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 bell’s due chime | 5 |
| Give us the summons—’t is sermon-time! | |
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II Bob, 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 sty, | |
| Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve, | 15 |
| Worms in a carcass, 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 a 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 curtsey—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 altogether 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 thro’ 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 his 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 sin, 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 Christ at the end relieve our guard. | |
| By his servant Moses the watch was set: | |
| Tho’ 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, 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 to 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 proof 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, thy band, | |
| South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!” |
