Tell me when you'll marry;
Darling, name the day:
Do not longer tarry,
Life slips fast away.
Do not, like the nightingale,
Live your harshness to bewail.
At your feet
I entreat—
Let my love prevail.
OTHER POEMS.
THE SPIRIT WIFE.
THE SACRIFICE.
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.