"Ay, the children of the chosen race Shall carry and bring them to their place: 80 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 Christ at the end relieve our guard. By His servant Moses the watch was set: Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 90
"Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came, By the starlight, naming a dubious name! And if, 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, 100 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, 110 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. Thy face took never so deep a shade But we fought them in it, God our aid! A trophy to bear, as we march, thy band, South, East, and on to the Pleasant Land!" 120
[Pope Gregory XVI abolished this bad business of the Sermon. --R. B.]
NOTES: "Holy-Cross Day" reflects the attitude of the corrupt mediaeval Christians and Jews toward each other. The prose preceding the poem gives the point of view of an imaginary Bishop's Secretary, who congratulates himself upon the good work the Church is doing in forcing its doctrine on the Jews in the Holy-Cross Day sermon, and effecting many conversions. The poem shows that the Jews regard this solicitude on the part of the Christians with hatred and scorn, and that their conversions are in derision of their would-be converters. The sarcasm of the speaker reaches a pinnacle of bitterness when he accuses the Christian bishops of being men he had helped to their sins and who now help him to their God. From scorn toward such followers of Christ, he passes, in the contemplation of Rabbi Ben Ezra's death song, to a defence of Christ against these followers who profess but do not act his precepts, and a hope that if the Jews were mistaken in not accepting Christ, the tortures they now suffer will be received as expiation for their sin.