Shylock Reasons with Mr. Chesterton and Other Poems
9781465639622
281 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
JEW-BAITING still! Two thousand years are run And still, it seems, good Master Chesterton, Nothing’s abated of the old offence. Changing its shape, it never changes tense. Other things were, this only was and is. And whether Judas murder with a kiss, Or Shylock catch a Christian with a gin, All all’s the same—the first enormous sin Traps Judas in the moneylender’s mesh And cuts from Jesus’ side the pound of flesh. Nor is this all the punishment. For still Through centuries to suffer were no ill If we in human axes and the rod Discerned the high pro-consulate of God Chastening his people. But we are not chastened. Age after age upon our hearts is fastened The same cold malice, and for all they bleed They burn for ever with unchanging greed. Grosser with suffering we grow, and one Calls to another “If in Babylon Are gold and silver, be content with them, Better found gold than lost Jerusalem.” They forget Zion; in the market place Rebuild the Temple for the Jewish race, And thus from age to age do Jews like me Have their revenge on Christianity, Since thus from age to age Christians like you Unchristian grow in hounding down the Jew. And thus from age to age His will is done, And Shylock’s sins produce a Chesterton.
