Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By Anonymous

Only a Jew

IN the land of Brittany, and long ago,

Lived one of those

Despised and desolate, whose records show

Insults and blows,

Their old inheritance of wrong, who were

Free once as the eyelids of the morn; nor care

Knew, nor annoy,

In that city of joy,

Heaven-chosen child, whom none to harm might dare;

Lived one who did as if his God stood near

Watching his deed,

Slow to give answer, ever swift to hear;

Whose brain would breed,

Walking alone or watching through the night,

No idle thought; but he with ill would fight

And day by day

Would wax alway

Wiser and better and nearer to the light.

And in this land a mother lost her child,

And charged the Jew

With crucifying him, who calmly smiled

Denial. “You

Have slain,” quoth she, “to keep your Passover

My son with sorceries.” He answered her,

“Your wit must fail;

An idle tale

Is this; what proof thereof can you prefer?”

But she went from him raging. Then he fled

Out of that land;

And those there set a price on his gray head,

Who with skilled hand

Of craft had fed one daughter fair as day,

Now destitute. Soon gold before her lay

The bait of shame;

But she, aflame

With honor, flung such happiness away.

And writing, told her father, who came back

By night, and bade

Her claim his life’s reward. “Rather the rack

Rend me,” she said;

“And shall I give him death who life gave me?

Sell him and feed on him? Far sooner we

Both died! Somewhere

Beyond earth’s care

Hereafter we shall meet it well may be

Somewhere hereafter.” “Nay, you still shall live,”

He murmured; then,

Went out into the market, crying, “Give

This price, ye men,

For me to her, my daughter.” But these laid

False hands on both, nor other duty paid

Than death; for they,

Gold hair and gray,

Were slain hard by in the holy minster’s shade.

After, in no long time, the little child

Returned, a stray

Fresh from the sea: it by a ship beguiled,

In the hold at play,

Had sailed unseen till the land a small speck grew,

But still the people prayed in the porch, in view

Of the blood-splashed stone,

And made no moan;

“’Twas only a Jew,” the folk said, “only a Jew!”