Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/436

408 louder and nearer—then did the preacher turn once more to the Lord of Hosts, lifting up his voice in praise and prayer, and faith unquenchable;

Crying to God with a loud voice and saying:—"Lead me, Thou Jehovah! in the right way,

"For now hath come the great day of the Lord; now, Lord, save Thy people and bless Thy heritage,

"Thou who wert, and art, and ever shalt be! Show now Thy Almightiness, send Thy miracle as lightning from on high."

Nearer and nearer came the curses and shrieks and the wailing lamentations; and men and women fled, wounded, before the infamous and infuriate avengers;

Then the crash of guns and the terror of carnage and rapine unspeakable;

And, in the midst, the voice of an old man crying to heaven, and falling smitten and dead before the shrine of the God of Israel.

And, listening, I heard not only the sounds of the mimic drama—but, louder and more dreadful, the panting of miserable women who welcomed death, the deliverer;

And from Kishineff and Odessa I heard, once more crying to heaven, the outpoured blood of the Jew.

II

And still as I listened and dreamed, the crimson flood widened to a great and lustrous pool,

And looking therein I saw reflected the faces of many known well to my heart and to the hearts of all the world,

For there were the features of mighty warriors and makers of laws and leaders of men; of poets inspired and of painters and musicians; and of famed philosophers, and of men and women who loved, and labored for, their kind;