“Dear bard and prophet, that thy rest is deep”

DEAR bard and prophet, that thy rest is deep,

Thanks be to God! Not now on thy heart falls

Rumor intolerable. Sleep, O sleep!

See not the blood of Israel that crawls

Warm yet, into the moon and night; that cries

Even as of old, till all the world stands still

At rapine that even to Israel’s agonies

Seems strange and monstrous, a mad dream of ill.

Thou sleepest! Yea, but as in grief we said:—

There is a spiritual life unconquerable.,

So, bard of the ancient people, though being dead

Thou speakest and thy voice we love full well.

Never thy holy memory forsakes us;

Thy spirit is the trumpet that awakes us!