Chapter 3

Hark! your olives shall be shaken, And your citrons and your limes Filled with fragrance. God shall waken. Lead you as in olden times. In the pastures by the river Ye once more your flocks shall tend. Ye shall live, and live forever Happy lives that know no end. No more wandering, no more sadness: Peace shall be your lot, and still Hero hearts shall throb with gladness 'Neath Moriah's silent hill. Nevermore of dread afflictions Or oppression need ye tell: Filled with joy and benedictions In the old home shall ye dwell. To the fatherland returning, Following the homeward path, Ye shall find the embers burning Still upon the ruined hearth!

The Feast Of Lights

Little candles glistening, Telling those are listening Legends manifold, Many a little story, Tales of blood and glory Of the days of old.

As I watch you flicker, As I list you bicker, Speak the ancient dreams: --You have battled, Jew, one time, You have conquer'd too, one time. (God, how strange it seems!)

In your midst was order once, And within your border once Strangers took no part. Jew, you had a land one time, And an armed hand, one time. (How it moves the heart!)

Glisten, candles, glisten! As I stand and listen All the grief in me, All the woe is stirred again, And the question heard again: What the end shall be?

Chanukah Thoughts

Not always as you see us now, Have we been used to weep and sigh, We too have grasped the sword, I trow, And seen astonished foemen fly!

We too have rushed into the fray, For our Belief the battle braved, And through the spears have fought our way, And high the flag of vict'ry waved.

But generations go and come, And suns arise and set in tears, And we are weakened now and dumb, Foregone the might of ancient years.

In exile where the wicked reign, Our courage and our pride expired, But e'en today each throbbing vein With Asmonean blood is fired.

Tho' cruel hands with mighty flail Have threshed us, yet we have not blenched: The sea of blood could naught prevail, That fire is burning, still unquenched.

Our fall is great, our fall is real, (You need but look on us to tell!) Yet in us lives the old Ideal Which all the nations shall not quell.

Sfere

I asked of my Muse, had she any objection To laughing with me,--not a word for reply! You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection,-- And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

You laughed then, you say? 'tis a sound to affright one! In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name? The laugh of a Jew! It is never a right one, For laughing and groaning with him are the same.

You thought there was zest in a Jewish existence? You deemd that the star of a Jew could be kind? The Spring calls and beckons with gracious insistence,-- Jew,--sit down in sackcloth and weep yourself blind!

The garden is green and the woodland rejoices: How cool are the breezes, with fragrance how blent! But Spring calls not _you_ with her thousand sweet voices!-- With you it is Sfere,--sit still and lament!

The beautiful summer, this life's consolation, In moaning and sighing glides quickly away. What hope can it offer to one of my nation? What joy can he find in the splendors of May?

Bewildered and homeless, of whom whoso passes May fearlessly stop to make sport at his ease,-- Say, is it for him to seek flowers and grasses, For him to be thinking on meadows and trees?

And if for a moment, forgetting to ponder On grief and oppression, song breaks out anew, I hear in his lay only: "Wander and wander!" And ev'ry note tells me the singer's a Jew.

A skilful musician, and one who is versed In metre and measure, whenever he hears The pitiful song of the Jewish dispersed, It touches his heart and it moves him to tears.

The blast of the Ram's-horn that quavers and trembles,-- On this, now, alone Jewish fancy is bent. To grief and contrition its host it assembles, And causes the stoniest heart to relent.

The wail that went up when the Temple was shattered,-- The song of Atonement, the Suppliant's psalm,-- These only he loves, since they took him--and scattered,-- Away from the land of the balsam and balm.

Of all the sweet instruments, shiver'd and broken, That once in the Temple delighted his ear, The Ram's-horn alone has he kept, as a token, And sobs out his soul on it once in the year.

Instead of the harp and the viol and cymbal, Instead of the lyre, the guitar and the flute, He has but the dry, wither'd Ram's-horn, the symbol Of gloom and despondence; the rest all are mute.

He laughs, or he breaks into song, but soon after, Tho' fain would he take in man's gladness a part, One hears, low resounding athwart the gay laughter, The Suppliant's psalm, and it pierces the heart.

I asked of my Muse, had she any objection To laughing with me,--not a word for reply! You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection,-- And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

Measuring the Graves

First old Minna, bent and lowly, Eyes with weeping nearly blind; Pessyeh-Tsvaitel, slowly, slowly, With the yarn creeps on behind.

On the holy book of Minna Fall the tear-drops--scarce a word (For the heart is moved within her) Of her praying can be heard.

"Mighty Lord, whose sovereign pleasure Made all worlds and men of dust, I, Thy humble handmaid, measure, God, the dwellings of the just.

"Speechless here the ground they cumber, Where the pious, gracious God, Where Thy heart's beloved slumber Underneath the quiet sod.

"They who sing in jubilation, Lord, before Thy holy seat, Each one from his habitation, Through the dream for ever sweet.

"From the yarn with which I measure, Pessyeh-Tsvaitel, filled with awe, Wicks will make, to search the treasure, Nightly, of Thy holy Law.

Praying still, by faith sustained: 'Thou with whom the holy dwell, Scorn not Jacob's prayer unfeigned, Mark the tears of Israel!'"

The First Bath of Ablution

The wind is keen, the frost is dread, Toward the icy water, By aunt and mother forth is led The fisher's lovely daughter.

"Dive in, dive in, my child, with haste! There's naught whereon to ponder, The time, dear heart, we must not waste: The sun has set out yonder.

"God's mercy, child, is great and sure: Fear not but He will show it! Leap in,--leap out! and you are pure,-- 'Tis over ere you know it!"

The frost and cold with cruel knife The tender form assail. Ah, would you be a Jewish wife, You must not weep and quail!

And in--and out,--she leaps. Once more! Poor girl, it has not served you. No purer are you than before: A Gentile has observed you!

And into th' icy flood again, In terror wild she leaps! The white limbs shudder... all in vain! The Christian still he peeps.

The frost and cold, they burn and bite, The women rub their fingers, The lovely child grows white and white, As on the bank she lingers.

"The Law, my child, we must fulfill, The scoundrel see depart! Yet once! 'tis but a moment's chill, 'Tis but a trifling smart!"

The white-faced child the Law has kept, The covenant unstained, For in the waters deep she leapt, And there below remained.

Atonement Evening Prayer

Atonement Day--evening pray'r--sadness profound. The soul-lights, so clear once, are dying around. The reader is spent, and he barely can speak; The people are faint, e'en the basso is weak. The choristers pine for the hour of repose. Just one--two chants more, and the pray'r book we close!

And now ev'ry Jew's supplication is ended, And Nilah* approaching, and twilight descended. The blast of the New Year is blown on the horn, All go; by the Ark I am standing forlorn, And thinking: "How shall it be with us anon, When closed is the temple, and ev'ryone gone!"

[* Ne'ilah, (Hebrew) Conclusion, concluding prayer.]

Exit Holiday

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained; The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying, And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying; The boughs of grey willow are trodden and broken-- Friend, these are your hopes and your longings unspoken!

Lo, there lie your dreamings all dimm'd and rejected, And there lie the joys were so surely expected! And there is the happiness blighted and perished, And all that aforetime your soul knew and cherished, The loved and the longed for, the striven for vainly-- Your whole life before you lies pictured how plainly!

The branches are sapless, the leaves will decay, An end is upon us, and whence, who shall say? The broom of the beadle outside now has hustled The lime and the palm that so pleasantly rustled. There blew a cold gust, from our sight all is banished-- The shaft from a cross-bow less swiftly had vanished!

End of Project Gutenberg's Songs of Labor and Other Poems, by Morris Rosenfeld