O lamentation, misery, woe, woe!
Shall we be ever exiled, must it be
That we must pass our days as slaves for ever?
Far from our pleasant land, and never see
Our sacred Hills and Jordan’s blessed river?
Shall we not see again thy ramparts rise,
O Zion, and thy splendid towers rebuilt,
And God’s great Temple set for sacrifice
By this our race, atoning for our guilt?
Or must our weary footsteps no more tread
The land we love, where those we loved are dead?
No, we shall see that lovely land no more,
Nor anything we loved there, place or friend,
Nor do, nor know, the things we hungered for.
Like darts out of God’s Hand our deaths descend
To make an end.
Now we can crouch and pray and count the hours
Until our murderers’ feet are on the stair,
And bright steel spirts the blood upon our hair
And lays us motionless among the flowers,
White things that do not care.
And afterwards, who knows what moths we’ll be
Flying about the lamps of life at night
In death’s great darkness, blindly, blunderingly?
The brook that sings in the grass knows more delight,
The ox that the men pole-axe has more peace
Than prisoners’ souls; but now there comes release;
We shall go home, to death, to-morrow night.
O lamentation, misery, woe, woe!
Curtain.
ACT II
[Ahasuerus on his couch.]
Ahasuerus.