| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | “The Children of the Pale” | | Anonymous |
| | | WHENCE comes this motley, dark-eyed, swarthy crowd, | |
| Of alien children in a London street, | |
| With laughter and with chatter shrill and loud, | |
| And hurrying feet? | |
| |
| From that far land they come whose eagles look | 5 |
| O’er east and west. Their fathers crossed the waves | |
| Because they would no longer tamely brook | |
| The lot of slaves. | |
| |
| For generations in the gloom they dwelt | |
| Dark as the sombre forests of the North, | 10 |
| Till suddenly within their hearts they felt | |
| The call, “Come forth!” | |
| |
| The moss-grown walls of hoary synagogue | |
| And school, the field of Death than Life more kind, | |
| The jewelled tables of the Decalogue, | 15 |
| They left behind. | |
| |
| But in their hearts, as in the Holiest Place, | |
| They bore the ark, its manna and its rod, | |
| The lust of knowledge and the pride of race, | |
| The awe of God. | 20 |
| |
| And on their children’s faces I behold | |
| Flashes and gleams, as from some inner shrine, | |
| Recalling ancient stories proudly told | |
| Of Israel’s line. | | | | |
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