Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee! 
It’s a-work, it’s a-work, ah, woe is me! 50
It began, when a herd of us, picked and placed,
Were spurred through the Corso, stripped to the waist;
Jew brutes, with sweat and blood well spent
To usher in worthily Christian Lent.

X

It grew, when the hangman entered our bounds,
Yelled, pricked us out to his church like hounds: 
It got to a pitch, when the hand indeed
Which gutted my purse would throttle my creed: 
And it overflows when, to even the odd,
Men I helped to their sins help me to their God. 60

XI

But now, while the scapegoats leave our flock,
And the rest sit silent and count the clock,
Since forced to muse the appointed time
On these precious facts and truths sublime,
Let us fitly employ it, under our breath,
In saying Ben Ezra’s Song of Death.

XII

For Rabbi Ben Ezra, the night he died,
Called sons and sons’ sons to his side,
And spoke, “This world has been harsh and strange;
Something is wrong:  there needeth change. 70
But what, or where? at the last or first? 
In one point only we sinned, at worst.

XIII

“The Lord will have mercy on Jacob yet,
And again in his border see Israel set. 
When Judah beholds Jerusalem,
The stranger-seed shall be joined to them: 
To Jacob’s House shall the Gentiles cleave. 
So the Prophet saith and his sons believe.

XIV

“Ay, the children of the chosen race
Shall carry and bring them to their place:  80
In the land of the Lord shall lead the same
Bondsmen and handmaids.  Who shall blame,
When the slaves enslave, the oppressed ones o’er
The oppressor triumph for evermore?

XV

“God spoke, and gave us the word to keep,
Bade never fold the hands nor sleep
’Mid a faithless world, at watch and ward,
Till Christ at the end relieve our guard. 
By His servant Moses the watch was set: 
Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet. 90

XVI

“Thou! if thou wast He, who at mid-watch came,
By the starlight, naming a dubious name! 
And if, too heavy with sleep—­too rash
With fear—­O Thou, if that martyr-gash
Fell on Thee coming to take thine own,
And we gave the Cross, when we owed the Throne—­

XVII

“Thou art the Judge.  We are bruised thus. 
But, the Judgment over, join sides with us! 
Thine too is the cause! and not more thine
Than ours, is the work of these dogs and swine, 100
Whose life laughs through and spits at their creed! 
Who maintain Thee in word, and defy Thee in deed!