Such as may kindle fagots, well I wis.
     Your Gospel not denies our older Word,
       But in a way completes and betters this.
     The Law of Love shall supersede the sword,
       So runs the promise, but the facts I miss.
     Already needs this wretched generation,
     A voice divine—a new, third revelation.

     XXX.

     Two Popes and their adherents fulminate
       Ban against ban, and to the nether hell
     Condemn each other, while the nations wait
       Their Christ to thunder forth from Heaven, and tell
     Who is his rightful Vicar, reinstate
       His throne, the hideous discord to dispel.
     Where shall I seek, master, while such things be,
     Celestial truth, revealed certainty!

     XXXI.

     Not miracles I doubt, for how dare man,
       Chief miracle of life's mystery, say HE KNOWS?
     How may he closely secret causes scan,
       Who learns not whence he comes nor where he goes?
     Like one who walks in sleep a doubtful span
       He gropes through all his days, till Death unclose
     His cheated eyes and in one blinding gleam,
     Wakes, to discern the substance from the dream.

     XXXII.

     I say not therefore I deny the birth,
       The Virgin's motherhood, the resurrection,
     Who know not how mine own soul came to earth,
       Nor what shall follow death.  Man's imperfection
     May bound not even in thought the height and girth
       Of God's omnipotence; neath his direction
     We may approach his essence, but that He
     Should dwarf Himself to us—it cannot be!

     XXXIII.

     The God who balances the clouds, who spread
       The sky above us like a molten glass,
     The God who shut the sea with doors, who laid
       The corner-stone of earth, who caused the grass
     Spring forth upon the wilderness, and made
       The darkness scatter and the night to pass—
     That He should clothe Himself with flesh, and move
     Midst worms a worm—this, sun, moon, stars disprove.

     XXXIV.

     Help me, O thou who wast my boyhood's guide,
       I bend my exile-weary feet to thee,
     Teach me the indivisible to divide,
       Show me how three are one and One is three!
     How Christ to save all men was crucified,
       Yet I and mine are damned eternally.
     Instruct me, Sage, why Virtue starves alone,
     While falsehood step by step ascends the throne.

     LITTLE POEMS IN PROSE.

                     I. THE EXODUS. (August 3, 1492.)

     1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty
     pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and
     bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated,
     cathedral-shadowed towns.

     2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully
     upon his staff.  The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh
     swoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles her
     sleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruised
     and bleeding feet.  "Mother, shall we soon be there?"

     3. The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably to
     father and brother, to maiden and wife.  In his breast, his own
     heart is broken.

     4. The halt, the blind, are amid the train.  Sturdy pack-horses
     laboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirst
     with fever.

     5. The panting mules are urged forward with spur and goad; stuffed
     are the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage of ruined homes.

     6. Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly-carried
     silken scrolls.

     7. In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp; behind its
     net-work of bronze the airs of heaven breathe not upon its faint
     purple star.

     8. Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure,
     plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed army
     of misfortune.

     9. Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no friend shall
     close his eyes.

     10. They leave behind, the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vines
     they planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusia
     and Aragon, Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; the
     altar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.

     11. The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits his
     flock, the peasant his plow, to pelt with curses and stones; the
     villager sets on their trail his yelping cur.

     12. Oh the weary march, oh the uptorn roots of home, oh the
     blankness of the receding goal!

     13. Listen to their lamentation: They that ate dainty food are
     desolate in the streets; they that were reared in scarlet embrace
     dunghills.  They flee away and wander about.  Men say among the
     nations, they shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, our
     days are full, our doom is come.

     14. Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, and
     the East refuseth to receive.

     15. O bird of the air, whisper to the despairing exiles, that
     to-day, to-day, from the many-masted, gayly-bannered port of Palos,
     sails the world-unveiling Genoese, to unlock the golden gates of
     sunset and bequeath a Continent to Freedom!

     II. TREASURES.

     1. Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its coal-black
     prison.

     2. Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-tarnished pearl
     slumbers in mud and ooze.

     3. Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure, lies the
     ingot of gold.

     4. Long hast thou been buried, O Israel, in the bowels of earth;
     long hast thou slumbered beneath the overwhelming waves; long hast
     thou slept in the rayless house of darkness.

     5. Rejoice and sing, for only thus couldst thou rightly guard the
     golden knowledge, Truth, the delicate pearl and the adamantine
     jewel of the Law.

     III. THE SOWER.

     1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.

     2. His face was blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, scarred
     and distorted by pain.  Naked to the loins, his back was ridged with
     furrows, his breast was plowed with stripes.

     3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed.

     4. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, a
     sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree.
     Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, the heavens were darkened
     with its shadow.

     5. It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fruitage of
     health and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage, and a
     serpent was coiled about its stem.

     6. Under its branches a divinely beautiful man, crowned with
     thorns, was nailed to a cross.

     7. And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle the Sower;
     his flesh was bruised and torn, but cunningly he disentangled the
     murderous knot and passed to the eastward.

     8. Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed.

     9. And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, a
     sheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree.
     Crescent shaped like little emerald moons were the leaves; it bare
     blossoms of silver and blossoms of blood, fruitage of health and
     fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage and a serpent was
     coiled about its stem.

     10. Under its branches a turbaned mighty-limbed Prophet brandished
     a drawn sword.

     11. And behold, this tree likewise puts forth perfidious arms to
     strangle the Sower; but cunningly he disentangles the murderous
     knot and passes on.

     12. Lo, his hands are not empty of grain, the strength of his arm
     is not spent.

     13. What germ hast thou saved for the future, O miraculous
     Husbandman?  Tell me, thou Planter of Christhood and Islam;
     tell me, thou seed-bearing Israel!

     IV. THE TEST.

     1. Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel.

     2. I saw him bound to the wheel, nailed to the cross, cut off by
     the sword, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas.

     3. And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in silent
     rebuke and defiance.

     4. A Prophet with four eyes; wide gazed the orbs of the spirit
     above the sleeping eyelids of the senses.

     5. A Poet, who plucked from his bosom the quivering heart and
     fashioned it into a lyre.

     6. A placid-browed Sage, uplifted from earth in celestial
     meditation.

     7. These I saw, with princes and people in their train; the
     monumental dead and the standard-bearers of the future.

     8. And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter, and turning, I
     beheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious features, the sordid mask
     of the son of the Ghetto.

                          V. CURRENTS.

     1. Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of immeasurable
     tides, oversweep our continent.

     2. From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid Ghettos of
     Europe,

     3. From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief, and Ekaterinoslav,

     4. Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of Rachel
     mourning for her children, of Israel lamenting for Zion.

     5. And lo, like a turbid stream, the long-pent flood bursts the
     dykes of oppression and rushes hitherward.

     6. Unto her ample breast, the generous mother of nations welcomes
     them.

     7. The herdsman of Canaan and the seed of Jerusalem's royal
     shepherd renew their youth amid the pastoral plains of Texas
     and the golden valleys of the Sierras.

     VI. THE PROPHET.

     1. Moses Ben Maimon lifting his perpetual lamp over the path of the
     perplexed;

     2. Hallevi, the honey-tongued poet, wakening amid the silent ruins
     of Zion the sleeping lyre of David;

     3. Moses, the wise son of Mendel, who made the Ghetto illustrious;

     4. Abarbanel, the counselor of kings; Alcharisi, the exquisite
     singer; Ibn Ezra, the perfect old man; Gabirol, the tragic seer;

     5. Heine, the enchanted magician, the heartbroken jester;

     6. Yea, and the century-crowned patriarch whose bounty engirdles
     the globe;—

     7. These need no wreath and no trumpet; like perennial asphodel
     blossoms, their fame, their glory resounds like the brazen-throated
     cornet.

     8. But thou—hast thou faith in the fortune of Israel?  Wouldst thou
     lighten the anguish of Jacob?

     9. Then shalt thou take the hand of yonder caftaned wretch with
     flowing curls and gold-pierced ears;

     10. Who crawls blinking forth from the loathsome recesses of the
     Jewry;

     11. Nerveless his fingers, puny his frame; haunted by the bat-like
     phantoms of superstition is his brain.

     12. Thou shalt say to the bigot, "My Brother," and to the creature
     of darkness, "My Friend."

     13. And thy heart shall spend itself in fountains of love upon the
     ignorant, the coarse, and the abject.

     14. Then in the obscurity thou shalt hear a rush of wings, thine
     eyes shall be bitten with pungent smoke.

     15. And close against thy quivering lips shall be pressed the live
     coal wherewith the Seraphim brand the Prophets.

     VII. CHRYSALIS.

     1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness the
     cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala.

     2. Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppression, closely he
     drew about him the dust-gray filaments, soft as silk and stubborn
     as steel, until he lay death-stiffened in mummied seclusion.

     3. And the world has named him an ugly worm, shunning the blessed
     daylight.

     4. But when the emancipating springtide breathes wholesome,
     quickening airs, when the Sun of Love shines out with cordial
     fires, lo, the Soul of Israel bursts her cobweb sheath, and flies
     forth attired in the winged beauty of immortality.

     Oh, that the golden lyre divine
     Whence David smote flame-tones were mine!
     Oh, that the silent harp which hung
                  Untuned, unstrung,
     Upon the willows by the river,
     Would throb beneath my touch and quiver
     With the old song-enchanted spell
                 Of Israel!

     Oh, that the large prophetic Voice
     Would make my reed-piped throat its choice!
     All ears should prick, all hearts should spring,
                 To hear me sing
     The burden of the isles, the word
     Assyria knew, Damascus heard,
     When, like the wind, while cedars shake,
                 Isaiah spake.

     For I would frame a song to-day
     Winged like a bird to cleave its way
     O'er land and sea that spread between,
                 To where a Queen
     Sits with a triple coronet.
     Genius and Sorrow both have set
     Their diadems above the gold—
                 A Queen three-fold!

     To her the forest lent its lyre,
     Hers are the sylvan dews, the fire
     Of Orient suns, the mist-wreathed gleams
     Of mountain streams.
     She, the imperial Rhine's own child,
     Takes to her heart the wood-nymph wild,
     The gypsy Pelech, and the wide,
                 White Danube's tide.

     She who beside an infant's bier
     Long since resigned all hope to hear
     The sacred name of "Mother" bless
                 Her childlessness,
     Now from a people's sole acclaim
     Receives the heart-vibrating name,
     And "Mother, Mother, Mother!" fills
                 The echoing hills.

     Yet who is he who pines apart,
     Estranged from that maternal heart,
     Ungraced, unfriended, and forlorn,
                 The butt of scorn?
     An alien in his land of birth,
     An outcast from his brethren's earth,
     Albeit with theirs his blood mixed well
                 When Plevna fell?

     When all Roumania's chains were riven,
     When unto all his sons was given
     The hero's glorious reward,
                 Reaped by the sword,—
     Wherefore was this poor thrall, whose chains
     Hung heaviest, within whose veins
     The oldest blood of freedom streamed,
                 Still unredeemed?

     O Mother, Poet, Queen in one!
     Pity and save—he is thy son.
     For poet David's sake, the king
                 Of all who sing;
     For thine own people's sake who share
     His law, his truth, his praise, his prayer;
     For his sake who was sacrificed—
                 His brother—Christ!

                    A Historical Tragedy in Five Acts.

     This play is dedicated, in profound veneration and respect, to the
     memory of George Eliot, the illustrious writer, who did most among
     the artists of our day towards elevating and ennobling the spirit
     of Jewish nationality.

     FREDERICK THE GRAVE, Landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of
       Meissen, Protector and Patron of the Free City of Nordhausen.
     PRINCE WILLIAM OF MEISSEN, his son.
     SUSSKIND VON ORB, a Jew.
     HENRY SCHNETZEN, Governor of Salza.
     HENRY NORDMANN OF NORDMANNSTEIN, Knight of Treffurt.
     REINHARD PEPPERCORN, Prior of Wartburg Monastery.
     RABBI JACOB.
     DIETRICH VON TETTENBORN, President of the Council.
     REUBEN VON ORB, a boy, Susskind's son.
     BARUCH and NAPHTALI,Jews.
     RABBI CRESSELIN.
     LAY-BROTHER.
     PAGE.
     PUBLIC SCRIVENER.

     PRINCESS MATHILDIS, wife to Frederick.
     LIEBHAID VON ORB.
     CLAIRE CRESSELIN.

     Jews, Jewesses, Burghers, Senators, Citizens, Citizen's Wife and
     Boy, Flagellants, Servants, Guardsmen.

     Scene—Partly in Nordhausen, partly in Eisenach. Time, May, 4th,
     5th, 6th, 1349.

     SCENE I.

       A street in the Judengasse, outside the Synagogue.  During this
       Scene Jews and Jewesses, singly and in groups, with prayer-books
       in their hands, pass across the stage, and go into the Synagogue.
       Among them, enter BARUCH and NAPHTALI.

     NAPHTALI.
     Hast seen him yet?

     BARUCH.
                     Nay; Rabbi Jacob's door
     Swung to behind him, just as I puffed up
     O'erblown with haste.  See how our years weigh, cousin.
     Who'd judge me with this paunch a temperate man,
     A man of modest means, a man withal
     Scarce overpast his prime?  Well, God be praised,
     If age bring no worse burden!  Who is this stranger?
     Simon the Leech tells me he claims to bear
     Some special message from the Lord—no doubt
     To-morrow, fresh from rest, he'll publish it
     Within the Synagogue.

     NAPHTALI.
                     To-morrow, man?
     He will not hear of rest—he comes anon—
     Shall we within?

     BARUCH.
                     Rather let's wait,
     And scrutinize him as he mounts the street.
     Since you denote him so remarkable,
     You've whetted my desire.

     NAPHTALI.
                     A blind, old man,
     Mayhap is all you'll find him—spent with travel,
     His raiment fouled with dust, his sandaled feet
     Road-bruised by stone and bramble.  But his face!—
     Majestic with long fall of cloud-white beard,
     And hoary wreath of hair—oh, it is one
     Already kissed by angels.

     BARUCH.
                     Look, there limps
     Little Manasseh, bloated as his purse,
     And wrinkled as a frost-pinched fruit.  I hear
     His last loan to the Syndic will result
     In quadrupling his wealth.  Good Lord! what luck
     Blesses some folk, while good men stint and sweat
     And scrape, to merely fill the household larder.
     What said you of this pilgrim, Naphtali?
     These inequalities of fortune rub
     My sense of justice so against the grain,
     I lose my very name.  Whence does he come?
     Is he alone?

     NAPHTALI.
                     He comes from Chinon, France.
     Rabbi Cresselin he calls himself—alone
     Save for his daughter who has led him hither.
     A beautiful, pale girl with round black eyes.

     BARUCH.
     Bring they fresh tidings of the pestilence?

     NAPHTALI.
     I know not—but I learn from other source
     It has burst forth at Erfurt.

     BARUCH.
                     God have mercy!
     Have many of our tribe been stricken?

     NAPHTALI.
                     No.
     They cleanse their homes and keep their bodies sweet,
     Nor cease from prayer—and so does Jacob's God
     Protect His chosen, still.  Yet even His favor
     Our enemies would twist into a curse.
     Beholding the destroying angel smite
     The foal idolater and leave unscathed
     The gates of Israel—the old cry they raise—
     WE have begotten the Black Death—WE poison
     The well-springs of the towns.

     BARUCH.
                     God pity us!
     But truly are we blessed in Nordhausen.
     Such terrors seem remote as Egypt's plagues.
     I warrant you our Landgrave dare not harry
     Such creditors as we.  See, here comes one,
     The greatest and most liberal of them all—
     Susskind von Orb.

     SUSSKIND VON ORB, LIEBHAID, and REUBEN enter, all pass across
       the stage, and disappear within the Synagogue.

                     I'd barter my whole fortune,
     And yours to boot, that's thrice the bulk of mine,
     For half the bonds he holds in Frederick's name.
     The richest merchant in Thuringia, he—
     The poise of his head would tell it, knew we not.
     How has his daughter leaped to womanhood!
     I mind when she came toddling by his hand,
     But yesterday—a flax-haired child—to-day
     Her brow is level with his pompous chin.

     NAPHTALI.
     How fair she is!  Her hair has kept its gold
     Untarnished still.  I trace not either parent
     In her face, clean cut as a gem.

     BARUCH.
                     Her mother
     Was far-off kin to me, and I might pass,
     I'm told, unguessed in Christian garb.  I know
     A pretty secret of that scornful face.
     It lures high game to Nordhausen.

     NAPHTALI.
                     Baruch,
     I marvel at your prompt credulity.
     The Prince of Meissen and Liebhaid von Orb!
     A jest for gossips and—Look, look, he comes!

     BARUCH.
     Who's that, the Prince?

     NAPHTALI.
                     Nay, dullard, the old man,
     The Rabbi of Chinon.  Ah! his stout staff,
     And that brave creature's strong young hand suffice
     Scarcely to keep erect his tottering frame.
     Emaciate-lipped, with cavernous black eyes
     Whose inward visions do eclipse the day,
     Seems he not one re-risen from the grave
     To yield the secret?

       Enter RABBI JACOB, and RABBI CRESSELIN led by CLAIRE.  They walk
       across the stage, and disappear in the Synagogue.

     BARUCH (exaltedly).
                     Blessed art thou, O Lord,
     King of the Universe, who teachest wisdom
     To those who fear thee!

     NAPHTALI.
                     Haste we in.  The star
     Of Sabbath dawns.

     BARUCH.
                     My flesh is still a-creep
     From the strange gaze of those wide-rolling orbs.
     Didst note, man, how they fixed me?  His lean cheeks,
     As wan as wax, were bloodless; how his arms
     Stretched far beyond the flowing sleeve and showed
     Gaunt, palsied wrists, and hands blue-tipped with death!
     Well, I have seen a sage of Israel.
     [They enter the Synagogue.  Scene closes.]

     SCENE II.

       The Synagogue crowded with worshippers.  Among the women in the
       Gallery are discovered LIEBHAID VON ORB and CLAIRE CRESSELIN.
       Below, among the men, SUSSKIND VON ORB and REUBEN.  At the
       Reader's Desk, RABBI JACOB.  Fronting the audience under the
       Ark of the Covenant, stands a high desk, behind which is seen
       the white head of an old man bowed in prayer.
     BARUCH and NAPHTALI
       enter and take their seats.

     BARUCH.
     Think you he speaks before the service?

     NAPHTALI.
                     Yea.
     Lo, phantom-like the towering patriarch!
     [RABBI CRESSELIN slowly rises beneath the Ark.]

     RABBI CRESSELIN.
     Woe unto Israel! woe unto all
     Abiding 'mid strange peoples!  Ye shall be
     Cut off from that land where ye made your home.
     I, Cresselin of Chinon, have traveled far,
     Thence where my fathers dwelt, to warn my race,
     For whom the fire and stake have been prepared.
     Our brethren of Verdun, all over France,
     Are burned alive beneath the Goyim's torch.
     What terrors have I witnessed, ere my sight
     Was mercifully quenched!  In Gascony,
     In Savoy, Piedmont, round the garden shores
     Of tranquil Leman, down the beautiful Rhine,
     At Lindau, Costnitz, Schaffhausen, St. Gallen,
     Everywhere torture, smoking Synagogues,
     Carnage, and burning flesh.  The lights shine out
     Of Jewish virtue, Jewish truth, to star
     The sanguine field with an immortal blazon.
     The venerable Mar-Isaac in Cologne,
     Sat in his house at prayer, nor lifted lid
     From off the sacred text, while all around
     The fanatics ran riot; him they seized,
     Haled through the streets, with prod of stick and spike
     Fretted his wrinkled flesh, plucked his white beard.
     Dragged him with gibes into their Church, and held
     A Crucifix before him.  "Know thy Lord!"
     He spat thereon; he was pulled limb from limb.
     I saw—God, that I might forget!—a man
     Leap in the Loire, with his fair, stalwart son,
     A-bloom with youth, and midst the stream unsheathe
     A poniard, sheathing it in his boy's heart,
     While he pronounced the blessing for the dead.
     "Amen!" the lad responded as he sank,
     And the white water darkened as with wine.
     I saw—but no!  You are glutted, and my tongue,
     Blistered, refuseth to narrate more woe.
     I have known much sorrow.  When it pleased the Lord
     To afflict us with the horde of Pastoureaux,
     The rabble of armed herdsmen, peasants, slaves,
     Men-beasts of burden—coarse as the earth they tilled,
     Who like an inundation deluged France
     To drown our race—my heart held firm, my faith
     Shook not upon her rock until I saw,
     Smit by God's beam, the big black cloud dissolve.
     Then followed with their scythes, spades, clubs, and banners
     Flaunting the Cross, the hosts of Armleder,
     From whose fierce wounds we scarce are healed to-day.
     Yet do I say the cup of bitterness
     That Israel has drained is but a draught
     Of cordial, to the cup that is prepared.
     The Black Death and the Brothers of the Cross,
     These are our foes—and these are everywhere.
     I who am blind see ruin in their wake;
     Ye who have eyes and limbs, arise and flee!
     To-morrow the Flagellants will be here.
     God's angel visited my sleep and spake:
     "Thy Jewish kin in the Thuringian town
     Of Nordhausen shall be swept off from earth,
     Their elders and their babes—consumed with fire.
     Go summon Israel to flight—take this
     As sign that I, who call thee, am the Lord,
     Thine eyes shalt be struck blind till thou hast spoken."
     Then darkness fell upon my mortal sense,
     But light broke o'er my soul, and all was clear,
     And I have journeyed hither with my child
     O'er mount and river, till I have announced
     The message of the Everlasting God.
     [Sensation in the Synagogue.]

     RABBI JACOB.
     Father, have mercy! when wilt thou have done
     With rod and scourge?  Beneath thy children's feet
     Earth splits, fire springs.  No rest, no rest! no rest,

     A VOICE.
     Look to the women!  Marianne swoons!

     ANOTHER VOICE.
     Woe unto us who sinned!

     ANOTHER VOICE.
                     We're all dead men.
     Fly, fly ere dawn as our forefathers fled
     From out the land of Egypt.

     BARUCH.
                     Are ye mad?
     Shall we desert snug homes? forego the sum
     Scraped through laborious years to smooth life's slope,
     And die like dogs unkenneled and untombed,
     At bidding of a sorrow-crazed old man?