| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | O Sweet Anemones! | | By Jessie E. Sampter |
| | | O SWEET anemones on Sharon’s plain, | |
| Light dancing seraphim of sun and rain, | |
| Was he not one of us, was he not ours? | |
| And yet he saved not us, O crimson flowers! | |
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| As stars that bloom in heaven, full-bloom and still, | 5 |
| As native stags that leap from hill to hill, | |
| As you, dear blossom-stars, on native plains, | |
| So planted here, with God, our home remains. | |
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| I, too, would perish here, where he has died, | |
| But felled by horse and spear, not crucified; | 10 |
| I, man of peace, would pour, O Rock of God, | |
| My freedom or my blood on Zion’s sod. | |
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| When pagans sweep thy fields with withering blast, | |
| My heart is sanctified to death at last; | |
| Its taste is honey-sweet within my mouth, | 15 |
| For we that drink with God can dread no drouth. | |
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| O sweet anemones on Sharon’s plain, | |
| A spring shall come for us, to bloom again,— | |
| To God a day, to us a thousand years,— | |
| Who still remembers, lives, refreshed with tears. | 20 | | | |
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