Emma Lazarus

The World's Justice

If the sudden tidings came
  That on some far, foreign coast,
Buried ages long from fame,
  Had been found a remnant lost
Of that hoary race who dwelt
  By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt
  At the moon-crowned Isis' shrine—
How at reverend Egypt's feet,
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

If the sudden news were known,
  That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
  Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,
  Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage,
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
  Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age,
How at old Assyria's feet
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

Yet when Egypt's self was young,
  And Assyria's bloom unworn,
Ere the mythic Homer sung,
  Ere the gods of Greece were born,
Lived the nation of one God,
  Priests of freedom, sons of Shem,
Never quelled by yoke or rod,
  Founders of Jerusalem—
Is there one abides to-day,
Seeker of dead cities, say!

Answer, now as then, THEY ARE;
  Scattered broadcast o'er the lands,
Knit in spirit nigh and far,
  With indissoluble bands.
Half the world adores their God,
  They the living law proclaim,
And their guerdon is—the rod,
  Stripes and scourgings, death and shame.
Still on Israel's head forlorn,
Every nation heaps its scorn.