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