Poetry Archives

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, the perfect old man; Gabirol, the tragic seer;
5. Heine, the enchanted magician, the heartbroken jester;
6. Yea, and the century-crowned patriarch whose bounty engirdles
the globe;—
7. These need no wreath and no trumpet; like perennial asphodel
blossoms, their fame, their glory resounds like the brazen-throated
cornet.
8. But thou—hast thou faith in the fortune of Israel?  Wouldst thou
lighten the anguish of Jacob?
9. Then shalt thou take the hand of yonder caftaned wretch with
flowing curls and gold-pierced ears;
10. Who crawls blinking forth from the loathsome recesses of the
Jewry;
11. Nerveless his fingers, puny his frame; haunted by the bat-like
phantoms of superstition is his brain.
12. Thou shalt say to the bigot, “My Brother,” and to the creature
of darkness, “My Friend.”
13. And thy heart shall spend itself in fountains of love upon the
ignorant, the coarse, and the abject.
14. Then in the obscurity thou shalt hear a rush of wings, thine
eyes shall be bitten with pungent smoke.
15. And close against thy quivering lips shall be pressed the live
coal wherewith the Seraphim brand the Prophets.