Stay, are we doing you wrong, Young fellow from Socrates’ land?— You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong Fresh from the master Praxiteles’ hand? So you’re of Spartan birth? Descended, perhaps, from one of the band— Deathless in story and song— Who combed their long hair at Thermopylæ’s pass?... Ah, I forget the straits, alas! More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth, That have doomed you to march in our “immigrant class” Where you’re nothing but “scum o’ the earth.” II You Pole with the child on your knee, What dower bring you to the land of the free? Hark! does she croon That sad little tune That Chopin once found on his Polish lea And mounted in gold for you and for me? Now a ragged young fiddler answers In wild Czech melody That Dvořak took whole from the dancers. And the heavy faces bloom In the wonderful Slavik way; The little, dull eyes, the brows a-gloom, Suddenly dawn like the day. While, watching these folk and their mystery, I forget that they’re nothing worth; That Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians, And men of all Slavik nations Are “polacks”—and “scum o’ the earth.” III Genoese boy of the level brow, Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes Astare at Manhattan’s pinnacles now In the first, sweet shock of a hushed surprise; Within your far-rapt seer’s eyes I catch the glow of the wild surmise That played on the Santa Maria’s prow In that still gray dawn, Four centuries gone, When a world from the wave began to rise. Oh, it’s hard to foretell what high emprise Is the goal that gleams When Italy’s dreams Spread wing and sweep into the skies. Cæsar dreamed him a world ruled well; Dante dreamed Heaven out of Hell; Angelo brought us there to dwell; And you, are you of a different birth?— You’re only a “dago,”—and “scum o’ the earth”! IV Stay, are we doing you wrong Calling you “scum o’ the earth,” Man of the sorrow-bowed head, Of the features tender yet strong,— Man of the eyes full of wisdom and mystery Mingled with patience and dread? Have I not known you in history, Sorrow-bowed head? Were you the poet-king, worth Treasures of Ophir unpriced? Were you the prophet, perchance, whose art Foretold how the rabble would mock That shepherd of spirits, erelong, Who should carry the lambs on his heart And tenderly feed his flock? Man—lift that sorrow-bowed head. Lo! ’tis the face of the Christ! The vision dies at its birth. You’re merely a butt for our mirth. You’re a “sheeny”—and therefore despised And rejected as “scum o’ the earth.” V