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.