" What exiles,
what persecutions have been theirs, yet here we repeat by the
sounding sea the sad history of their race:
How strange it seems! These Hebrews in their graves;
Close by the street of this fair seaport town,
Silent beside the never silent waves,
At rest in all this moving up and down!
The trees are white with dust that o'er their sleep
Wave their broad curtains in the south wind's breath,
While underneath these leafy tents they keep
The long, mysterious exodus of Death.
And these sepulchral stones so old and brown,
That pave with level flags their burial place,
Seem like the tablets of the Law thrown down
And broken by Moses at the Mountain's base.
Gone are the living, but the dead remain
And not neglected, for a hand unseen,
Scattering its bounty, like a summer rain,
Still keeps their graves and their memories green.
How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind
Drove o'er the sea--that desert desolate--
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?
Pride and humiliation hand in hand
Walked with them through the world where'er they went;
Trampled and beaten were they as the sand,
And yet unshaken as the continent.
For in the background figures vague and vast
Of patriarchs and prophets rose sublime,
And all the great traditions of the Past
Then saw reflected in the coming Time.
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