Page:The Statues in the Block and Other Poems (1881).djvu/95

Rh They say the citron-tree will never thrive
 * Transplanted from the soil where it matured;

Ah, would 't were so that men could only live
 * Through working on where they had love secured!

"The People of the Book," men called the Jews—
 * Our priests are truly "People of the Word;"

And he who serves the Master must not choose—
 * He renders feudal service to the Lord.

But we who love and lose will, like the king,
 * Still keep the alcove empty in the hall,

And hope, firm-hearted, that some day will bring
 * Our absent one to fill his pedestal.