But a pedigree is valued
Not according to its fruits, but
Its antiquity alone—
Ours three thousand years can reckon.
Years come round, and years then vanish—
Full three thousand years have fleeted
Since the death of our forefather
This Schlemihl ben Zuri Schadday.
Phinehas, too, has long been dead,
But his spear is in existence,
And incessantly we hear it
Whizzing through the air above us.
And the noblest hearts it pierces—
Both Jehuda ben Halevy,
Also Moses Iben Esra,
And it likewise struck Gabirol,
Yes, Gabirol, that truehearted
God-devoted Minnesinger,
That sweet nightingale, who sang to
God instead of to a rose,—
That sweet nightingale who caroll’d
Tenderly his loving numbers
In the darkness of the Gothic
Mediæval night of earth!
Undismay’d and caring nothing
For grimaces or for spirits,
Or the chaos of delirium
And of death those ages haunting,
Our sweet nightingale thought only
Of the Godlike One he loved so,
Unto Whom he sobb’d his love,
Whom his hymns were glorifying.
Thirty springs Gabirol witness’d
On this earth, but loud-tongued Fama
Trumpeted abroad the glory
Of his name through every country.
Now at Cordova, his home, he
Had a Moor as nextdoor neighbour,
Who wrote verses, like the other,
And the poet’s glory envied.