Shylock reasons with Mr. Chesterton, and other poems

BY HUMBERT WOLFE Author of “LONDON SONNETS.” OXFORD BASIL BLACKWELL MDCCCCXX


ONLY this—that when I’ve done with wearing Gold words upon my heart and reaching after My immortality, I shall be hearing Then, and long afterwards (be sure!) your laughter.
Only this—that when I come to sleeping And later men appraise me in the quarrels Of poets and the bays, tell them I’m keeping No bays, but at my heart a lover’s laurels.
Some of these poems have appeared in “The Saturday Review,” “The Westminster Gazette,” and “The Saturday Westminster Gazette.” They are republished by the courtesy of the editors of those journals.

JEW-BAITING still! Two thousand years are run And still, it seems, good Master Chesterton, Nothing’s abated of the old offence. Changing its shape, it never changes tense. Other things were, this only was and is. And whether Judas murder with a kiss, Or Shylock catch a Christian with a gin, All all’s the same—the first enormous sin Traps Judas in the moneylender’s mesh And cuts from Jesus’ side the pound of flesh. Nor is this all the punishment. For still Through centuries to suffer were no ill If we in human axes and the rod Discerned the high pro-consulate of God Chastening his people. But we are not chastened. Age after age upon our hearts is fastened The same cold malice, and for all they bleed They burn for ever with unchanging greed. Grosser with suffering we grow, and one Calls to another “If in Babylon Are gold and silver, be content with them, Better found gold than lost Jerusalem.” They forget Zion; in the market place Rebuild the Temple for the Jewish race, And thus from age to age do Jews like me Have their revenge on Christianity, Since thus from age to age Christians like you Unchristian grow in hounding down the Jew. And thus from age to age His will is done, And Shylock’s sins produce a Chesterton.
But since we both must suffer and both are Bound in the orb of one outrageous star, Hater and hated, for a little while Let us together watch how mile on mile The heavenly moon, all milky white, regains Her gentle empery, and smooths the stains Of red our star left in her heaven, thus Bringing a respite even unto us Before the red star strikes again. The riot Of the heart for a moment sinks, and in the quiet Like a cool bandage on the forehead be Content a second with tranquillity. And from your lips the secular taunt of dog Banish, to hear what in the synagogue We heard once at Barmitzvah (as we call The confirmation, when the praying shawl Is for the first time worn, and the boy waits For law and manhood at the altar gates). Whether ’tis true or no, it shall be true just long enough to build a bridge to you, That hangs a shining second till your laughter Reminds me of my ducats and my daughter.