| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917. |
| |
| 118. The Jewish Conscript |
| | | By Florence Kiper Frank |
| | | | | There are nearly a quarter of a million Jews in the Czar’s army alone.—Newspaper clipping. |
| |
| |
| THEY have dressed me up in a soldier’s dress, | |
| With a rifle in my hand, | |
| And have sent me bravely forth to shoot | |
| My own in a foreign land. | |
| |
| Oh, many shall die for the fields of their homes, | 5 |
| And many in conquest wild; | |
| But I shall die for the fatherland | |
| That murdered my little child. | |
| |
| How many hundreds of years ago— | |
| The nations wax and cease!— | 10 |
| Did the God of our fathers doom us to bear | |
| The flaming message of peace! | |
| |
| We are the mock and the sport of time! | |
| Yet why should I complain!— | |
| For a Jew that they hung on the bloody cross, | 15 |
| He also died in vain. | |
| |
|
|
|
