Poetry Archives

Rabbi Ben Horad was a learned man,
  Of gentle ways, who taught a pious flock,
So small, at morn and eve the sexton ran
  From door to door, and with a triple knock
Summoned the faithful who were dwelling there
  To kneel and seek the Lord in humble prayer.

The sexton had a daughter, than whom dreamed
  Man fairer none, and from whose great, dark eyes
An angel soul in spotless radiance beamed,
  As shines a star from out the midnight skies.
She loved the Rabbi with a maid’s first love:
  He worshipped her well nigh like God above.

Whene’er by mortal sickness sorely pressed
  One of the little congregation lay,
The sexton’s mallet to the flock expressed
  With its sad knock his woe, and bade them pray;
Arid oft their intercession with the Lord
  Prevailed, and He the invalid restored.

Late, late one night the sexton sought to sleep,
  But ere he slept himthought he heard a sound
That caused his heart to throb, his flesh to creep—
  The ghostly knocking of his daily round—
And, trembling, to his child he cried in fear:
  “Some one is dying, daughter, dost thou hear?”

She heard the sound and answered with a cry,
  Love teaching her: “Oh! it is he, mine own:
Rabbi Ben Horad is about to die—
  Oh! father, haste! life may not yet have flown;
Bid all our people pray, that God may hear,
  And in His mercy turn a willing ear.”

All through the night the faithful people prayed
  That their beloved Rabbi still might live;
And by their prayers the hand of death was stayed,
  Yet could their prayers no greater favor give;
And so he lingered, while she watched the strife,
  With sinking heart, waged between death and life.

Then, as a last resort, from door to door
  The young men went, that all who wished might give
Some space of time out of their own life’s store,
  That yielded to the Rabbi he might live.
Some gave a year, a month a week, a day,
  But wheresoe’r they went none said them nay.

At last they sought the maid and gravely asked:
  “What wilt thou give, O maiden?” and she cried—
By his sad plight her deathless love unmasked—
  “Oh! gladly for his sake I would have died:
Take all my life and give it unto him.”
  They wrote, but saw not, for their eyes were dim.

And lo! the Rabbi lived; but ere the earth
  Had thrice upturned its face to greet the sun,
Hushed was the little congregation’s mirth,
  For the sweet maiden’s life its course had run;
And, decked with flowers, they bore her to her grave,
  He sobbing by whom she had died to save.