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Home  »  The Standard Book of Jewish Verse  »  France’s Shame

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By B. B. Usher

France’s Shame

TALK not of Christian France, lest mantling shame

Glow in its fiery blush to burning flame,

And on the altar of the wide world’s ire

Doom French injustice to eternal fire.

With public scorn we loath the vengeful lust

In which French soldiers have betrayed their trust,

And bide the time when in the coming years

Her infamy is purged with bloody tears.

All nations call for justice to the Jew,

Condemn the false, and magnify the true.

’Tis Israel’s triumph, never more complete;

“Conviction” has brought victory, to France, defeat.

The world judges, France now bears the shame

And Dreyfus glories in unsullied name.

Let God avenge and man restrain his hate,

Jehovah’s justice is immaculate;

Abide in faith and in the end we must

See France degraded, humbled in the dust.