| |
| ANCIENT pages of the Talmud, | |
| Legends, tales that there I view, | |
| In my mournful life and dreary | |
| Oftentimes I turn to you. | |
| |
| When at night amid the darkness | 5 |
| On mine eyes sleep will not rest, | |
| And I sit alone, and wretched, | |
| With my head upon my breast, | |
| |
| In those hours, as a star shines | |
| In the azure summer night, | 10 |
| Memories amid my sadness | |
| Then begin to glimmer bright. | |
| |
| I recall my love, my childhood; | |
| Those sweet hours come back again | |
| When I still was free from sorrow, | 15 |
| Free from anger, free from pain. | |
| |
| I recall those times, long vanished, | |
| When I quaffed, without alloy, | |
| Life’s first, best and sweetest chalice, | |
| Freedom, mirthfulness and joy. | 20 |
| |
| Those old years so sweet and precious | |
| Pass again before mine eyes, | |
| And the pages of the Talmud | |
| In my memory arise. | |
| |
| Oh! the precious ancient pages! | 25 |
| All the lights and stars I see | |
| Burning, shining in those pages; | |
| They can ne’er extinguished be! | |
| |
| Myriad streams and myriad rivers | |
| Have flowed o’er them in the past; | 30 |
| Sand has covered them and hid them, | |
| Storms have rent them—still they last. | |
| |
| Yes, the ancient, ancient pages | |
| Still survive and perish not, | |
| Although yellowed, torn and blackened, | 35 |
| Here a hole and there a spot. | |
| |
| What of that? Indeed it truly | |
| Is a graveyard, old and hoar, | |
| Where within the tomb lies buried | |
| All that we shall see no more. | 40 |
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