| |
| 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 | 5 |
| 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. | 10 |
| 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, | 15 |
| 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, | 20 |
| 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, | 25 |
| The hideous tale of sin narrate; | |
| Reëchoing 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. | 30 |
| |
| 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, | 35 |
| His nobler task is—to forget. | |
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