Almost bitterly observes she,
That a husband with pretensions
To religion, into money
Straightway would convert the casket,
That he with it might be able
For his poor and lawful spouse
That nice Cashmere shawl to purchase
That she stands so much in need of.
That Jehuda ben Halevy
Would, she fancies, with sufficient
Honour be preserved, if guarded
In a pretty box of pasteboard,
Deck’d with Chinese elegant
Arabesques, like those enchanting
Sweetmeat-boxes of Marquis
In the Passage Panorama.
“Very strange it is,”—she added,—
“That I never heard the name of
“This remarkable old poet,
“This Jehuda ben Halevy.”
Darling little wife, I answer’d,
Your delightful ignorance
But too well the gaps discloses
In the education given
In the boarding schools of Paris,
Where the girls, the future mothers
Of a proud and freeborn nation,
Learn the elements of knowledge.
All about the dry old mummies,
And embalm’d Egyptian Pharaohs
Merovingian shadowy monarchs,
With perukes devoid of powder,
And the pig-tail’d kings of China,
Lords of porcelain and pagodas,—
This they know by heart and fully,
Clever girls,—but, O, good heavens
If you ask for any great names
From the glorious golden ages
Of Arabian-ancient-Spanish
Jewish schools of poetry,—