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The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.1

From Mizpeh's mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.

Then from the stony peak there rang

A blast to ope the graves: down poured The Maccabean clan, who sang

Their battle-anthem to the Lord. Five heroes lead, and, following, see Ten thousand rush to victory!

Oh for Jerusalem's trumpet now,

To blow a blast of shattering power, To wake the sleepers high and low,

And rouse them to the urgent hour! No hand for vengeance - but to save, A million naked swords should wave.

Oh deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses' law and David's lyre,
Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,
To lift the Banner of the Jew!

A rag, a mock at first — erelong,

When men have bled and women wept,
To guard its precious folds from wrong,
Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,
Shall leap to bless it, and to save.
Strike! for the brave revere the brave!

THE CROWING OF THE RED
COCK

ACROSS the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn;
Once more the clarion cock has crowed,

Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.
A million burning roof-trees light
The world-wide path of Israel's flight.

Where is the Hebrew's fatherland ?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay his head.
His cup is gall, his meat is tears,
His passion lasts a thousand years.

Each crime that wakes in man the beast,

Is visited upon his kind.
The lust of mobs, the greed of priest,
The tyranny of kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.

When the long roll of Christian guilt
Against his sires and kin is known,
The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt,
The agony of ages shown,

What oceans can the stain remove
From Christian law and Christian love?

Nay, close the book; not now, not here,
The hideous tale of sin narrate;
Reechoing in the martyr's ear,

Even he might nurse revengeful hate,
Even he might turn in wrath sublime,
With blood for blood and crime for crime.

Coward? Not he, who faces death,

Who singly against worlds has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
The angry sword he will not whet,
His nobler task is to forget.

THE NEW EZEKIEL

WHAT, can these dead bones live, whose
sap is dried

By twenty scorching centuries of wrong?
Is this the House of Israel, whose pride
Is as a tale that 's told, an ancient song?
Are these ignoble relics all that live

Of psalmist, priest, and prophet? Can
the breath

Of very heaven bid these bones revive, Open the graves and clothe the ribs of death?

Yea, Prophesy, the Lord hath said. Again
Say to the wind, Come forth and breathe

afresh,

Even that they may live upon these slain,
And bone to bone shall leap, and flesh to

flesh.

The Spirit is not dead, proclaim the word,
Where lay dead bones, a host of armed

men stand!

I ope your graves, my people, saith the
Lord,

And I shall place you living in your land.

1 The sons of Matthias - Jonathan, John, Eleazar, Simon (also called the Jewel), and Judas, the Prince.

GRACE DENIO LITCHFIELD - FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS 521

Grace Denio Litchfield

MY LETTER

FROM far away, from far away,
It journeyed swiftly night and day,
It rested not. With cruel haste

It crossed the ocean's trackless waste.
It swerved no moment in its flight
Through mist and storm and deepest night.
No mercy prompted it to stay,
No pity moved it to delay.
O'er seas that rose up to detain,
Silent as Death it sped amain.
Through cities crowding close and strong,
Undazed, untired, it fled along.

No voice cried out through all the land,
Great Heaven saw, yet stirred no hand.
No angel, kinder than the rest,
Held his white shield before my breast.
Across the land, across the sea,
Straight, swift, and sure, it came to me !
Unlet, unhindered, undeterred,

Straight, swift, and sure, it brought me word!

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Francis Baltus Baltus

THE ANDALUSIAN SERENO

WITH Oaken staff and swinging lantern bright,

He strolls at midnight when the world is still

Through dismal lanes and plazas plumed with light,

Guarding the drowsy thousands in Seville.

Gazing upon his ever star-thronged sky,

With careless step he wanders to and fro;

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And the Sereno knows that he has seen
The spectre of the Past, the ghost of
Spain.

THE SPHINX SPEAKS

CARVED by a mighty race whose vanished hands

Formed empires more destructible than I, In sultry silence I forever lie,

Wrapped in the shifting garment of the sands.

Below me, Pharaoh's scintillating bands With clashings of loud cymbals have passed by,

And the eternal reverence of the sky
Falls royally on me and all my lands.
The record of the future broods in me;

I have with worlds of blazing stars been crowned,

But none my subtle mystery hath known Save one, who made his way through blood and sea,

The Corsican, prophetic and renowned, To whom I spake, one awful night alone!

THE BAYADERE

NEAR strange, weird temples, where the Ganges' tide

Bathes domed Lahore, I watched, by spicetrees fanned,

Her agile form in some quaint saraband, A marvel of passionate chastity and pride.

Nude to the loins, superb and leopardeyed,

With fragrant roses in her jewelled hand, Before some Kaât-drunk Rajah, mute and grand,

Her flexile body bends, her white feet glide.

The dull Kinoors throb one monotonous tune,

And wail with zeal as in a hasheesh trance;

Her scintillant eyes in vague, ecstatic

charm

Burn like black stars below the Orient

moon,

While the suave, dreamy languor of the dance

Lulls the grim, drowsy cobra on her arm.

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BONDAGE

"AND this is freedom!" cried the serf; "At last

I tread free soil, the free air blows on me;" And, wild to learn the sweets of liberty, With eager hope his bosom bounded fast. But not for naught had the long years amassed

Habit of slavery; among the free

He still was servile, and, disheartened, he Crept back to the old bondage of the past. Long did I bear a hard and heavy chain Wreathed with amaranth and asphodel, But through the flower-breaths stole the weary pain.

I cast it off and fled, but 't was in vain; For when once more I passed by where it fell,

I took it up and bound it on again.

THE BURDEN OF LOVE

I BEAR an unseen burden constantly;
Waking or sleeping I can never thrust
The load aside; through summer's heat and
dust

And winter's snows it still abides with

me.

I cannot let it fall, though I should be
Never so weary; carry it I must.

Nor can the bands that bind it on me rust

Or break, nor ever shall I be set free. Sometimes 't is heavy as the weight that bore

Atlas on giant shoulders; sometimes light As the frail message of the carrier dove; But, light or heavy, shifting nevermore. What is it thus oppressing, day and night? The burden, dearest, of a mighty love.

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