Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpourOf grateful homage on his fallen head,That never coronal of triumph wore,Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.If Victory makes the hero, raw SuccessThe stamp of virtue, unrememberedBe then the desperate strife, the storm and stressOf the last Warrior Jew. But if the manWho dies for freedom, loving all things less,Against world-legions, mustering […]

Kindle the taper like the steadfast starAblaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth,And add each night a lustre till afarAn eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire,The Maccabean spirit leap new-born. Remember how from wintry […]

Well-nigh two thousand years hath IsraelSuffered the scorn of man for love of God;Endured the outlaw’s ban, the yoke, the rod,With perfect patience. Empires rose and fell,Around him Nebo was adored and Bel;Edom was drunk with victory, and trodOn his high places, while the sacred sodWas desecrated by the infidel.His faith proved steadfast, without breach […]

From Joshua Ibn Vives of Allorqui to his Former Master, Solomon Levi-Paul, de Santa-Maria, Bishop of Cartegna Chancellor of Castile, and Privy Councillor to King Henry III. of Spain. [In this poem I have done little more than elaborate and versify the account given in Graetz’s History of the Jews (Vol. VIII., page 77), of […]

[Aaron Ben Mier “loquitur.”] If I remember Raschi? An I live,Grandson, to bless thy grandchild, I’ll forgetNever that youth and what he did for Prague.Aye, aye, I know! he slurred a certain verseIn such and such a prayer; omitted quiteTo stand erect there where the ritualCommands us rise and bow towards the East;Therefore, the ingrates […]

Raschi of Troyes, the Moon of Israel,The authoritative Talmudist, returnedFrom his wide wanderings under many skies,To all the synagogues of the Orient,Through Spain and Italy, the isles of Greece,Beautiful, dolorous, sacred Palestine,Dead, obelisked Egypt, floral, musk-breathed Persia,Laughing with bloom, across the Caucasus,The interminable sameness of bare steppes,Through dark luxuriance of Bohemian woods,And issuing on the […]

A Legend of the Talmud. I. When angels visit earth, the messengersOf God’s decree, they come as lightning, wind:Before the throne, they all are living fire.There stand four rows of angels–to the rightThe hosts of Michael, Gabriel’s to the left,Before, the troop of Ariel, and behind,The ranks of Raphael; all, with one accord,Chanting the glory […]

Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword,The children of the prophets of the Lord,Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state,The West refused them, and the East abhorred.No anchorage the known world could afford,Close-locked was every port, barred […]

1. Daylong I brooded upon the Passion of Israel. 2. I saw him bound to the wheel, nailed to the cross, cut off by the sword, burned at the stake, tossed into the seas. 3. And always the patient, resolute, martyr face arose in silent rebuke and defiance. 4. A Prophet with four eyes; wide […]

1. Over a boundless plain went a man, carrying seed. 2. His face was blackened by sun and rugged from tempest, scarred and distorted by pain. Naked to the loins, his back was ridged with furrows, his breast was plowed with stripes. 3. From his hand dropped the fecund seed. 4. And behold, instantly started […]

1. Through cycles of darkness the diamond sleeps in its coal-blackprison. 2. Purely incrusted in its scaly casket, the breath-tarnished pearlslumbers in mud and ooze. 3. Buried in the bowels of earth, rugged and obscure, lies theingot of gold. 4. Long hast thou been buried, O Israel, in the bowels of earth;long hast thou slumbered […]

(August 3, 1492.) 1. The Spanish noon is a blaze of azure fire, and the dusty pilgrims crawl like an endless serpent along treeless plains and bleached highroads, through rock-split ravines and castellated, cathedral-shadowed towns. 2. The hoary patriarch, wrinkled as an almond shell, bows painfully upon his staff. The beautiful young mother, ivory-pale, well-nigh […]

Night, and the heavens beam serene with peace,Like a pure heart benignly smiles the moon.Oh, guard thy blessed beauty from mischance,This I beseech thee in all tender love.See where the Storm his cloudy mantle spreads,An ashy curtain covereth the moon.As if the tempest thirsted for the rain,The clouds he presses, till they burst in streams.Heaven […]

Oh, that the golden lyre divineWhence David smote flame-tones were mine!Oh, that the silent harp which hungUntuned, unstrung,Upon the willows by the river,Would throb beneath my touch and quiverWith the old song-enchanted spellOf Israel! Oh, that the large prophetic VoiceWould make my reed-piped throat its choice!All ears should prick, all hearts should spring,To hear me […]

1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness the cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala. 2. Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppression, closely he drew about him the dust-gray filaments, soft as silk and stubborn as steel, until he lay death-stiffened in mummied seclusion. 3. And the world has named […]

1. Moses Ben Maimon lifting his perpetual lamp over the path of the perplexed; 2. Hallevi, the honey-tongued poet, wakening amid the silent ruins of Zion the sleeping lyre of David; 3. Moses, the wise son of Mendel, who made the Ghetto illustrious; 4. Abarbanel, the counselor of kings; Alcharisi, the exquisite singer; Ibn Ezra, […]

1. Vast oceanic movements, the flux and reflux of immeasurable tides, oversweep our continent. 2. From the far Caucasian steppes, from the squalid Ghettos of Europe, 3. From Odessa and Bucharest, from Kief, and Ekaterinoslav, 4. Hark to the cry of the exiles of Babylon, the voice of Rachel mourning for her children, of Israel […]

Almighty! what is man?But flesh and blood.Like shadows flee his days,He marks not how they vanish from his gaze,Suddenly, he must die–He droppeth, stunned, into nonentity. Almighty! what is man?A body frail and weak,Full of deceit and lies,Of vile hypocrisies.Now like a flower blowing,Now scorched by sunbeams glowing.And wilt thou of his trespasses inquire?How may […]

Will night already spread her wings and weaveHer dusky robe about the day’s bright form,Boldly the sun’s fair countenance displacing,And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?So a green wreath of mist enrings the moon,Till envious clouds do quite encompass her.No wind! and yet the slender stem is stirred,With faint, slight motion as from […]

“Conquer the gloomy night of thy sorrow, for the morning greets thee with laughter.Rise and clothe thyself with noble pride,Break loose from the tyranny of grief.Thou standest alone among men,Thy song is like a pearl in beauty.” So spake my friend. ‘T is well!The billows of the stormy sea which overwhelmed my soul,–These I subdue; […]