POETRY.
THE CHILDREN OF THE PALE.
[Selig Brodetski. the eon of a Spitolfields Jew pedlar (who never went to school, and was provoked to emigrate by Russian restrictions on his trAdo), educated at the Jews' Free School in Bell Lane, E., and at the Central Founda• tion School, has conic out first, out of three hundred and thirty candidates, in the examination for Intermediate County Council Scholarships.]
WHENCE comes this motley, dark-eyed, swarthy crowd Of alien children in a London street,
With laughter and with chatter shrill and loud, And hurrying feet P From that far land they come whose eagles look O'er east and west. Their fathers crossed the waves Because they would no longer tamely brook The lot of slaves.
For generations in the gloom they dwelt Dark as the sunless forests of the North. Till suddenly within their hearts they felt The call, " Come forth 1" The moss-grown walls of hoary synagogue And school, the field of Death than Life more kind, The jewelled tables of the Decalog'ne, They left behind.
But in their hearts, as in the Holiest Place. They bore the ark, its manna and its rod, The lust of knowledge and the pride of race, The awe of God.
And on their children's faces I behold Flashes and gleams, as from some inner shrine, Recalling ancient stories proudly told Of Israel's line. B. PAUL NEUMAN.
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