He the songs enclosed within it
Of ambrosia-scented Homer,
His great fav’rite, and the casket
All night long was wont to stand
At his bed’s head; when the monarch
Slept, the heroes’ airy figures
Came from out it, o’er his visions
Creeping in fantastic fashion.
Other times and other birds too—
I myself have erst delighted
In the stories of the actions
Of Pelides, of Odysseus.
All then seem’d so sunny-golden
And so purple to my spirit,
Vine-leaves twined around my forehead,
And the trumpets flourish’d loudly.
Hush, no more! All broken lieth
Now my haughty victor-chariot,
And the panthers, who once drew it,
Now are dead, as are the women
Who, to sound of drum and cymbal,
Danced around, and I myself
Writhe upon the ground in anguish.
Weak and crippled—hush, no more!
Hush, no more! we now are speaking
Of the casket of Darius,
And within myself thus thought I:
Should I e’er possess the casket,
And not be obliged to change it
Into cash, for want of money,
I would then enclose within it
All the poems of our Rabbi,—
All Jehuda ben Halevy’s
Festal songs and lamentations,
And Ghaselas, the description
Of his pilgrimage—the whole I
Would have written on the cleanest
Parchment by the best of scribes,
And the manuscript deposit
In the little golden casket.