Poems (Jackson)/Mordecai

by Helen Hunt Jackson

MORDECAI.

AKE friends with him! He is of royal line,
Although he sits in rags. Not all of thine
Array of splendor, pomp of high estate,
Can buy him from his place within the gate,
The king's gate of thy happiness, where he,
Yes, even he, the Jew, remaineth free,
Never obeisance making, never scorn
Betraying of thy silver and new-born
Delight. Make friends with him, for unawares
The charmèd secret of thy joys he bears;
Be glad, so long as his black sackcloth, late
And early, thwarts thy sun; for if in hate
Thou plottest for his blood, thy own death-cry,
Not his, comes from the gallows, cubits high.