Classic Poem

Again 'twas Easter; Christ from Olivet gazes
Down on the city in that vale of doom;
From all her battlements no cross now blazes,
But one still shyly stands above his tomb.

From dome of mosque, from minaret and tower,
Far o'er the land the golden crescent gleams;
Calling to prayer, the muezzin tells the hour
Where Solomon's temple proudly flung its beams.

The stone cares not what emblem they have wrought it,
Whether a temple, church, or mosque it make!
Counting all one — (a lesson men have taught it) —
If Dervish, Priest, or Monk its echoes wake.

Mahomet plucks the moon from heaven's bright mazes,
His earth-plot's gilding ornament to be;
Christ from the dust to starry splendor raises
His cross, hewn only from an earthly tree.

The red-cross champions all with dust are blending!
No psalm, no pealing bells the wide air stir!
Monks only now, like faithful doges tending,
Keep watch around their Master's sepulchre.

That empty sepulchre, with gold they bought it,
The heathen opened there a vulgar fair;
The pilgrim buys a place — full long he sought it —
For his two knees with sordid money there.

'Tis Easter feast to-day! on all roads nearing,
Come pious Christian pilgrims, train on train?
Rich caravans through every country steering,
And bristling ships o'er all the watery plain?

No! Lone and vacant is the holy dwelling,
Save, here and there, a kneeling devotee!
Perchance before the door the throng is swelling!
Look round thee, eye, what wanderers canst thou see?

No pilgrim here! But only Bedouins flying
On nimble steeds across the desert land;
No pilgrim there! But ships of Christians hieing
With gold and bales of merchants to the strand.

Look yonder! See where roof and arches, tumbling,
Have left four ruined mossy walls to rust;
A church of God 'twas once, now slowly crumbling,
It follows its old builders to the dust.

But see! Green Terebinths within are springing,
The last, true worshippers that here are found;
Shooting in pinnacles, green arches flinging,
Their stems for graceful columns ranged around.

Beneath their shadow rests a worn wayfarer,
An olive hue tinges his lowering face;
Of all true pilgrim signs he, too, is bearer,
Of dust and staff — but of Christ's sign no trace!

A grain is he of that brave seed once driven
By the wild storm that left this garden sand;
Scattered in wrath to all the winds of heaven,
And sowed again broadcast in every land!

A Jew, a limb of that old tree, earth's wonder,
Long crushed and shattered, but not withered yet!
Scorched to the heart by stroke on stroke of thunder,
But ever green its towering coronet!

And as above his head now sunny glances,
Now sombre shadows, through the foliage play,
So, in his brain, are mingling thoughts and fancies,
Now dark as midnight, now as sunlight gay:

" The lark, a pilgrim, steers, her light wings plying,
Which way sweet Spring with flowery footstep leads;
The herdsman leaves the pastures brown and dying,
For a fresh grazing ground on richer meads.

" Not, like the lark, do I pursue Spring's traces,
And yet, like her, from clime to clime I fare!
Not like the herdsman, seek I greener places,
And yet, like him, am I now here, now there!

" When the lashed hounds the frighted stag are chasing,
Through bush and field he hurries on and on;
Behold him still, with shy leaps, onward racing,
When hunter's hand and whip to dust are gone!

" I sow no seed, I plough no earthly acre,
I reap no harvest, and I fear no hail!
Of every country's bread am I partaker,
And, for my thirst, the waters never fail!

" The northern oak and southern palm their shadows
Above my weary brow have often spread;
The desert sands, the fragrant Alpine meadows,
Keep for my rest an ever ready bed.

" I dwell in narrow lanes, in dark abysses,
Where'er the Christian hunts us to the glens;
He guesses not how sweet are woman's kisses,
And smiles of children, e'en in serpents' dens!

" I learn not one of all the foreign speeches,
Only mine own through all the world I bear;
No starling-slaves are we, whom Nature teaches
To catch the tyrant's phrase, whose chains they wear!

" No home have we on earth! In desolation
Struggling through life, we wander to and fro!
Yet are we brothers! yet are we a nation!
Melted to one in misery's furnace-glow!

" The Christian child oft names, with terror breathless,
Ahasuerus, him who cannot die!
Near the sarcophagus of nations, deathless,
Tearless as he, my race goes bending by!

" I know not whether 'tis the curse that glances
From Fate's dark book, or mercy, on our race!
Even on our daughters' lovely countenances
A shadow of that low-breathed curse I trace!

" Plant in the south the pine, the proud Norwegian,
And, if not parched, it towers more green and fair;
The southern laurel, doomed to northern region,
Even if it freeze not, crooks, a cripple, there!

" But in all zones, as cut in brass or granite,
Each child my face's hue and outline knows;
No South is hot enough with brown to tan it,
No North can bleach it in its coldest snows!

" The Christian saw it; haply he was thinking
We also bore an iron frame and life,
When his relentless sword our blood was drinking,
And smote down babe and sire and maid and wife!

" The Christian saw it; haply he was dreaming
We must be fire-proof, too, in life and limb,
When by his torch our huts and homes were gleaming,
And at our feet he stirred the faggots grim!

" Why are they wroth? That, their own way pursuing,
We hung a malefactor righteously?
Sure, if he taught what, in his name, they're doing,
'T was not our crime that nailed him to the tree!

" You say, to Mammon's shrine our souls we humble;
You court him also, but, with clumsy hand,
To grasp him bodily, you grope and fumble, —
We only wave the light divining-wand!

" Despise me, yet my triumph-song I'll sound it!
Tread, Christian, on this worm, with heavy heel!
And writhes my form beneath the feet that wound it,
'Tis for the pleasure, not the pain I feel!

" Ay, even beneath thy feet I think with pleasure,
To fleece thee how thy priest and I combine;
Between us sharing thee in equal measure;
That side the grave thou'rt his, and this side mine!

" I think how, at a Hebrew's nod, the cluster
Of gems and diamonds on thy monarch's brow
Shall fall and leave him shorn of all his lustre,
Who treads on thee, as thou on me dost now!

" Prance on your fiery steeds, in pomp and power,
In gold and purple, fling your banner high!
I on my dung-heap wait the judgment hour,
When all your pride shall bow as low as I!

" Unfold, O Christendom, thy peacock-splendor,
And let thy dazzling wheel, all-colored, glow!
The rainbow's image in thy mirror render,
And keep the sparkling, starry heavens for show!

" The peacock's train, proud is he to unfold it,
Yet is ashamed his ugly foot to see!
I am the foot, thou may'st with shame behold it,
Yet it alone bears thy proud train and thee!

" And if, perchance, one of our race should ever
At your baptismal font a convert stand;
Think you he seeks the pure Pactolian river?
I think he eyes the grain of golden sand!

" Ha! shout for joy, by thy good fortune blinded,
O Peter, if such draught comes oft to hand!
Be of the crocodile and her young reminded,
At home alike in water and on land!

" And shouldst thou, one day, thy rich heritages,
O, Christian, give us, and our rights again,
A war, fulfilling the dread oath of ages,
A moment's peace shall not extinguish then!

" Here all is well! I see thee here before me,
Like me despised, down-trodden in the land!
Yet never, though vile heathen trample o'er me,
Will I stretch out to thee the peaceful hand!

" I've slept enough! how fresh the fount of slumber!
I'll to the grave to see how trade stands there!
Come, buy gold pyxes, rosaries without number!
Here's crosses, dainty crosses, bright and fair!"