"Behold! The brook is murmuring and murmuring, but I know not of what. My heart is yearning and yearning, and I know not of what. I cherish the murmur of the brook. I cherish the pang of my lonely heart."
The following lines, which were also dedicated to Doctor Rachaeles and which were entitled "Night," betray a similar mood, perhaps, without distinctly referring to the poet's yearnings
"Hush! the night is speaking. Each twinkle of a star is a word from the world beyond. It is the language of men who were once here, but are no more.
A thousand generations of departed souls are speaking to us in words of twinkling stars. I seem to be one of them. I hear my own ghost whispering to me: 'Alas!' it says, 'Alas!'"
The three volumes were full of Biblical quaintness, and my estrangement from the language only added to the bizarre effect of its terse grammatical construction. I read a number of the poems, and several of the things in the prose volume. His Hebrew is truly marvelous, and much of the strength and charm of his message is bound up in it. As I read his poetry or prose I seemed to be listening to Jeremiah or Isaiah. The rhythm of his lines is not the only thing that is lost in my translation. There is a prehistoric vigor and a mystic beauty to them which elude the English at my command. To be sure, every word I read in his three little volumes was tinged with the fact that the author was the father of the girl who had cast her spell over me.
But then the thought that she had grown up in the house of the man who had written these lines intensified the glow of her nimbus
As I returned the books to the official in charge of the Hebrew department I lingered to draw him into conversation. He was a well-known member of the East Side Bohème. I had heard of him as a man who spoke several languages and was amazingly well read—a walking library of knowledge, not only of books, but also of men and things. Accordingly, I hoped to extract from him some information about Tevkin. He was a portly man, with a round, youthful face and a baby smile. He smiled far more than he spoke. He answered my questions either by some laconic phrase or by leaving me for a minute and then returning with some book, pamphlet, or newspaper-clipping in which he pointed out a passage that was supposed to contain a reply to my query. I had quite a long talk with him. Now and then we were interrupted by some one asking for or returning a book, but each time he was released he readily gave me his attention again
Speaking of Tevkin, I inquired, "Why doesn't he write some more of those things?" For an answer he withdrew and soon came back with several issues of The Pen, a Hebrew weekly published in New York, in which he showed me an article by Tevkin
"Have you read it?" I asked
He nodded and smiled