| |
(Dedicated to Benjamin F. Peixotto)
HIS dark face kindled in the East, | |
| He walks our Europe like a dream, | |
| And in his great beard gravely seem | |
| To meet the poet and the priest; | |
| His nation spent, his temple sacked, | 5 |
| A haughty exile under ban, | |
| From pole to pole he holds intact | |
| The ancient grandeur of the man. | |
| |
| Vain burnt the fires his frame to melt, | |
| His tough will turned the rack to straw; | 10 |
| The granite tablets were his law, | |
| And to the one high God he knelt! | |
| Before his zeal fell hate and spite; | |
| Wide grew the narrowness of marts, | |
| Immortal, sole cosmopolite, | 15 |
| He gave for freedom all the arts! | |
| |
| Always the ages’ argonaut, | |
| The foremost sails he followed still, | |
| Gave to the Christian thrift and skill, | |
| And peace and trade to heathens taught. | 20 |
| If ran to greed his heart sometimes, | |
| By reverend robbers wrung to pelf, | |
| A child of genius in all climes, | |
| He drew the muses to himself. | |
| |
| Of God’s august historian heir, | 25 |
| Who made creation eloquent, | |
| To themes occult and grand he bent | |
| The realms of letters everywhere; | |
| His pencil spurned, his marble crushed | |
| When art to monks its lease resigned, | 30 |
| The splendor of his numbers hushed, | |
| The rude music of mankind. | |
| |
| Oh! human faith in God’s good grace, | |
| Wait boldly and ye shall not fail, | |
| The patient ages must avail— | 35 |
| If freedom knows no waiting place, | |
| The Zion holy to our hosts, | |
| This reverend world—made ruin by | |
| The curse of shrines, and thrones, and ghosts— | |
| Art, toil, and hope shall purify. | 40 |
| |
