Gifts of Genius Part 21

A great white face looks down from heaven, The great white face of Snow; I cannot sing or morn or even, The demon haunts me so!

IV.

It strikes me dumb, it freezes me, I sing a broken strain-- Wait till the robins and the wrens And the linnets come again!

THE BENI-ISRAEL.

BY OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES.

Crammed--lobbies, galleries, boxes, floor; Heads piled on heads at every door.

The actors were a painted group, Of statue shapes, a "model" troupe, With figures not severely Greek, And drapery more or less antique; The play, if one might call it so, A Hebrew tale, in silent show.

And with the throng the pageant drew There mingled Hebrews, not a few, Coa.r.s.e, swarthy, bearded--at their side Dark, jewelled women, orient-eyed.

If scarce a Christian hope for grace, That crowds one in his narrow place, What will the savage victim do, Whose ribs are kneaded by a JEW?

Close on my left, a breathing form Sat wedged against me, soft and warm; The vulture-beaked and dark-browned face Betrays the mould of Abraham's race; That coal-black hair--and bistred hue-- Ah, cursed, unbelieving Jew!

I started, shuddering to the right, And squeezed--a second Israelite!

Then rose the nameless words that slip From darkening soul to whitening lip.

The snaky usurer,--him that crawls, And cheats beneath the golden b.a.l.l.s, The hook-nosed kite of carrion clothes-- I stabbed them deep with muttered oaths: Sp.a.w.n of the rebel wandering horde That stoned the saints, and slew their Lord!

Up came their murderous deeds of old-- The grisly story Chaucer told, And many an ugly tale beside, Of children caught and crucified.

I heard the ducat-sweating thieves Beneath the Ghetto's slouching eaves, And thrust beyond the tented green, The leper's cry, "Unclean, unclean!"

The show went on, but, ill at ease, My sullen eye it could not please; In vain the haggard outcast knelt, The white-haired patriarch's heart to melt; I thought of Judas and his bribe, And steeled my soul against his tribe.

My neighbors stirred; I looked again, Full on the younger of the twain.

A soft young cheek of olive brown, A lip just flushed with youthful down, Locks dark as midnight, that divide And shade the neck on either side; An eye that wears a moistened gleam, Like starlight in a hidden stream; So looked that other child of Shem, The maiden's Boy of Bethlehem!

And thou couldst scorn the peerless blood That flows untainted from the Flood!

Thy scutcheon spotted with the stains Of Norman thieves and pirate Danes!

Sc.u.m of the nations! In thy pride Scowl on the Hebrew at thy side, And, lo! the very semblance there The Lord of Glory deigned to wear!

I see that radiant image rise,-- The midnight hair, the starlit eyes; The faintly-crimsoned cheek that shows The stain of Judah's dusky rose.

Thy hands would clasp His hallowed feet Whose brethren soil thy Christian seat; Thy lips would press His garment's hem, That curl in scornful wrath for them!

A sudden mist, a watery screen, Dropped like a veil before the scene; I strove the glistening film to stay, The wilful tear would have its way.

The shadow floated from my soul, And to my lips a whisper stole, Soft murmuring, as the curtain fell, "Peace to the Beni-Israel!"

BOCAGE'S PENITENTIAL SONNET.

_From the Portuguese of Manoel de Barbosa do Bocage._

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

I've seen my life, without a n.o.ble aim, In the mad strife of pa.s.sions waste away.

Fool that I was! to live as if decay Would spare the vital essence in my frame!

And Hope, whose flattering dreams are now my shame, Showed years to come, a long and bright array, Yet all too soon my nature sinks a prey To the great evil that with being came.

Pleasures, my tyrants! now your reign is past: My soul, recoiling, casts you off to lie In that abyss where all deceits are cast.

Oh G.o.d! may life's last moments, as they fly, Win back what years have lost, that he, at last, Who knew not how to live, may learn to die.

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