AS down the age he shambles, gaunt and gray, | |
| With sorry gait, nor one to bid him stay, | |
| We mark what man to brother man may do. | |
| The shrivelled skin, the Ghetto-gotten hue, | |
| Time’s Tragedy writ large upon his face | 5 |
| The old, world-weary epic of his race; | |
| —Yet see, he lifts his head and we surprise | |
| Some strange swift light of laughter in his eyes. | |
| |
| On shoulders still the burden and the smart, | |
| While Hope fights hard to live in Jewish heart, | 10 |
| Yet not for him the Bitterness and Gall | |
| Though Grief stalk with him to the Wailing Wall, | |
| Give him a crumb of joy, and, boyish-wise, | |
| There leaps the light of laughter to his eyes. | |
| |
| The crying of wild voices in the night, | 15 |
| The curses and the struggle and the flight, | |
| The Bloody Hand of Spain, the Cossack’s breath, | |
| The Sacrifice at York, the Dance to Death; | |
| As fiend hath done so fiend will still devise, | |
| —Through all persists brave laughter—light in eyes. | 20 |
| |
| His mirth, sometimes, hath ghastly hollow ring, | |
| Elijah-like its grim, ironic fling, | |
| The hate-engendered jest betrays its heat | |
| Nor can the pulse forever calmly beat; | |
| But ling’ring ’neath the fire we may surmise | 25 |
| Warm light of loving laughter in his eyes. | |
| |
| Come to the pious purlieus of his home, | |
| Here Love hath wed with Laughter, door to dome, | |
| The troubles that beset the tiny brood | |
| Respective, vanish ’fore that bantering mood. | 30 |
| What of travail, what of self-sacrifice | |
| If Laughter-light live long in little eyes? | |
| |
| From Hebron’s rill the music long hath ceased, | |
| The Temple moulders in the solemn East, | |
| Yet from Siloa’s depth men still may drink | 35 |
| Two draughts Israel of old quaffed from its brink— | |
| The heart-young love of life that never dies, | |
| The limpid light of laughter in the eyes! | |
| |
| As down the age he shambles, grimed and gray, | |
| With falt’ring gait, and few to bid him stay, | 40 |
| We mark what man hath done to man, the Jew, | |
| The shrunken shape, the dark-begotten hue; | |
| The burden of his snatch of sorry song, | |
| “How long, O Lord,”—the plaint—“O Lord, how long?” | |
| Yet wait!—nor woe nor wail shall e’er disguise | 45 |
| Some sure, soft light of laughter in his eyes. | |
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