“I am the Jew. What am I doing here? The Jew is in my blood and in my hands, The lonely, bitter and quicksilver drop, The stain of myrrh that dyes no Gentile mind With tinctures out of the East and the sad blare Of the curled ramshorn on Atonement Day. A river runs between these men and me, A river of blood and time and liquid gold, —Oh white rivers of Canaan, running the night!⁠— And we are colleagues. And we speak to each other Across the roar of that river, but no more. I hide myself behind a smiling fan. They hide themselves behind a Gentile mask And, if they fall, they will be lifted up, Being the people, but if I once fall I fall forever, like the rejected stone. That is the Jew of it, my Gentile friends, To see too far ahead and yet go on And I can smile at it behind my fan With a drowned mirth that you would find uncouth. For here we are, the makeshift Cabinet Of a new nation, gravely setting down Rules, precedents and cautions, never once Admitting aloud the cold, plain Franklin sense