Shylock Reasons with Mr. Chesterton and Other Poems

JEW-BAITING still! Two thousand years are run

And still, it seems, good Master Chesterton,

Nothing’s abated of the old offence.

Changing its shape, it never changes tense.

Other things were, this only was and is.

And whether Judas murder with a kiss,

Or Shylock catch a Christian with a gin,

All all’s the same—the first enormous sin

Traps Judas in the moneylender’s mesh

And cuts from Jesus’ side the pound of flesh.

Nor is this all the punishment. For still

Through centuries to suffer were no ill

If we in human axes and the rod

Discerned the high pro-consulate of God

Chastening his people. But we are not chastened.

Age after age upon our hearts is fastened

The same cold malice, and for all they bleed

They burn for ever with unchanging greed.

Grosser with suffering we grow, and one

Calls to another “If in Babylon

Are gold and silver, be content with them,

Better found gold than lost Jerusalem.”

They forget Zion; in the market place

Rebuild the Temple for the Jewish race,

And thus from age to age do Jews like me

Have their revenge on Christianity,

Since thus from age to age Christians like you

Unchristian grow in hounding down the Jew.

And thus from age to age His will is done,

And Shylock’s sins produce a Chesterton.