I.
HE
US. (August 3, 1492.)1.
The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dustypilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains andbleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated,cathedral-shadowed towns.2.
The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfullyupon his staff.
The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nighswoons beneath her burden; in her large enfolding arms nestles hersleeping babe, round her knees flock her little ones with bruisedand bleeding feet. "Mother, shall we soon be there?"3.
The youth with Christ-like countenance speaks comfortably tofather and brother, to maiden and wife.
In his breast, his ownheart is broken.4.
The halt, the blind, are amid the train.
Sturdy pack-horseslaboriously drag the tented wagons wherein lie the sick athirstwith fever.5.
The panting mules are urged forward with spur and goad; stuffedare the heavy saddlebags with the wreckage of ruined homes.6.
Hark to the tinkling silver bells that adorn the tenderly-carriedsilken scrolls.7.
In the fierce noon-glare a lad bears a kindled lamp; behind itsnet-work of bronze the airs of heaven breathe not upon its faintpurple star.8.
Noble and abject, learned and simple, illustrious and obscure,plod side by side, all brothers now, all merged in one routed armyof misfortune.9.
Woe to the straggler who falls by the wayside! no friend shallclose his eyes.10.
They leave behind, the grape, the olive, and the fig; the vinesthey planted, the corn they sowed, the garden-cities of Andalusiaand Aragon,
Estremadura and La Mancha, of Granada and Castile; thealtar, the hearth, and the grave of their fathers.11.
The townsman spits at their garments, the shepherd quits hisflock, the peasant his plow, to pelt with curses and stones; thevillager sets on their trail his yelping cur.12.
Oh the weary march, oh the uptorn roots of home, oh theblankness of the receding goal!13.
Listen to their lamentation:
They that ate dainty food aredesolate in the streets; they that were reared in scarlet embracedunghills.
They flee away and wander about.
Men say among thenations, they shall no more sojourn there; our end is near, ourdays are full, our doom is come.14.
Whither shall they turn? for the West hath cast them out, andthe East refuseth to receive.15.
O bird of the air, whisper to the despairing exiles, thatto-day, to-day, from the many-masted, gayly-bannered port of Palos,sails the world-unveiling Genoese, to unlock the golden gates ofsunset and bequeath a Continent to Freedom!
II.
ES.1.
Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its coal-blackprison.2.
Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-tarnished pearlslumbers in mud and ooze.3.
Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure, lies theingot of gold.4.
Long hast thou been buried,
O Israel, in the bowels of earth;long hast thou slumbered beneath the overwhelming waves; long hastthou slept in the rayless house of darkness.5.
Rejoice and sing, for only thus couldst thou rightly guard thegolden knowledge,
Truth, the delicate pearl and the adamantinejewel of the Law.
II.
HE
ER.1.
Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed.2.
His face was blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, scarredand distorted by pain.
Naked to the loins, his back was ridged withfurrows, his breast was plowed with stripes.3.
From his hand dropped the fecund seed.4.
And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, asheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree.
Its arms touched the ends of the horizon, the heavens were darkenedwith its shadow.5.
It bare blossoms of gold and blossoms of blood, fruitage ofhealth and fruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage, and aserpent was coiled about its stem.6.
Under its branches a divinely beautiful man, crowned withthorns, was nailed to a cross.7.
And the tree put forth treacherous boughs to strangle the Sower;his flesh was bruised and torn, but cunningly he disentangled themurderous knot and passed to the eastward.8.
Again there dropped from his hand the fecund seed.9.
And behold, instantly started from the prepared soil a blade, asheaf, a springing trunk, a myriad-branching, cloud-aspiring tree.
Crescent shaped like little emerald moons were the leaves; it bareblossoms of silver and blossoms of blood, fruitage of health andfruitage of poison; birds sang amid its foliage and a serpent wascoiled about its stem.10.
Under its branches a turbaned mighty-limbed Prophet brandisheda drawn sword.11.
And behold, this tree likewise puts forth perfidious arms tostrangle the Sower; but cunningly he disentangles the murderousknot and passes on.12.
Lo, his hands are not empty of grain, the strength of his armis not spent.13.
What germ hast thou saved for the future,
O
Husbandman?
Tell me, thou Planter of Christhood and Islam;tell me, thou seed-bearing Israel!
IV.
HE
ST.1.
Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel.2.
I saw him bound to the wheel, nailed to the cross, cut off bythe sword, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas.3.
And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in silentrebuke and defiance.4.
A Prophet with four eyes; wide gazed the orbs of the spiritabove the sleeping eyelids of the senses.5.
A Poet, who plucked from his bosom the quivering heart andfashioned it into a lyre.6.
A placid-browed Sage, uplifted from earth in celestialmeditation.7.
These I saw, with princes and people in their train; themonumental dead and the standard-bearers of the future.8.
And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter, and turning,
Ibeheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious features, the sordid maskof the son of the Ghetto.
V.
TS.1.
Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of immeasurabletides, oversweep our continent.2.
From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid Ghettos
Europe,3.
From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief, and Ekaterinoslav,4.
Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of Rachelmourning for her children, of Israel lamenting for Zion.5.
And lo, like a turbid stream, the long-pent flood bursts thedykes of oppression and rushes hitherward.6.
Unto her ample breast, the generous mother of nations welcomesthem.7.
The herdsman of Canaan and the seed of Jerusalem's royalshepherd renew their youth amid the pastoral plains of Texasand the golden valleys of the Sierras.
VI.
HE
ET.1.
Moses Ben Maimon lifting his perpetual lamp over the path of theperplexed;2.
Hallevi, the honey-tongued poet, wakening amid the silent ruinsof Zion the sleeping lyre of David;3.
Moses, the wise son of Mendel, who made the Ghetto illustrious;4.
Abarbanel, the counselor of kings;
Alcharisi, the exquisitesinger;
Ibn Ezra, the perfect old man;
Gabirol, the tragic seer;5.
Heine, the enchanted magician, the heartbroken jester;6.
Yea, and the century-crowned patriarch whose bounty engirdlesthe globe;—7.
These need no wreath and no trumpet; like perennial asphodelblossoms, their fame, their glory resounds like the brazen-throatedcornet.8.
But thou—hast thou faith in the fortune of Israel?
Wouldst thoulighten the anguish of Jacob?9.
Then shalt thou take the hand of yonder caftaned wretch withflowing curls and gold-pierced ears;10.
Who crawls blinking forth from the loathsome recesses of
Jewry;11.
Nerveless his fingers, puny his frame; haunted by the bat-likephantoms of superstition is his brain.12.
Thou shalt say to the bigot, "My Brother," and to the creatureof darkness, "My Friend."13.
And thy heart shall spend itself in fountains of love upon theignorant, the coarse, and the abject.14.
Then in the obscurity thou shalt hear a rush of wings, thineeyes shall be bitten with pungent smoke.15.
And close against thy quivering lips shall be pressed the livecoal wherewith the Seraphim brand the Prophets.
II.
IS.1.
Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness thecunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala.2.
Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppression, closely hedrew about him the dust-gray filaments, soft as silk and stubbornas steel, until he lay death-stiffened in mummied seclusion.3.
And the world has named him an ugly worm, shunning the blesseddaylight.4.
But when the emancipating springtide breathes wholesome,quickening airs, when the Sun of Love shines out with cordialfires, lo, the Soul of Israel bursts her cobweb sheath, and fliesforth attired in the winged beauty of immortality.
