Poems / Eloise A. Bibb [electronic text]

II.

"'Go on, go on,' I hear those words again,The Saviour spoke them,—Ah! with infinite pain;A century has passed and more since then,And still I walk along the streets of men.Through Europe, Asia, Africa, I roam,But dare not linger long at any home;I watch the years go by,—the old, and new,But I ne'er change, I'm still the Wandering Jew.

"O God, I beg you, take the sentence back,Remorse, like adders, soul and brain doth rack;

Forgive a culprit's bitter words to thee,And set this lonely, wandering spirit free.Have not these years of woe and dark despair,With none beside my agony to share,Atoned for that black sin of long ago?Cut short, I beg you, now this time of woe.

"' Go on, go on until the end of time,And rest at Gabriel's solemn trumpet's chime."That awful voice, those words it seems to say,O King! 'tis true, no rest till judgment day.O God! turn back thy universe I pray,And I'll erase my blackest crime away;Alas! those bitter words I spoke to you,Have sealed my fate, I'm still the Wandering Jew.