'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? '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 the Christ at the end relieve our guard. By His servant Moses the watch was set: Though near upon cockcrow, we keep it yet. 'Thou! if Thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, By the starlight naming a dubious Name; And if we were too heavy with sleep, too rash With fear--O Thou, if that martyr-gash Fell on Thee, coming to take Thine own, And we gave the Cross, when we owed the throne; 'Thou art the Judge. We are bruised thus. But, the Judgment over, join sides with us! Thine, too, is the cause! and not more Thine Than ours is the work of these dogs and swine, Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed, Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed. 'We withstood Christ then? Be mindful how At least we withstand Barabbas now! Was our outrage sore? But the worst we spared, To have called these--Christians--had we dared! Let defiance to them pay mistrust of Thee, And Rome make amends for Calvary! 'By the torture, prolonged from age to age; By the infamy, Israel's heritage; By the Ghetto's plague, by the garb's disgrace, By the badge of shame, by the felon's place, By the branding-tool, the bloody whip, And the summons to Christian fellowship, 'We boast our proof, that at least the Jew Would wrest Christ's name from the devil's crew.' The last quotation shall be from the veritable Browning--of one of those poetical audacities none ever dared but the Danton of modern poetry. Audacious in its familiar realism, in its total disregard of poetical environment, in its rugged abruptness: but supremely successful, and alive with emotion: 'What is he buzzing in my ears? Now that I come to die, Do I view the world as a vale of tears? Ah, reverend sir, not I. 'What I viewed there once, what I view again, Where the physic bottles stand On the table's edge, is a suburb lane, With a wall to my bedside hand. 'That lane sloped, much as the bottles do, From a house you could descry O'er the garden-wall. Is the curtain blue Or green to a healthy eye? 'To mine, it serves for the old June weather, Blue above lane and wall; And that farthest bottle, labelled "Ether," Is the house o'ertopping all. 'At a terrace somewhat near its stopper, There watched for me, one June, A girl--I know, sir, it's improper: My poor mind's out of tune.