I raised my voice and cried aloud
(He smiled as if He heard):
"Behold, dishonour is their shroud
For that they keep Thy Word:
They strangle them with thongs of shame
Or hew them with the sword.

"With stripes and steel and bitter scorn
They trample down their pride;
The silent souls of the yet unborn
Lie maimed in the soul of the bride;
In bitterness their hearts awake,
In bitterness abide.

"In bitterness, in bitterness

They gaze upon the past,

Nor worship they Thy Word the less,
Nor scorn Thy Word at last,

Who, free within Thy bounteous air,
In bonds of hate are cast.

"For bonds that cleave the flesh are ill,
But other bonds are base

That cleave the heart's benignant will,
Or darken for a space

The eyes of reason and of right."
Yea, thus I cried apace.

The God of Israel smiled on high

As on a babbling child;

But I saw the bays of victory,

And Justice undefiled,

And Mind and Honour hand in hand,

And Envy reconciled.

The Past had doffed its robe of pain,

Flung off its mourning-hood,

When Joy upraised her veil again

And found the Future good;

She raised the folds of her lustrous cloak
There clear-eyed Duty stood.

C. M. KOHAN.

The Jews in Russia

FROM town and village to a wood, stript bare,
As they of their possessions, see them throng,
Above them grows a cloud; it moves along,
As flee they from the circling wolf pack's glare.
Is it their Broken-Shadow of despair,

The looming of their life of cruel wrong
For countless ages? No; their faith is strong
In their Jehovah; that huge cloud is prayer.

A flash of light, and black the despot lies,
What thunder round the world!

'Tis transport's strain

Proclaiming loud: "No righteous prayer is vain. No God-imploring tears are lost; they rise Into a cloud, and in the sky remain,

Till they draw lightning from Jehovah's eyes."

EDWARD DOYLE.

On the Russian Persecution of the Jews

SON of man, by lying tongues adored,

By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod In carnage deep as Christian ever trod Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred And incense from the trembling tyrant's horde, Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,

Most murderous even of all that call thee God, Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord; Face loved of little children long ago,

Head hated of the priests and rulers then,

If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine
Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,

Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow

In death's worst hour the works of Christian men? ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.

Russia and the Jews

MUSCOVITE, blind is your wrath, with
Your heel on the Israelite's neck,
And your hand on that baleful old blade,
Persecution, 'twere wisdom to reck.
The Pharaoh's calm warning, Beware!
Lo, the Pyramids pierce that grey gloom
Of a desert that is but a waste, by a river
That is but a tomb,

Yet the Hebrew abides and is strong.

PUNCH.

The Kishineff Massacre

LORD, Thy righteous wrath and vengeance pour Upon the bloody horde, who in Thy name, The sacred name, hath stained with crimson gore The Russian land and filled Thy earth with shame. Let fall upon their heads the bolts of flame To teach the vile oppressor, yet once more A living God doth rule the nations o'er

A God of strength and might whose hand can tame Their hireling hearts and teach their hate restraint. Avenge Thy slaughtered sons, O Lord supreme!

Their blood doth cry from rock and vale and height; And Thou, to whom the sparrow's piping plaint Is poignant as the eagle's piercing scream,

Will not be deaf, but with Thy thunder smite. ROSE STRAUSS.

YE

On the Massacre

E heavens, pray for mercy on my head!
If God abides in you, and if a way

To Him exists, which yet I have not found,
Do you my prayers unto His ear convey!

For me, my heart is dead, and no more prayers
Are on my lips, for refuge against wrong.
My strength is gone, and there is no more hope.
How long must we endure, how long, how long?

Headsman, here is an axe, arise and slay!
Behead me like a dog; so let it be!
You have an arm, an instrument of death,
And all the world a scaffold is to me.

Then let red blood, the blood of old and young,
Besprinkle your red coat with ruddy gore,
So that the savage and ensanguined stain
Shall not be wiped from it forevermore.

Cursed be he who for revenge cries out!

For slaying guileless babes a vengeance meet Satan himself has never yet devised.

Then let our blood, poured out beneath your feet,

Sink penetrating to earth's lowest depths;

Let blood of those who perished without blame Sap and destroy the earth's foundations oldThe bases deep of wickedness and shame.

FOR

CHAYIM NACHMAN BYALIK.

God and His Martyrs

OR I have hither come, O ye dead bones,
To beg of you, forgive me!

Forgive your God, you that are shamed forever!

For all your dark and bitter lives forgive me,
And for your ten times dark and bitter death!
For when you stand to-morrow at my threshold,
When you remind me, when you ask for payment,
I shall but answer you: "Come, see, I've nothing!"
It cries to heaven, I hear it, but I've nothing.
For I am poor myself, I'm beggared also.

And woe and woe and woe is all my worlds!
Let all the seven heavens moan for pity.

To bring such sacrifices all for nothing,

To live such lives and die such deaths for nothing,
Not knowing to what end, for what, for what!
Her head enwrapped in clouds, my old Shekinah
Shall sit for evermore and weep for shame;
And night by night I too will lean from heaven,
And mourn myself upon your graves.

CHAYIM NACHMAN BYALIK.

The Jewish Martyrs

FROM far Siberia's frozen plains,
They cry to heaven, they cry to us!
We hear the clanking of their chains
And turn away! Not thus, not thus,
Our fathers, were your hearts made cold
By lust of power, by greed of gold!

They have not feared the scaffold rope,

Nor cringed for whip or knotted cord';
They give up all and keep their hope;

They die and call no despot lord;
Before the heaven that made men free,
They testify for liberty.

Who gave their tyrants leave to smite

Truth's witnesses with knout or rod?
Who says such wrongs are in heaven's right,
He lives before the throne of God,
And all the blood by despots shed,
Shall be a curse upon his head!

If to our altar one should come,

With the czar's hounds upon his track,
Could e'en our buried dead be dumb
Were we so base to drive him back,
Were we such craven, venal slaves,
Among our myriad hero-graves?

W. V. B.