But this Hebrew poetry which I have mentioned is so purely composed of ideas which are universal, essential, fundamental to the personality of man, instantly recognizable by every soul of every race,—that they remain absolutely great, absolutely artistic, in whatever language they are couched.
For example: if one climbs up for a moment out of that vagueness with which Biblical expressions, for various reasons, are apt to fall upon many ears, so that one may consider the clean and virgin quality of ideas clarified from all factitious charm of word and of association,—what could be more nearly perfect as pure literature than this:
"The entrance of Thy words giveth light;
it giveth understanding unto the simple.
I opened my mouth and panted;
for I longed for Thy commandments.
Deliver me from the oppression of man:
so will I keep Thy precepts.
Order my steps in Thy word,
and let not any iniquity have dominion over me.
Make Thy face to shine upon Thy servant;
and teach me Thy statutes.
Rivers of waters run down my eyes
because they kept not Thy law."
Or this:
"I will lift up mine eyes to the hills
whence cometh my help.
My help cometh from the Lord
which made heaven and earth.
The Lord is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade
upon thy right hand.
The sun shall not smite thee by day,
nor the moon by night.
The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil:
He shall preserve thy soul.
The Lord shall preserve thy going out
and thy coming in from this time forth
even for evermore."
Or this, of Isaiah's:
"Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
Then the lame shall leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water.
In the habitations of dragons where each lay shall be grass with reeds and rushes.... No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there;
And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs of everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away."