No More Learning

Yea, what can Israel offer against her,
Whom the rich earth out of her mines hath shod,
And crowned with emeralds grown in secret rocks,
Who on her shoulders wears the gleam of the sea's
Purple and pearls, and the flax of Indian ground
Is linen on her limbs cool as moonlight,
And fells of golden beasts cover her throne;
Whose passion moves in her thought as in the air
Melody moves of flutes and silver horns:
What can Jerusalem the hill-city
Offer to keep God's love from Babylon?

_Judith_.
What but the beauty of holiness, and sound
Of music made by hearts adoring God?
You that speak lewdly of God, you yet shall see
Jerusalem treading upon her foes.
But what was that of five days one of you spoke?

_A Citizen_.
Ozias sware an oath: hast thou not heard?

_Judith_.
No, for I keep my mind away from your tongues
Wisely. Who walks in wind-blown dust of streets,
That hath a garden where the roses breathe?

_A Citizen_.
I have no garden where the roses breathe;
I have a city full of women crying
And babies starving and men weak with thirst
Who fight each other for a dole of water.

_Another_.
Not only thou hast pleasant garden-hours,
Judith, here in Bethulia; the Lord Death
Has bought the city for his garden-close,
And saunters in it watching the souls bloom
Out of their buds of flesh, and with delight
Smelling their agony.

_Another_.
But in five days
Either our God will turn his mind to us,
Or, if he careth not for us nor his honour,
Ozias will let open the main gate
And let the Assyrians end our dreadful lives.

_Judith_.
O I belong to a nation utterly lost!
God! thou hast no tribe on the earth; thy folk
Are helpless in the living places like
The ghosts that grieve in the winds under the earth.
Remember now thy glory among the living,
And let the beauty of thy renown endure
In a firm people knitted like the stone
Of hills, no mischief harms of frost or fire;
But now dust in a gale of fear they are.
They have blasphemed thee; but forgive them, God;
And let my life inhabit to its end
The spirit of a people built to God. --
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_.