March 14, 1881.

EUONYMOS

[Greek:  eu men he timen edidou nikephoros alke ek nikes onom’ esche phobou kear aien athiktos.]

A year ago red wrath and keen despair
  Spake, and the sole word from their darkness sent
  Laid low the lord not all omnipotent
Who stood most like a god of all that were
As gods for pride of power, till fire and air
  Made earth of all his godhead.  Lightning rent
  The heart of empire’s lurid firmament,
And laid the mortal core of manhood bare. 
But when the calm crowned head that all revere
For valour higher than that which casts out fear,
  Since fear came near it never, comes near death,
Blind murder cowers before it, knowing that here
  No braver soul drew bright and queenly breath
  Since England wept upon Elizabeth.

March 8, 1882.

ON THE RUSSIAN PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS

O son of man, by lying tongues adored,
  By slaughterous hands of slaves with feet red-shod
  In carnage deep as ever Christian trod
Profaned with prayer and sacrifice abhorred
And incense from the trembling tyrant’s horde,
  Brute worshippers or wielders of the rod,
  Most murderous even of all that call thee God,
Most treacherous even that ever called thee Lord;
Face loved of little children long ago,
  Head hated of the priests and rulers then,
    If thou see this, or hear these hounds of thine
    Run ravening as the Gadarean swine,
Say, was not this thy Passion, to foreknow
  In death’s worst hour the works of Christian men?

January 23, 1882.

BISMARCK AT CANOSSA

Not all disgraced, in that Italian town,
  The imperial German cowered beneath thine hand,
  Alone indeed imperial Hildebrand,
And felt thy foot and Rome’s, and felt her frown
And thine, more strong and sovereign than his crown,
  Though iron forged its blood-encrusted band. 
  But now the princely wielder of his land,
For hatred’s sake toward freedom, so bows down,
No strength is in the foot to spurn:  its tread
Can bruise not now the proud submitted head: 
  But how much more abased, much lower brought low,
And more intolerably humiliated,
  The neck submissive of the prosperous foe,
  Than his whom scorn saw shuddering in the snow!

December 31, 1881.

QUIA NOMINOR LEO

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