| |
| “TAKE heed; the stairs are worn and damp!” | |
| My soft-tongued southern guardian said, | |
| And held more low his twinkling lamp | |
| To light my cautious, downward tread. | |
| Where that uncertain radiance fell | 5 |
| The bat in startled circles flew; | |
| Sole tenant of the sunless cell | |
| Our fathers fashioned for the Jew. | |
| |
| Yet, painted on the aching gloom, | |
| I saw a hundred dreadful eyes, | 10 |
| As out of their forgotten tomb | |
| Its pallid victims seemed to rise. | |
| With fluttered heart and crisping hair, | |
| I stood those crowding ghosts amid, | |
| And thought what raptures of despair | 15 |
| The soundless granite walls had hid. | |
| |
| I saw their arsenal of crime: | |
| The rack, the scourge, the gradual fire, | |
| Where priestly hangmen of old time | |
| Watched their long-tortured prey expire, | 20 |
| Then by dim warders darkling led | |
| Through many a rocky corridor, | |
| Like one that rises from the dead, | |
| I passed into the light once more. | |
| |
| And does a careless brother say | 25 |
| We stir this ancient dust in vain, | |
| When palaced Bucharest to-day | |
| Sees the same devil loose again? | |
| Again her busy highways wake | |
| To the old persecuting cry | 30 |
| Of men who for their Master’s sake | |
| His chosen kindred crucify. | |
| |
| There oft the midnight hours are loud | |
| With echoes of pursuing feet; | |
| As fired with bright zeal the crowd | 35 |
| Goes raving down the Ghetto’s street; | |
| The broken shutter’s rending crash | |
| That lets the sudden riot in, | |
| And shows by those red torches’ flash, | |
| The shrinking fugitive within. | 40 |
| |
| But here are tales of deeper shame! | |
| Of law insulted and defied. | |
| While Force, usurping Justice’s name, | |
| Takes boldly the oppressor’s side. | |
| The bread whose bitterness so long, | 45 |
| These sons of hated race have known; | |
| Familiar, oft-repeated wrong | |
| That turns the living heart to stone. | |
| |
| Still Zion City lies forlorn: | |
| And still the Stranger in our gates, | 50 |
| A servant to the younger born, | |
| For his long-promised kingdom waits. | |
| O, Brethren of the outer court, | |
| Entreat him well and speak him fair; | |
| The form that makes your thoughtless sport | 55 |
| Our coming Lord hath deigned to wear. | |
| |
