| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | On! | | By George Benedict |
| | | WHEN Israel marched from Egypt land, | |
| And broke her yoke of slavery, | |
| And standing by the Red Sea strand, | |
| Drank her first draught of Liberty, | |
| And torrid Afric’s horrid hordes came on with new-linked chains, once more | 5 |
| Her limbs to bind; | |
| And trembling Israel cried to Heaven when she beheld the sea before, | |
| The foe behind; | |
| Then burst a voice from high; | |
| Why do the children cry— | 10 |
| Why do the children cry to me? | |
| Why do they not go on? | |
| |
| And Israel found her promised home— | |
| And lost it; and her Destiny | |
| Has forced her, ever since, to roam | 15 |
| In search of it o’er land and sea. | |
| And blood-soaked foot-prints mark her path, through briers, and beasts, and storms, and stress, | |
| —Her life one dirge; | |
| Yet some of Israel’s sons, from out the black mediæval wilderness, | |
| Did at last emerge. | 20 |
| And now, from a foreign strand, | |
| We long for our native land; | |
| And again the command in our ears, as we stand: | |
| Why do they not go on! | |
| |
| Yes! We are through—we favored few; | 25 |
| And some of us would rest content, | |
| If only our poor brother Jew | |
| Would not scream so when being rent. | |
| We’re tired of wandering through the world, but, brothers, we can have no rest | |
| Here on the strand; | 30 |
| Behind come foes more cruel far than the seas of hardship we must breast | |
| For our Fatherland. | |
| —Now, brothers, which is it to be: | |
| The foe, or the God-governed sea? | |
| Come, make your choice with me, for the sea! | 35 |
| And let us on, on, on! | | | | |
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