| |
| A WAIL comes o’er the swelling seas | |
| From a far land, ’neath eastern skies, | |
| And on the night wind’s solemn dirge, | |
| We shuddering hear the shrieks, the cries, | |
| Of that devoted band, who fell | 5 |
| To glut the Moslem’s savage hate, | |
| That remnant of Judah’s tribes, | |
| The victims of remorseless fate! | |
| |
| What was their crime? Had they rebelled | |
| Against the Sultan’s despot power? | 10 |
| Had they with murder in their hearts | |
| Nursed into bloom the Blood-Red Flower | |
| Of war? Say, was it theirs to throw | |
| The olive branch of Peace aside, | |
| And see all sweet affections drift | 15 |
| To death on the ensanguined tide? | |
| |
| They ’neath their vines and fig-trees dwelt, | |
| Pursuing each his peaceful trade, | |
| Chanting at eve their psalms of praise, | |
| Molesting none, of none afraid! | 20 |
| And while the cheerful home fires blazed | |
| At eve, some Patriarch’s voice was heard, | |
| While little children gathered round | |
| To list with awe the sacred word! | |
| |
| But hark! what ’larum fills the air! | 25 |
| A mighty roar as tho’ the sea | |
| Had burst its bound engulfing earth, | |
| And holding fierce, wild revelry! | |
| |
| Wake, Israel! Rouse! Your hour is come! | |
| The crazed fanatics thirst for blood; | 30 |
| A flash!—A glare!—Now ruins mark | |
| Where late your peaceful dwellings stood! | |
| Demoniac yells! fierce glittering steel! | |
| The green turf red with many a stain, | |
| The maddened populace rushing on, | 35 |
| Trampling like beasts o’er heaps of slain. | |
| |
| Ah, face the tiger in his lair | |
| When thirsting-mad for human prey, | |
| But not these zealots in their rage, | |
| He is more pitiful than they. | 40 |
| Their furiest passions all ablaze | |
| These blood-hounds lust for human game, | |
| Seeming like devils loosed on earth, | |
| For they are men only in name. | |
| |
| No mercy in that zeal-crazed throng; | 45 |
| The infant from its mother’s breast | |
| Is torn with blood-stained hands and slain, | |
| Her shrieks enjoyed with fiendish zest, | |
| And from the mother’s faithful heart, | |
| That would have died her child to save, | 50 |
| The life-blood flows, a sabre thrust, | |
| Yet she could bless the hand that gave. | |
| |
| Better to die than thus to live! | |
| With bleeding heart and maddened brain, | |
| She sees her husband fall; her sire, | 55 |
| His gray hairs dashed with crimson stain, | |
| Nor age, nor sex were spared. O! God, | |
| Can such fiends curse thy beauteous earth? | |
| And what their victim’s high offense? | |
| The only crime of Jewish birth! | 60 |
| |
| The crime of following in the path | |
| Their pious fathers early trod, | |
| Marked by One, who on Sinai’s heights | |
| Revealed Himself a living God; | |
| True, they knelt not to greet the sun, | 65 |
| Nor made the Moslem’s creed their own, | |
| Nor forced they their belief on man, | |
| But asked the privilege alone | |
| |
| Of serving their Jehovah—God, | |
| As Abraham and Moses taught. | 70 |
| Their simple worship injured none, | |
| And they no controversy sought; | |
| O! Israel! People of my God, | |
| When will thy weary wanderings cease, | |
| O! when by Jordan’s quiet wave, | 75 |
| Thy scattered remnant dwell in peace? | |
| |
| When will base calumny and wrong | |
| Cease Judah to oppress thee more, | |
| When will the wilderness bloom again | |
| On Palestina’s sea-girt shore, | 80 |
| When will our Hebrew maids once more | |
| Chant Miriam’s glad triumphant song? | |
| The winds and waves swell with the cry, | |
| “How long, our Father, O! how long!” | |
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