The Jew is True

GO forth among this homeless race,

This landless race that knows no place

Or name or nation quite its own,

And see their happy babes at play.

Palace or Ghetto, rich or poor,

As thick as birds about your door

At morn some sunny Vermont May,

Then think of Christ and these alone.

Yet we deride, we jeer, we gibe

To see their plenteous babes; we say

“Behold the Jew and all his tribe.”

Yet Solomon upon his throne

Was not more kingly crowned,

More surely born to lord, to lead,

To sow the land with Abram’s seed,

Because their babes are healthful born

And welcomed as the welcome morn.

Hear me this prophecy and heed,

Except we cleanse us kirk and creed,

Except we wash us word and deed,

The Jew shall rule us—reign the Jew.

And just because the Jew is true,

Is true to nature, true to truth;

Is clean, is chaste, as trustful Ruth,

Who bore us David, Solomon—

The Babe that far, first Christmas dawn.

*****

The nation, aye, the Christian race,

Here fronts its Sybil, face to face,

And I must say, say now to you,

Whate’er the cost, of fortune, fame,

The Christian is a thing of shame—

Must say because I know it true,

The better Christian is the Jew.