| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | Ode to the Statue of Moses | | Anonymous |
| | The Masterpiece of Michael Angelo
STATUE! whose giant limbs | |
| Old Buanorotti planned, | |
| And Genius carved with meditative hand, | |
| Thy dazzling radiance dims | |
| The best and brightest boast of sculpture’s favorite land. | 5 |
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| What dignity adorns | |
| That beard’s prodigious sweep! | |
| That forehead, awful with mysterious horns | |
| And cogitation deep, | |
| Of some uncommon mind the rapt beholder warns. | 10 |
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| In that proud semblance, well | |
| My soul can recognize | |
| The prophet fresh from converse with the skies; | |
| Nor is it hard to tell | |
| The liberator’s name, the guide of Israel. | 15 |
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| Well might the deep respond | |
| Obedient to that voice, | |
| When on the Red Sea shore he waved his wand | |
| And bade the tribes rejoice, | |
| Saved from the yawning gulf and the Egyptian’s bond! | 20 |
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| Fools! in the wilderness | |
| Ye raised a calf of gold, | |
| Had ye then worshipped what I now behold | |
| Your crime had been far less— | |
| For ye had bent the knee to one of godlike mould! | 25 | | | |
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