| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | On the Massacre | | By Chayim Nachman Byalik |
| | | YE heavens, pray for mercy on my head! | |
| If God abides in you, and if a way | |
| To Him exists, which yet I have not found, | |
| Do you my prayers unto His ear convey! | |
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| For me, my heart is dead, and no more prayers | 5 |
| Are on my lips, for refuge against wrong. | |
| My strength is gone, and there is no more hope. | |
| How long must we endure, how long, how long? | |
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| Headsman, here is an axe, arise and slay! | |
| Behead me like a dog; so let it be! | 10 |
| You have an arm, an instrument of death, | |
| And all the world a scaffold is to me. | |
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| Then let red blood, the blood of old and young, | |
| Besprinkle your red coat with ruddy gore, | |
| So that the savage and ensanguined stain | 15 |
| Shall not be wiped from it forevermore. | |
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| Cursed be he who for revenge cries out! | |
| For slaying guileless babes a vengeance meet | |
| Satan himself has never yet devised. | |
| Then let our blood, poured out beneath your feet, | 20 |
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| Sink penetrating to earth’s lowest depths; | |
| Let blood of those who perished without blame | |
| Sap and destroy the earth’s foundations old— | |
| The bases deep of wickedness and shame. | | | | |
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