I. FEE, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! | |
| Blessedest Thursday’s the fat of the week. | |
| Rumble and tumble, sleek and rough, | |
| Stinking and savory, smug and gruff, | |
| Take the church-road, for the bells due chime | 5 |
| Gives us the summons—’tis sermon-time. | |
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II. Boh, here’s Barnabas! Job, that’s you? | |
| Up stumps Solomon—bustling too? | |
| Shame, man! greedy beyond your years | |
| To handsel the bishop’s shaving-shears? | 10 |
| Fair play’s a jewel! leave friends in the lurch? | |
| Stand on a line ere you start for the church. | |
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III. Higgledy piggledy, packed we lie, | |
| Rats in a hamper, swine in a stye, | |
| Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, | 15 |
| Worms in a carcase, fleas in a sleeve. | |
| Hist! square shoulders, settle your thumbs | |
| And buzz for the bishop—here he comes. | |
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IV. Bow, wow, wow—a bone for the dog! | |
| I liken his Grace to an acorned hog. | 20 |
| What, a boy at his side, with the bloom of a lass, | |
| To help and handle my lord’s hour-glass! | |
| Didst ever behold so lithe a chine? | |
| His cheek hath laps like a fresh-singed swine. | |
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V. Aaron’s asleep—shove hip to haunch, | 25 |
| Or somebody deal him a dig in the paunch! | |
| Look at the purse with the tassel and knob, | |
| And the gown with the angel and thingumbob. | |
| What’s he at, quotha? reading his text! | |
| Now you’ve his courtsey—and what comes next? | 30 |
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VI. See to our converts—you doomed black dozen— | |
| No stealing away—nor cog, nor cozen! | |
| You five that were thieves, deserve it fairly; | |
| You seven that were beggars, will live less sparely. | |
| You took your turn and dipped in the hat, | 35 |
| Got fortune—and fortune gets you; mind that! | |
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VII. Give your first groan—compunction’s at work; | |
| And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk. | |
| Lo, Micah—the selfsame beard on chin | |
| He was four times already converted in! | 40 |
| Here’s a knife, clip quick—it’s a sign of grace— | |
| Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. | |
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VIII. Whom now is the bishop a-leering at? | |
| I know a point where his text falls pat. | |
| I’ll tell him to-morrow, a word just now | 45 |
| Went to my heart and made me vow | |
| I meddle no more with the worst of trades— | |
| Let somebody else pay his serenades. | |
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IX. Groan all together now, whee—hee—hee! | |
| It’s a-work, it’s a-work, ah woe is me! | 50 |
| It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, | |
| Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist; | |
| Jew-brutes, with sweat and blood well spent | |
| To usher in worthily Christian Lent. | |
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X. It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, | 55 |
| Yelled, pricked us out to this church like hounds. | |
| It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed | |
| Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed. | |
| And it overflows, when, to even the odd, | |
| Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God. | 60 |
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XI. But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, | |
| And the rest sit silent and count the clock, | |
| Since forced to muse the appointed time | |
| On these precious facts and truths sublime,— | |
| Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, | 65 |
| In saying Ben Ezra’s Song of Death. | |
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XII. For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, | |
| Called sons and sons’ sons to his side, | |
| And spoke, “This world has been harsh and strange, | |
| Something is wrong, there needeth a change. | 70 |
| But what, or where? at the last, or first? | |
| In one point only we sinned, at worst. | |
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XIII. “The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, | |
| And again in his border see Israel set. | |
| When Judah beholds Jerusalem, | 75 |
| The stranger-seed shall be joined to them: | |
| To Jacob’s House shall the Gentiles cleave. | |
| So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. | |
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XIV. “Ay, the children of the chosen race | |
| Shall carry and bring them to their place: | 80 |
| In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, | |
| Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, | |
| When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o’er | |
| The oppressor triumph for evermore? | |
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XV. “God spoke, and gave us the word to keep: | 85 |
| Bade never fold the hands nor sleep | |
| ’Mid a faithless world,—at watch and ward, | |
| Till the Christ at the end relieve our guard. | |
| By his servant Moses the watch was set: | |
| Though near upon cock-crow—we keep it yet. | 90 |
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XVI. “Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, | |
| By the starlight naming a dubious Name! | |
| And if we were too heavy with sleep—too rash | |
| With fear—O Thou, if that martyr-gash | |
| Fell on thee coming to take thine own, | 95 |
| And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne— | |
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XVII. “Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. | |
| But, the judgment over, join sides with us! | |
| Thine too is the cause! and not more thine | |
| Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, | 100 |
| Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, | |
| Who maintain thee in word, and defy thee in deed! | |
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XVIII. “We withstood Christ then? be mindful how | |
| At least we withstand Barabbas now! | |
| Was our outrage sore? but the worst we spared, | 105 |
| To have called these—Christians,—had we dared! | |
| Let defiance of them, pay mistrust of thee, | |
| And Rome make amends for Calvary! | |
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XIX. “By the torture, prolonged from age to age, | |
| By the infamy, Israel’s heritage, | 110 |
| By the Ghetto’s plague, by the garb’s disgrace, | |
| By the badge of shame, by the felon’s place, | |
| By the branding tool, the bloody whip, | |
| And the summons to Christian fellowship. | |
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XX. “We boast our proofs, that at least the Jew | 115 |
| Would wrest Christ’s name from the Devil’s crew. | |
| Thy face took never so deep a shade | |
| But we fought them in it, God our aid | |
| A trophy to bear, as we march, a band | |
| South, east, and on the Pleasant Land!” | 120 |
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