Page:The poems of Emma Lazarus vol 2.djvu/32

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16
THE WORLD'S JUSTICE.

THE WORLD'S JUSTICE

If the sadden tidings came
That on some far, foreign coasts
Bnried ages long from fame.
Had heen found a renmant lost
Of that hoary race who dwelt
By the golden Nile divine,
Spake the Pharaoh's tongue and knelt
At the moon-crowned Isis' shrine —
How at reverend Egypt's feet,
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

If the sudden news were known.
That anigh the desert-place
Where once blossomed Babylon,
Scions of a mighty race
Still survived, of giant build,
Huntsmen, warriors, priest and sage.
Whose ancestral fame had filled,
Trumpet-tongued, the earlier age.
How at old Assyria's feet
Pilgrims from all lands would meet!

Yet when Egypt's self was young.
And Assyria's bloom unworn,
Ere the mythic Homer sung.
Ere the gods of Greece were born,
lived the nation of one God,
Priests of freedom, sons of Shem,