Page:Poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/159

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THE DANCE TO DEATH
141


For mercy, all the rest for death. (To an Usher.) Go thou
To the Jews’ quarter; bid Susskind von Orb,
And Rabbi Jascob hither to the Senate,
To hear the Landgrave's and the town'e decree.
[Exit Uher. (To Schnetzen.) What learn you of this evil through the State?

SCHNETZEN

It swells to monstrous bulk.
In many towns,
Folk build high ramparts round the wells and springs.
they ahun the trescherous sparkling brooks,
To drink dull rain-water, or melted snow,
In mountain districts. Frederick has been patient,
And too long clement, dnped by fleece-loaked wolves.
But now his subjects' clamor rouses him
To front the general peril. As I hear,
A fiendish and far-reaching plot inyolves
All Christian thrones and peoples. These vile vermin,
Burrowing underneath Society,
Have leagued with Moors in Spain, with heretics
Too plentifal-Christ knows! in every land,
And planned a ubterraneous, sinuous Bcheme,
To overthrow all Christendom. But see,