Give your first groan--compunction’s at work; And soft! from a Jew you mount to a Turk. Lo, Micah,--the selfsame beard on chin He was four times already converted in! Here’s a knife, clip quick--it’s a sign of grace-- Or he ruins us all with his hanging-face. 8. Whom now is the bishop a-leering at? I know a point where his text falls pat. I’ll tell him to-morrow, a word just now Went to my heart and made me vow To meddle no more with the worst of trades: Let somebody else play his serenades! 9. Groan all together now, whee--hee--hee! It’s a-work, it’s a-work, ah, woe is me! It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed, Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist; Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent To usher in worthily Christian Lent. 10. It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds, Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds: It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed Which gutted my purse, would throttle my creed: And it overflows, when, to even the odd, Men I helped to their sins, help me to their God. 11. But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock, And the rest sit silent and count the clock, Since forced to muse the appointed time On these precious facts and truths sublime,-- Let us fitly employ it, under our breath, In saying Ben Ezra’s Song of Death. 12. For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died, Called sons and sons’ sons to his side, And spoke, “This world has been harsh and strange; Something is wrong: there needeth a change. But what, or where? at the last or first? In one point only we sinned, at worst. -- St. 12. Rabbi Ben Ezra: see biographical sketch subjoined to the Argument of the Monologue entitled ‘Rabbi Ben Ezra’. 13. “The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet, And again in his border see Israel set. When Judah beholds Jerusalem, The stranger-seed shall be joined to them: To Jacob’s house shall the Gentiles cleave, So the Prophet saith and his sons believe. 14. “Ay, the children of the chosen race Shall carry and bring them to their place: In the land of the Lord shall lead the same, Bondsmen and handmaids. Who shall blame, When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o’er The oppressor triumph for evermore! 15. “God spoke, and gave us the word to keep: Bade never fold the hands nor sleep ‘Mid a faithless world,--at watch and ward, Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. By his servant Moses the watch was set: Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 16.