He kissed the beautiful creation,
And the glorious echo of his holy kiss
Trembles yet in every song of the poet,
Sanctified through this Divine grace.”
There is nothing mournful in Halevi’s poetry. In his early youth he sang of wine and of the gazelle-like eyes of his beloved, of her rosy lips, of her raven hair, and of her unfaithfulness. In his manhood he studied the Talmud, natural science, and metaphysics. He also, like many other Jewish writers, practised medicine; not with conspicuous success, as he naïvely confesses in a letter to a friend: “I occupy myself in the hours which belong neither to the day nor to the night with the vanity of medical science, although I am unable to heal.” Halevi’s heart remained wholly devoted to poetry, and his masterpiece is the Songs of Zion, wherein he pours forth all that deep veneration for the past and that ardent belief in the future glory of Israel, which have inspired Jewish genius through the ages. Jehuda voices the national sentiment in the following touching lines:
“O City of the world, beauteous in proud splendour,
From the far West, behold me solicitous on thy behalf!
Oh that I had eagle’s wings, that I might fly to thee,
Till I wet thy dust with my flowing tears!
My heart is in the East,