Page:Poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/80

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BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON.
63

orbs of the spirit above the sleeping eyelids of the senaea.

5. A Poet, who plucked from bis bosom the quivering; heart and fashioned it into a lyre.

6. A placid-browed Sage, uplifted from earth in celestial meditation.

7. These I saw, with princes and people in their train; the monumental dead and the standard-bearers of the future.

8. And suddenly I heard a burst of mocking laughter, and turning, I beheld the shuffling gait, the ignominious features, the sordid mask of the son of the Ghetto.

V. CURRENTS.

1. Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of immeasurable tides, overaweep our continent

2. From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid Ghettos of Europe,

3. From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief, and Ekaterinoslav,

4. Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of Rachel mourning for her children, of Israel lamenting for Zion.

5. And lo. like a turbid stream, the long-pent flood bursts the dykes of oppression and rushes hither ward.

6. Unto her ample breast, the generous mother of nations welcomes them.