"Stop upon the highways leading to Mir, Eisheshok, and Wolosin. [1] See yon haggard youths walking on foot! Whither lead their steps? What do they seek?—Naked they will sleep upon the floor, and lead a life of privation.
"It is said: 'The Torah is given to him alone who dies for her!'"
[Footnote 1: Lithuanian towns well-known for their Talmudic academies.]
And here is the modern counterpart:
"Go to no matter what university in Europe: the lot of the young Jewish strangers is no better…. The Russians are proud of the fame of a Lomonossoff, the son of a poor moujik who became a luminary in the world of science. How numerous are the Lomonossoffs of the Jew alley!…"
And then the poet, in an access of patriotism, cries out:
"And what, in fine, art thou, O Israel, but a poor Bahur among the peoples, eating one day with one of them, another day with the other!…
"Thou hast kindled a perpetual lamp for the whole world. Around thee alone the world is dark, O People, slave of slaves, desperate and despised!"
With this poem we bring to a close the analysis of Gordon's satires. It shows at their best the dreams, the aspirations, the struggles of the Maskilim, in their opposition to the aims of the reactionaries and the moral and material confusion in which Slavic Judaism wallowed.
The same order of ideas is presented in the greater part of the original pieces in his "Little Fables for Big Children". They are written in a vivid, pithy style. The delicate, bantering criticism and the deep philosophy with which they are impregnated put these fables among the finest productions of Hebrew literature.