EMMA LAZARUS.

[Born at New York City, 22d July 1849. Died at New York, 19th November 1887. Author of Poems and Translations (New York, 1867); Admetus, and other Poems (1871); Alide, an Episode of Goethe's Life (Philadelphia, 1874); Poems and Ballads of Heine (New York, 1881); Poems, 2 vols.; Narrative, Lyric and Dramatic; Jewish Poems and Translations, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co.]

THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK.
ACROSS the Eastern sky has glowed
The flicker of a blood-red dawn,

Once more the clarion cock has crowed,

Once more the sword of Christ is drawn.

A million burning rooftrees light

The world-wide path of Israel's flight.

Where is the Hebrew's Fatherland?
The folk of Christ is sore bestead;
The Son of Man is bruised and banned,
Nor finds whereon to lay His head.
His cup is gall, His meat is tears,
His passion lasts a thousand years.

Each crime that wakes in man the beast,
Is visited upon his kind.

The lust of mobs, the greed of Priest,

The tyranny of Kings, combined
To root his seed from earth again,
His record is one cry of pain.

When the long roll of Christian guilt

Against his sires and kin is known,
The flood of tears, the life-blood spilt,
The agony of ages shown,

What oceans can the stain remove,
From Christian law and Christian love?

Nay, close the book; not now, not here,
The hideous tale of sin narrate,
Re-echoing in the martyr's ear

Even he might nurse revengeful hate,

Even he might turn in wrath sublime,
With blood for blood and crime for crime.
Coward? Not he, who faces death,

Who singly against worlds has fought,
For what? A name he may not breathe,
For liberty of prayer and thought.
The angry sword he will not whet,
His nobler task is—to forget.

THE BANNER OF THE JEW.
WAKE, Israel, wake! Recall to-day
The glorious Maccabean rage,
The sire heroic, hoary-grey,

His five-fold lion-lineage :

The Wise, the Elect, the Help-of-God,
The Burst-of-Spring, the Avenging Rod.*
From Mizpeh's mountain-ridge they saw
Jerusalem's empty streets, her shrine
Laid waste where Greeks profaned the Law,
With idol and with pagan sign.
Mourners in tattered black were there,
With ashes sprinkled on their hair.

Then from the stony peak there rang

A blast to ope the graves; down poured
The Maccabean clan, who sang

Their battle-anthem to the Lord.
Five heroes lead, and following, see,
Ten thousand rush to Victory!
Oh for Jerusalem's trumpet now,

To blow a blast of shattering power,
To wake the sleepers high and low,

And rouse them to the urgent hour!
No hand for vengeance-but to save,
A million naked swords should wave.

The sons of Mattathias-Jonathan, John, Eleazer, Simon (also called the Jewel), and Judas the Prince.

Oh deem not dead that martial fire,
Say not the mystic flame is spent!
With Moses' law and David's lyre,

Your ancient strength remains unbent.
Let but an Ezra rise anew,

To lift the Banner of the Jew.

A rag, a mock at first―erelong,

When men have bled, and women wept
To guard its precious folds from wrong,

Even they who shrunk, even they who slept,

Shall leap to bless it, and to save.

Strike for the brave revere the brave!

A MASQUE OF VENICE.

NOT a stain,

In the sun-brimmed sapphire cup that is the sky-
Not a ripple on the black translucent lane
Of the palace-walled lagoon.

Not a cry

As the gondoliers with velvet oar glide by,
Through the golden afternoon.

From this height

Where the carved, age-yellowed balcony o'er-juts
Yonder liquid, marble pavement, see the light
Shimmer soft beneath the bridge

That abuts

On a labyrinth of water ways, and shuts
Half their sky off with its ridge.

We shall mark

All the pageant from this ivory porch of ours,
Masques and jesters, mimes and minstrels, while we hark

To their music as they fare.

Scent their flowers

Flung from boat to boat in rainbow radiant showers
Through the laughter-ringing air.

See! they come,

Like a flock of serpent-throated black-plumed swans,
With the mandoline, the viol, and the drum,
Gems afire on arms ungloved,

Fluttering fans,

Floating mantles like a great moth's streaky vans
Such as Veronese loved.

But behold

In their midst a white unruffled swan appear.
One strange barge that snowy tapestries enfold,
White its tasselled silver prow.

Who is here?

Prince of Love in masquerade or Prince of Fear,
Clad in glittering silken snow?

Cheek and chin

Where the mask's edge stops are of the hoar frost's hue. And no eye-beams seem to sparkle from within

Where the hollow rings have place.

Yon gay crew

Seem to fly him, he seems ever to pursue. 'Tis our sport to watch the race.

At his side

Stands the goldenest of beauties; from her glance
From her forehead, shines the splendour of a bride,
And her feet seem shod with wings

To entrance,

For she leaps into a wild and rhythmic dance,
Like Salome at the King's.

"Tis his aim

Just to hold, to clasp her once against his breast,
Hers to flee him, to elude him in the game.
Ah, she fears him overmuch!

Is it jest,

Is it earnest a strange riddle lurks half-guessed
In her horror of his touch.

For each time

That his snow-white fingers reach her, fades some ray
From the glory of her beauty in its prime;

And the knowledge grows upon us that the dance
Is no play

"Twixt the pale, mysterious lover and the fay-
But the whirl of fate and chance.

Where the tide

Of the broad lagoon sinks plumb into the sea,
There the mystic gondolier hath won his bride.
Hark, one helpless, stifled scream!

Must it be?

Mimes and minstrels, flowers and music, where are ye? Was all Venice such a dream?

May 1886.

JULIE MATHILDE LIPPMANN.

[Born at Brooklyn, N.Y., 27th June 1864.]

A SONG OF THE ROAD.

COME, comrades! since the road is long
Let's liven it by tune and song,
And greeting give to all we pass :-
To white-of-head; to light-of-head;
To matron grave, and laughing lass:
Hurrah! for lane and by-way;
For distant path and nigh-way;

For friends we greet, for foes we meet
Along the world's broad highway.

'Tis morning-break, lithe limbs are strong.
Who dreams of crime and guilt and wrong?
Yon youngling and his violet-eyes?
Nay light-of-mind and love-so-blind
Are wisdom-proof and folly-wise.

Hurrah! for lane and by-way, etc.