Chapter IV

It strikes me dumb, it freezes me,
I sing a broken strain--
Wait till the robins and the wrens
And the linnets come again!

THE BENI-ISRAEL.

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Crammed--lobbies, galleries, boxes, floor;
Heads piled on heads at every door.
The actors were a painted group,
Of statue shapes, a "model" troupe,
With figures not severely Greek,
And drapery more or less antique;
The play, if one might call it so,
A Hebrew tale, in silent show.

And with the throng the pageant drew
There mingled Hebrews, not a few,
Coarse, swarthy, bearded--at their side
Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed.
If scarce a Christian hope for grace,
That crowds one in his narrow place,
What will the savage victim do,
Whose ribs are kneaded by a JEW?

Close on my left, a breathing form
Sat wedged against me, soft and warm;
The vulture-beaked and dark-browned face
Betrays the mould of Abraham's race;
That coal-black hair--and bistred hue--
Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew!
I started, shuddering to the right,
And squeezed--a second Israelite!

Then rose the nameless words that slip
From darkening soul to whitening lip.
The snaky usurer,--him that crawls,
And cheats beneath the golden balls,
The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes--
I stabbed them deep with muttered oaths:
Spawn of the rebel wandering horde
That stoned the saints, and slew their Lord!

Up came their murderous deeds of old--
The grisly story Chaucer told,
And many an ugly tale beside,
Of children caught and crucified.
I heard the ducat-sweating thieves
Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves,
And thrust beyond the tented green,
The leper's cry, "Unclean, unclean!"

The show went on, but, ill at ease,
My sullen eye it could not please;
In vain the haggard outcast knelt,
The white-haired patriarch's heart to melt;
I thought of Judas and his bribe,
And steeled my soul against his tribe.
My neighbors stirred; I looked again,
Full on the younger of the twain.

A soft young cheek of olive brown,
A lip just flushed with youthful down,
Locks dark as midnight, that divide
And shade the neck on either side;
An eye that wears a moistened gleam,
Like starlight in a hidden stream;
So looked that other child of Shem,
The maiden's Boy of Bethlehem!

And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood
That flows untainted from the Flood!
Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains
Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes!
Scum of the nations! In thy pride
Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side,
And, lo! the very semblance there
The Lord of Glory deigned to wear!

I see that radiant image rise,--
The midnight hair, the starlit eyes;
The faintly-crimsoned cheek that shows
The stain of Judah's dusky rose.
Thy hands would clasp His hallowed feet
Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat;
Thy lips would press His garment's hem,
That curl in scornful wrath for them!

A sudden mist, a watery screen,
Dropped like a veil before the scene;
I strove the glistening film to stay,
The wilful tear would have its way.
The shadow floated from my soul,
And to my lips a whisper stole,
Soft murmuring, as the curtain fell,
"Peace to the Beni-Israel!"

BOCAGE'S PENITENTIAL SONNET.

_From the Portuguese of Manoel de Barbosa do Bocage._

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

I've seen my life, without a noble aim,
In the mad strife of passions waste away.
Fool that I was! to live as if decay
Would spare the vital essence in my frame!
And Hope, whose flattering dreams are now my shame,
Showed years to come, a long and bright array,
Yet all too soon my nature sinks a prey
To the great evil that with being came.
Pleasures, my tyrants! now your reign is past:
My soul, recoiling, casts you off to lie
In that abyss where all deceits are cast.
Oh God! may life's last moments, as they fly,
Win back what years have lost, that he, at last,
Who knew not how to live, may learn to die.

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