No More Learning

--
So you have given God five days to come
And help you? You would make your souls as wares
Merchants hold up to bidders, and say, "God,
Pay us our price of comfort, or we sell
To death for the same coin"? Five days God hath
To find the cost of Jewry, or death buys you?

_A Citizen_.
Here comes Ozias: ask him.

_Judith_.
Hold him there.

[JUDITH _comes down into the street_.

_Ozias_.
Judith, I came to speak with thee.

_Judith_.
And I
Would speak with thee. What tale is this they tell
That thou hast sworn to give this people death?

_Ozias_.
In five days those among us who still live
Will have no souls but the fierce anguish of thirst.
If God ere then relieves us, well. If not,
We give ourselves away from God to death.

_Judith_.
Darest thou do this wickedness, and set
Conditions to the mercy of our God?

_Ozias_.
Death hath a mercy equal unto God's. --
Look at the air above thee; is there sign
Of mercy in that naked splendour of fire?
Too Godlike! We are his: he covers us
With golden flame of air and firmament
Of white-hot gold, marvellous to see.
But whom, what heathen land hated of God,
Do his grey clouds shadow with comfort of rain?
Over our chosen heads his glory glows:
And in five days the torment in his city
Will be beyond imagining. We will go
Through swords into the quiet and cloud of death.

_Judith_.
Ozias, wilt thou be an infamy?
Bethulia fallen, all Judea lies
Open to the feet and hoofs of Assyria.

_Ozias_.