VIII.
O Europe! O America!
If ye but knew this fatal day!
If ye could read the eternal law
Now at the parting of the way!
If ye, beholding thus distressed
This pilgrim, leave him here to die,
Ye are his murderers confessed,
The guilt upon your souls will lie.
T’will follow you through many a year,
Corrupting the sweet tides of life,
Now in insidious blight appear,
And now break forth in horrid strife.
T’will nullify religion’s claims,
T’will mar your literature and art;
T’will choke society’s best aims,
To greed new energy impart.
Nor even so shall ye evade
The dreaded specter of the East;
Until by right or ruin laid
It shall intrude into your feast.
But if ye do the deed of men
And save your brother here half-killed,
Then shall ye be as born again,
Your life with upward impulse filled.
Your better selves once shaken free
Will loath submit to other chains;
And from your deed of charity,
Your own shall be the larger gains.
IX.
O friends of peace, dear brethren mine,
Me of your inner circle name,
Unless the peace which you design
With anarchy is one and same.
It is not war but government
When justice wields the avenging sword;
And force in name of justice spent
Is oil on troubled waters poured.
Where reason is let reason rule,
And law where men submit to laws;
But with the cutthroat ’tis a fool
Attempts to arbitrate his cause.
Nor ends responsibility
Within the nation’s narrow close;
The world is one community,
Each state to all allegiance owes.
And who hath power and doth neglect
To rescue from the oppressor’s hand
The wronged of any race or sect
In Christian or in pagan land—
Who hath the power and lends not aid
Doth sin against the primal right,
Which man not Turk nor Frank hath made
But citizen cosmopolite!
X.
What doeth the Turk in power still
As ends the nineteenth century?
Lacks aught of shame his cup to fill
Of unassuaged iniquity?
Lacks aught of cruelty and blood?
Lacks aught of treachery and lies?
Lacks aught of crime ’gainst womanhood?
Lacks mad fanaticism that plies
All villainies in Allah’s name?
And what redeeming deed or trait
Stands out to mitigate this blame?
On what kind thought does Justice wait?
What seeds of omen good may hide
Deep in the Turkish breast, God knows;
Scarce will they spring while rampant pride
Yields ever fresh return of woes.
Meanwhile thy lightsome hopes to plead,
The cause of justice to defer,
Makes thee a partner well agreed
In the ensuing massacre.
Nor will thy pennyworth of food,
Dispensed with ne’er so pitying dole,
The ruin of a race make good,
Or take the curse from off thy soul.
Master, I pray thee look upon
This vexed youth, my only son;
Behold, a spirit taketh him
And suddenly he crieth out;
It bruiseth every manly limb
And ceaseless harrieth him about—
Now flingeth him into the fire,
Now dasheth him upon the earth;
And plagued with these afflictions dire,
’Twere better he had wanted birth.
And thy disciples did I ask
To cast this grievous demon out;
They could not do so hard a task,
And left our minds of thee in doubt.
But now, canst thou do anything,
Let thy compassion lead thee on;
Have pity and deliverance bring
To this my torn and pining son!