The girl and the roses.
Written on what the poet thought was his deathbed, this satirical poem is almost as heroic as The Watch on the Jordan.
Mr. Imber has also written many original poems in English, which, however, he fears will not live. Many of them are satirical poems about American life and politics. When in Denver before the Spanish war he wrote some verses beginning:
Our flag will soon be planted
In a land where we do not want it.
It was, the poet said, through the simple, clear character of his mystical attainments that he was able to predict the results of the war with Spain.
Mr. Imber looks upon America as the "land of the bluff" and as such admires it. But he disapproves of our reform movements. He thinks the recent attempt to reform the east side was due to the desire of the rich to divert attention from their own vices. He doesn't approve of reform any way.
"We have been trying to reform human nature," he said, "for 2,000 years, and have not done it yet. The only way to make a man good is to remove his stomach, for so long as he is hungry he will steal, and so long as he has other desires he will commit other wicked actions. Moses and Jesus were smart men and knew that evil could not be rooted out, and so they tolerated it."
Mr. Imber has recently made his last will and testament. It is in Hebrew prose and runs thus in English: