C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Ode to Zion
By Judah Halevi (c. 1075–1141)
A
To send forth greetings from thy sacred rock
Unto thy captive train,
Who greet thee as the remnants of thy flock?
Take thou on every side—
East, West, and South, and North—their greetings multiplied.
Sadly he greets thee still,
The prisoner of hope, who, day and night,
Sheds ceaseless tears, like dew on Hermon’s hill—
Would that they fell on thy mountain’s height!
But when in fancy’s dream
I see thy freedom, forth its cadence flows
Sweet as the harps that hung by Babel’s stream.
My heart is so distressed
For Bethel ever blessed,
For Peniel, and each sacred place.
The Holy Presence there
To thee is present where
Thy Maker opes thy gates, the gates of heaven to face.
To seek the spots where, in far distant years,
The angels in their glory dawned upon
Thy messengers and seers?
Oh! who will give me wings
That I may fly away,
And there, at rest from all my wanderings,
The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay?
I’ll bend my face unto thy soil, and hold
Thy stones as precious gold.
And when in Hebron I have stood beside
My fathers’ tomb, then will I pace in turn
Thy plains and forest wide,
Until I stand in Gilead and discern
Mount Hor and Mount Abarim, ’neath whose crest
The luminaries twain, thy guides and beacons, rest.
Of dust are myrrh, thy streams with honey flow;
Naked and barefoot, to thy ruined fanes
How gladly would I go!
To where the ark was treasured, and in dim
Recesses dwelt the holy cherubim.
Do love and grace unite!
The souls of thy companions tenderly
Turn unto thee; thy joy was their delight,
And weeping, they lament thy ruin now.
In distant exile, for thy sacred height
They long, and towards thy gates in prayer they bow.
Yet do they not forget thy sheltering fold;
Unto thy garments’ fringe they cling, and haste
The branches of thy palms to seize and hold.
Shinar and Pathros! come they near to thee?
Naught are they by thy light and right Divine.
To what can be compared the majesty
Of thy anointed line?
To what the singers, seers, and Levites thine?
The rule of idols fails and is cast down,—
Thy power eternal is, from age to age thy crown.
Eternally; and blest
Is he whom God has chosen for the grace
Within thy courts to rest.
Happy is he that watches, drawing near,
Until he sees thy glorious lights arise,
And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear
Set in the Orient skies.
But happiest he who with exultant eyes
The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold,
And see thy youth renewed as in the days of old.