We entered reverent, barefoot; slew three livelong nights and mornings through, Then paused to sing a thanksgiving. We massacred the morrow too. And I was glad a Christian lad could boast of some small suffering _ad Majorem Dei gloriam_. I only longed to burn Baghdad. Nay, I can say I never hid to chamber as my fellows did. I felt my conscience clear as frost, and touched no woman--God forbid. I set my contrite soul apart with mass, procession, penance, rites That took me out to see the sights, brushing ecstatic lanes athwart The quiddering mob with tears of joy--my tutor's phrase was hoi polloi-- Though few were left. Some Greeks of ours confused Jerusalem with Troy. But most the bestial German louts made even their hardest allies sick; They ran to mutilate the quick and sniff the dead with joyous snouts. Shriven, forgiven, we embraced each stone that Christ had touched, and placed Such relics under treble guard. One note in our rejoicings jarred. It seemed some types of Jewish dog escaped the flaming synagogue, And their ingratitude was base. They joined to form a wailing-place. I heard them as I roamed among blind alleys dark and overhung By one-eyed dens. With whining nose against the wall the pack gave tongue: _Behold Thy people, Lord, a race of mourners. Through this Thy sacred dwelling-place they creep Like strangers. Hearken, Lord, in holes and corners We sit alone and weep._ _For Thy decree, most terrible and holy, That as the fathers sow the sons shall reap, For all Thy just affliction of the lowly, We sit alone and weep._ _For all the glory that is now departed, For all the stones that Thou hast made an heap, Yea, for the city of the broken-hearted, We sit alone and weep._ _For all the wealth wherewith Thou hadst endowed her, For all our shepherds gone astray like sheep, For all Thy temple's jewels ground to powder, We sit alone and weep._ _Because our soul is chastened as with lashes, Because Thine anger like a stormy deep Goes over us, in sackcloth and in ashes We sit alone and weep._ Nobody gave them heed; indeed each man was thinking how to speed His interests, and if the prey would satisfy ambition or need.