1.
“If, Jerusalem, I ever
“Should forget thee, let my tongue
“To my mouth’s roof cleave, let also
“My right hand forget her cunning—”
Words and melody are whirling
In my head to-day unceasing,
And methinks I hear sweet voices
Singing psalms, sweet human voices.
Often to the light come also
Beards of shadowy-long proportions;
Say, ye phantoms, which amongst you
Is Jehuda ben Halevy?
But they quickly hustle by me;
Spirits ever shun with terror
Exhortations of the living—
But I recognized him well.
Well I knew him by his pallid,
Haughty, high, and thoughtful forehead,
By his eyes so sweetly staring,
Viewing me with piercing sorrow.
But I recognized him mostly
By the enigmatic smile which
O’er his fair rhymed lips was playing,
Such as none but poets boast of.
Years come on and years pass swiftly
Since Jehuda ben Halevy
Had his birth, have seven hundred
Years and fifty fleeted o’er us.
At Toledo in Castile he
For the first time saw the light,
And the golden Tagus lull’d him
In his cradle with its music.
His strict father the unfolding
Of his intellect full early
Cared for, and began his lessons
With the book of God, the Thora.
With his son he read this volume
In the’ original, whose beauteous
Picturesque and hieroglyphic
Old Chaldean quarto pages
Spring from out the childish ages
Of our world, and for that reason
Smile so trustingly and sweetly
On each childlike disposition.
And this genuine ancient text
By the boy was likewise chanted
In the ancient and establish’d
Sing-song fashion, known as Tropp.
And melodiously he gurgled
Those fat oily gutturals;
Like a very bird he warbled
That fine quaver, the Schalscheleth.
And the Targum Onkelos,
Which is written in the idiom,
The low-Hebrew sounding idiom
That we call the Aramæan,
And that to the prophet’s language
Has about the same relation
As the Swabian to the German,—
In this bastard Hebrew likewise
Was the youth betimes instructed
And the knowledge thus acquired
Proved extremely useful to him
In the study of the Talmud.
Yes, full early did his father
Lead him onward to the Talmud
And he then unfolded to him
The Halacha, that illustrious
Fighting school, where the expertest
Dialectic athletes both of
Babylon and Pumpeditha
Carry on their mental combats.
Here the boy could gain instruction
In the arts, too, of polemics;
Later, in the book Cosari
Was his mastership establish’d.
Yet the heavens pour down upon us
Lights of two distinct descriptions:
Glaring daylight of the sun,
And the moonlight’s softer lustre.
Thus two different lights the Talmud
Also sheds, and is divided
In Halacha and Hagada.—
Now the first’s a fighting school,
But the latter, the Hagada,
I should rather call a garden,
Yes, a garden, most fantastic,
Comparable to that other,
Which in days of yore was planted
In the town of Babylon,—
Great Semiramis’s garden,
That eighth wonder of the world.
’Tis said queen Semiramis,
Who had, when a child, been brought up
By the birds, and had contracted
Many a bird’s peculiar custom,
On the mere flat ground would never
Promenade, as human creatures
Mostly do, and so she planted
In the air a hanging garden.
High upon colossal pillars
Palms and cypresses were standing,
Golden oranges, fair flow’r-beds,
Marble statues, gushing fountains,—
Firmly, skilfully united
By unnumber’d hanging bridges
Which appear’d like climbing plants,
And whereon the birds were rocking,—
Solemn birds, large, many-colour’d,
All deep thinkers, never singing,
While around them finches flutter’d,
Keeping up a merry twitter,—
All things here were blest, and teeming
With a pure balsamic fragrance,
Which was free from all offensive
Earthly smells and hateful odours.
The Hagada is a garden
That this airy whim resembles,
And the youthful Talmud scholar,
When his heart was overpower’d
And was deafen’d by the squabbles
Of the’ Halacha, by disputes
All about the fatal egg
Laid one feast day by a pullet,—
Or about some other question
Of the same importance, straightway
Fled the boy to find refreshment
In the blossoming Hagada
Where the charming olden stories,
Tales of angels, famous legends,
Silent histories of martyrs,
Festal songs, and words of wisdom,
Hyperboles, far-fetch’d it may be,
But impress’d with deep conviction,
Full of glowing faith,—all glitter’d,
Bloom’d and sprung in such abundance.
And the stripling’s noble bosom
Was pervaded by the savage
But adventure-breathing sweetness,
By the wondrous blissful anguish
And the fabulous wild terrors
Of that blissful secret world,
Of that mighty revelation,
Known to us as Poesy.
And the art of Poesy,
Radiant knowledge, understanding,
Which we call the art poetic,
Open’d on the boy’s mind also.
And Jehuda ben Halevy
Was not merely skill’d in reading,
But in poetry a master,
And himself a first-rate poet.
Yes, he was a first-rate poet,
Star and torch of his own age,
Light and beacon of his people,
Yes, a very wondrous mighty
Fiery pillar of all song,
That preceded Israel’s mournful
Caravan as it was marching
Through the desert of sad exile.
Pure and true alike, and spotless
Was his song, as was his spirit;
When this spirit was created
By its Maker, self-contented,
He embraced the lovely spirit,
And that kiss’s beauteous echo
Thrills through all the poet’s numbers,
Which are hallow’d by this grace.
As in life, in numbers also
Grace is greatest good of all;
He who has it, ne’er transgresses
In his prose or in his verses.
Genius call we such a poet
Of the mighty grace of God;
He is undisputed monarch
Of the boundless realms of fancy.
He to God alone accounteth,
Not to man, and, as in lifetime,
So in art the mob have power
To destroy, but not to judge us.