No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;

Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.

But present still, though now unseen,
When brightly shines the prosperous day
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.

And oh, when stoops on Judah's path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!

Our harps we left by Babel's streams,
The tyrant's jest, the Gentile's scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,

And mute are timbrel, harp and horn,
But Thou hast said, the blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are Mine accepted sacrifice.

SIR WALTER SCOTT.

A Jewish Family

GENIUS of Raphael! if thy wings

Might bear thee to this glen,

With faithful memory left of things
To pencil dear and pen,

Thou wouldst forego the neighboring Rhine,

And all his majesty

A studious forehead to incline

O'er this poor family.

The Mother-her thou must have seen,

In spirit, ere she came

To dwell these rifted rocks between,

Or found on earth a name;

An image, too, of that sweet Boy,
Thy inspirations give-

Of playfulness, and love, and joy,
Predestined here to live.

Downcast, or shooting glances far,
How beautiful his eyes,

That blend the nature of the star
With that of summer skies!
I speak as if of sense beguiled;
Uncounted months are gone,
Yet am I with the Jewish Child,
That exquisite Saint John.

I see the dark brown curls, the brow,
The smooth, transparent skin,
Refined, as with intent to show
The holiness within;

The grace of parting Infancy
By blushes yet untamed;
Age faithful to the mother's knee,
Nor of her arms ashamed.

Two lovely Sisters, still and sweet
As flowers, stand side by side;
Their soul-subduing looks might cheat
The Christian of his pride:

Such beauty hath the Eternal poured
Upon them not forlorn,

Though of a lineage once abhorred,
Nor yet redeemed from scorn.

Mysterious safeguard, that, in spite
Of poverty and wrong,

Doth here preserve a living light,
From Hebrew fountains sprung;
That gives the ragged group to cast
Around the dell a gleam
Of Palestine, of glory past,

And proud Jerusalem!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

Rebecca, the Jewess

CLOSED are the tear-gates of Paradise now,

And the shadows of death lie cold on the brow

Of Rebecca, the Jewess so fair;

And her dark eyes that sparkled than diamonds more bright,

Have paled the soft rays of their pure, living light,
And vacant they gaze as a lone star of night,
When darkness is filling the air,-
The balmy, the soft summer air.

Weep, daughters of Zion! Weep, chosen of God!
For the morrow shall moulder, beneath the cold clod,
The form of the spirit that's fled!

Wreathe the dark hair of the maiden laid low,
Spread violets over her bosom of snow,
And lay her down peacefully, calmly, below
The green winding-sheet of the dead,
The flower-decked robe of the dead.

There let her sleep, till the last trump shall sound The call of the dead, that slumber around

Earth's green hills, and by its streams; Waked by the voice of the Angel of Doom, Then may she burst in the dark gates of the tomb, Arrayed in white robes, and radiant with bloom To sing in the Land of Dreams,The beautiful Land of Dreams.

CLARK B. COCHRANE.

O

The American Jewess

YOUNGEST daughter of thy ancient race,

In thy behalf great progress has been wrought; Thou hast advanced unto a higher place

In this free land of stirring act and thought. Unhampered child of liberty art thou,

Upon whom smiles each science and each art;

The fetters of the past are rent and now
Thou canst go freely forth and do thy part.
But more than this the present means to thee:
Thou art the sponsor of thy people's weal,
And thine the sacred privilege to be

The guardian spirit of its high idea-
To seek the right, uphold the just, the true,
And make of each a better man, a worthier Jew.
ALBERT ULMANN.

MY

Jewess

Y dark-browed daughter of the Sun,
Dear Bedouin of the desert sands,
Sad daughter of the ravished lands,
Of savage Sinai, Babylon-
O, Egypt-eyed, thou art to me
A God-encompassed mystery.

I see sad Hagar in thy eyes,
The obelisks, the pyramids,
Lie hid beneath thy drooping lids,
The tawny Nile of Moses lies

Portrayed in thy strange people's force,

And solemn mystery of source.

The black abundance of thy hair

Falls like some sad twilight of June
Above the dying afternoon,

And mourns thy people's mute despair.
The large solemnity of night,
O Israel, is in thy sight.

Then come where stars of freedom spill
Their splendor, Jewess. In this land,
The same broad hollow of God's hand
That held you ever, outholds still.
And whether you be right or nay,
'Tis God's, not Russia's, here to say.
JOAQUIN MILLER.

HER

The Jewess

ER hair is winged with summer nights,
Her brow is like the dawn,

Her voice is like an olden song

That memory lingers on,

And all her movements are as soft
And gentle as a fawn.

A lovely mild, and winsome girl
Of strange and Eastern grace-
I thought, "How happy art thou, child
In whom all gifts find place,"
Till deep within her eyes I saw
The story of her race.

Orientale

ALLAN DAVIS.

HE'S an enchanting little Israelite,

SHE'S

A world of hidden dimples!-Dusky-eyed,
A starry-glancing daughter of the Bride-
With hair escaped from some Arabian Night;
Her lip is red, her cheek is golden-white,
Her nose a scimitar; and, set aside

The bamboo hat she cocks with so much pride,
Her dress a dream of daintiness and delight.

And when she passes with the dreadful boys

And romping girls, the cockneys loud and crude, My thought to the Minories tied, but moved to range The Land o' the Sun, commingles with the noise Of magian drums and scents of sandal-wood, A touch Sidonian, modern, taking, strange.

WILLIAM HENLEY.