The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume II Part 3

for her, which shut out other possibilities; it was only a free, wide horizon and background for culture. She was pa.s.sionately devoted to music, which inspired some of her best poems; and during the last years of her life, in hours of intense physical suffering, she found relief and consolation in listening to the strains of Bach and Beethoven. When she went abroad, painting was revealed to her, and she threw herself with the same ardor and enthusiasm into the study of the great masters; her last work (left unfinished) was a critical a.n.a.lysis of the genius and personality of Rembrandt.

And now, at the end, we ask, Has the grave really closed over all these gifts? Has that eager, pa.s.sionate striving ceased, and "is the rest silence?"

Who knows? But would we break, if we could, that repose, that silence and mystery and peace everlasting?

THE NEW YEAR.

ROSH-HASHANAH, 5643.

Not while the snow-shroud round dead earth is rolled, And naked branches point to frozen skies,-- When orchards burn their lamps of fiery gold, The grape glows like a jewel, and the corn A sea of beauty and abundance lies, Then the new year is born.

Look where the mother of the months uplifts In the green clearness of the unsunned West, Her ivory horn of plenty, dropping gifts, Cool, harvest-feeding dews, fine-winnowed light; Tired labor with fruition, joy and rest Profusely to requite.

Blow, Israel, the sacred cornet! Call Back to thy courts whatever faint heart throb With thine ancestral blood, thy need craves all.

The red, dark year is dead, the year just born Leads on from anguish wrought by priest and mob, To what undreamed-of morn?

For never yet, since on the holy height, The Temple's marble walls of white and green Carved like the sea-waves, fell, and the world's light Went out in darkness,--never was the year Greater with portent and with promise seen, Than this eve now and here.

Even as the Prophet promised, so your tent Hath been enlarged unto earth's farthest rim.

To snow-capped Sierras from vast steppes ye went, Through fire and blood and tempest-tossing wave, For freedom to proclaim and wors.h.i.+p Him, Mighty to slay and save.

High above flood and fire ye held the scroll, Out of the depths ye published still the Word.

No bodily pang had power to swerve your soul: Ye, in a cynic age of crumbling faiths, Lived to bear witness to the living Lord, Or died a thousand deaths.

In two divided streams the exiles part, One rolling homeward to its ancient source, One rus.h.i.+ng sunward with fresh will, new heart.

By each the truth is spread, the law unfurled, Each separate soul contains the nation's force, And both embrace the world.

Kindle the silver candle's seven rays, Offer the first fruits of the cl.u.s.tered bowers, The garnered spoil of bees. With prayer and praise Rejoice that once more tried, once more we prove How strength of supreme suffering still is ours For Truth and Law and Love.

THE CROWING OF THE RED c.o.c.k.

Across the Eastern sky has glowed The flicker of a blood-red dawn, Once more the clarion c.o.c.k has crowed, Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.

A million burning rooftrees 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 pa.s.sion lasts a thousand years.

Each crime that wakes in man the beast, Is visited upon his kind.

The l.u.s.t 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 n.o.bler task is--to forget.

IN EXILE.

"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs."--Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.

Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the gra.s.s, Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off, The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient a.s.s Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.

Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pa.s.s With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth, The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.

After the Southern day of heavy toil, How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air.

So deem these unused tillers of the soil, Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies, And name their life unbroken paradise.

The hounded stag that has escaped the pack, And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell; The unimprisoned bird that finds the track Through sun-bathed s.p.a.ce, to where his fellows dwell; The martyr, granted respite from the rack, The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,-- Such only know the joy these exiles gain,-- Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.

Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin.

Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin.

And over all the seal is stamped thereon Of anguish branded by a world of sin, In fire and blood through ages on their name, Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, To sing the songs of David, and to think The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink The universal air--for this they sought Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain, And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.

Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain.

They sing the conquest of the spirit strong, The soul that wrests the victory from pain; The n.o.ble joys of manhood that belong To comrades and to brothers. In their strain Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears, And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears.