Hamilton Fish Armstrong, ed. The Book of New York Verse. 1917.
“Scum o’ the Earth”Robert Haven Schauffler
On the isle where the nations throng.
We call them “scum o’ the earth”;
Young fellow from Socrates’ land?—
You, like a Hermes so lissome and strong
Fresh from the Master Praxiteles’ hand?
So you’re of Spartan birth?
Descended, perhaps, from one of the band—
Deathless in story and song—
Who combed their long hair at Thermopylæ’s pass?
Ah, I forgot the straits, alas!
More tragic than theirs, more compassion-worth
That have doomed you to march in our “immigrant class”
Where you’re nothing but “scum o’ the earth.”
What dower brings you to the land of the free?
Hark! does she croon
That sad little tune
That Chopin once found on his Polish lea
And mounted in gold for you and me?
Now a ragged young fiddler answers
In wild Czech melody
That Dvořák took whole from the dancers,
And the heavy faces bloom
In the wonderful Slavic way;
The little, dull eyes, the brows a-gloom,
Suddenly dawn like the day.
While, watching these folk and their mystery,
I forget they’re nothing worth;
That Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians,
And men of all Slavic nations
Are “polacks”—and “scum o’ the earth.”
Lad of the lustrous, dreamy eyes
A-stare at Manhattan’s pinnacles now
In a first sweet shock of a hushed surprise;
Within your far-rapt seer’s eyes
I catch the glow of the wild surmise
That played on the Santa Maria’s prow
In that still grey dawn,
Four centuries gone,
When a world from the wave began to rise.
Oh, it’s hard to foretell what high emprise
Is the goal that gleams
When Italy’s dreams
Spread wing and sweep into the skies.
Cæsar dreamed him a world ruled well;
Dante dreamed Heaven out of Hell;
Angelo brought us there to dwell;
And you, are you of a different birth?—
You’re only a “dago”—and “scum o’ the earth”!
Calling you “scum o’ the earth,”
Man of the sorrow-bowed head,
Of the features tender yet strong,—
Man of the eyes full of wisdom and mystery
Mingled with patience and dread?
Have I not known you in history,
Sorrow-bowed head?
Were you the poet-king, worth
Treasures of Ophir unpriced?
Were you the prophet, perchance, whose art
Foretold how the rabble would mock
That shepherd of spirits, erelong,
Who should carry the lambs on his heart
And tenderly feed his flock?
Man—lift that sorrow-bowed head.
Lo! ’tis the face of the Christ!
You’re merely a butt for our mirth.
You’re a “sheeny”—and therefore despised
And rejected as “scum o’ the earth.”
Mercy for us blasphemers,
For that we spat on these marvellous folk,
Nations of darers and dreamers,
Scions of singers and seers,
Our peers, and more than our peers.
“Rabble and refuse,” we name them
And “scum o’ the earth,” to shame them.
Mercy for us of the few, young years,
Of the culture so callow and crude,
Of the hands so grasping and rude,
The lips so ready for sneers
At the sons of our ancient more-than-peers.
Mercy for us who dare despise
Men in whose loins our Homer lies;
Mothers of men who shall bring to us
The glory of Titian, the grandeur of Huss;
Children in whose frail arms shall rest
Prophets and singers and saints of the West.
Newcomers all from the eastern seas,
Help us incarnate dreams like these.
Forget, and forgive, that we did you wrong.
Help us to father a nation, strong
In the comradeship of an equal birth,
In the wealth of the richest bloods of earth.