"Least pasture, and alike disgrace the plain Tall tree and lowly shrub. 'T is so with us Mortals: our age stores wealth ye seek in vain

"While busy youth culls just what we discuss At leisure in the last days: and the last Truly are these for Jochanan, whom thus

"I make one more appeal to! Thine amassed Experience, now or never, let escape Some portion of! For I perceive aghast

"The end approaches, while they jeer and jape,

These sons of Shimei: 'Justify your boast! What have ye gained from Death by twelve months' rape ?

"Did the brutes know! In vain our statesmanship

Strives at contenting the rough multitude:
Still the ox cries "I is me thou shouldst equip

"With equine trappings!' or, in humbler mood,

'Cribful of corn for me! and, as for work-
Adequate rumination o'er my food!'

"Better remain a Poet! Needs it irk
Such an one if light, kindled in his sphere,
Fail to transfuse the Mizraim cold and murk

"Round about Goshen? Though light disappear,

Shut inside, temporary ignorance
Got outside of, lo, light emerging clear

"Shows each astonished starer the expanse
Of heaven made bright with knowledge!
That's the way,

The only way I see it at a glance

Tsaddik among the foremost. When, the dread
Subsiding, Israel ventured back again
Some three months after, to the cave they sped

Where lay the Sage, - a reverential train! Tsaddik first enters. "What is this I view ? The Rabbi still alive? No stars remain

"Of Aisch to stop within their courses. True, I mind me, certain gamesome boys must urge Their offerings on me: can it be -one threw

"Life at him and it stuck? There needs the scourge

To teach that urchin manners! Prithee, grant Forgiveness if we pretermit thy dirge

"Just to explain no friend was ministrant, This time, of life to thee! Some jackanapes, I gather, has presumed to foist his scant

Mighty as mellow, which, so fancy shapes

"May fitly image forth this life of thine Fed on the last low fattening lees - condensed Elixir, no milk-mildness of the vine!

"Rightly with Tsaddik wert thou now incensed Had he been witting of the mischief wrought When, for elixir, verjuice he dispensed!

And slowly woke, —like Shushan's flower besought

By over-curious handling to unloose
The curtained secrecy wherein she thought

Her captive bee, 'mid store of sweets to choose,
Would loll, in gold pavilioned lie unteased,
Sucking on, sated never, whose, O whose

Might seem that countenance, uplift, all eased
Of old distraction and bewilderment,
Absurdly happy? How ye have appeased

66

But stuff which He the Operant-who shall dare

Describe His operation? - strikes alive
And thaumaturgic. I nor know nor care
"How from this tohu-bohu - hopes which dive,
And fears which soar -faith, ruined through

and through

By doubt, and doubt, faith treads to dust revive

"In some surprising sort, -as see, they do! Not merely foes no longer but fast friends. What does it mean unless - O strange and

new

'Discovery! - this life proves a wine-pressblends

Evil and good, both fruits of Paradise,
Into a novel drink which who intends

"To quaff, must bear a brain for ecstasies Attempered, not this all-inadequate Organ which, quivering within me, dies

"Irreconcilable? O eyes of mine, Freed now of imperfection, ye avail

To see the whole sight, nor may uncombine

"Henceforth what, erst divided, caused you quail

So huge the chasm between the false and true, The dream and the reality! All hail,

46 'Day of my soul's deliverance day the new, The never-ending! What though every shape Whereon I wreaked my yearning to pursue

"Even to success each semblance of escape From my own bounded self to some all-fair All-wise external fancy, proved a rape

"Like that old giant's, feigned of fools-on air, Not solid flesh? How otherwise? To love That lesson was to learn not here - but there

sinner-saint, live-dead, boy

Schiphaz, on Bendimir, in Farzistan!

from which I might have helped myself more liberally. Thus, instead of the simple reference to "Moses' stick," -but what if I make amends by attempting three illustrations, when some thirty might be composed on the same subject, equally justifying that pithy proverb

ממשה עד משה לא קם כמשה

MOSES the Meek was thirty cubits high,

The staff he strode with-thirty cubits long;
And when he leapt, so muscular and strong
Was Moses that his leaping neared the sky
By thirty cubits more: we learn thereby

He reached full ninety cubits- am I wrong?
When, in a fight slurred o'er by sacred song,
With staff outstretched he took a leap to try
The just dimensions of the giant Og.

And yet he barely touched-this marvel lacked Posterity to crown earth's catalogue

Of marvels - barely touched to be exact —
The giant's ankle-bone, remained a frog

That fain would match an ox in stature: fact!
II

And this same fact has met with unbelief!

How saith a certain traveller ? "Young, I chanced To come upon an object · -if thou canst,

Og's thighbone

III

if ye deem its measure strange, Myself can witness to much length of shank Even in birds. Upon a water's bank

Once halting, I was minded to exchange
Noon heat for cool. Quoth I, "On many a grange

I have seen storks perch-legs both long and lank:
Yon stork's must touch the bottom of this tank,
Since on its top doth wet no plume derange
Of the smooth breast. I'll bathe there!"
80!"

Warned me a voice from heaven. His axe into that shallow rivulet

"Do not

"A man let drop

As thou accountest-seventy years ago: It fell and fell and still without a stop

Keeps falling, nor has reached the bottom yet."

NEVER THE TIME AND THE PLACE

NEVER the time and the place

And the loved one all together! This path-how soft to pace!

This May-what magic weather!
Where is the loved one's face?

In a dream that loved one's face meets mine,
But the house is narrow, the place is bleak
Where, outside, rain and wind combine
With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak,
With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek,
With a malice that marks each word, each sign!
O enemy sly and serpentine,

Uncoil thee from the waking man!

Do I hold the Past

Thus firm and fast

Yet doubt if the Future hold I can ?
This path so soft to pace shall lead
Through the magic of May to herself indeed!
Or narrow if needs the house must be,
Outside are the storms and strangers: we-
Oh, close, safe, warm sleep I and she,
-I and she!

"Verse First: I said I will look to my ways

That I with my tongue offend not.

How now? Why stare? Art struck in amaze? Stop, stay! The smooth line hath an end knot!

"He's gone! - disgusted my text should prove Too easy to need explaining?

Had he waited, the blockhead might find I move To matter that pays remaining!"

Long years went by, when-"Ha, who's this?
Do I come on the restive scholar

I had driven to Wisdom's goal, I wis,
But that he slipped the collar?

66

At the selfsame stand, -now old, then young!
I will look to my ways-were doing
As easy as saying!—that I with my tongue
Offend not- and 'scape pooh-poohing

"From sage and simple, doctor and dunce?
Ah, nowise! Still doubts so muddy
The stream I would drink at once,
That-thus I resume my study!"

Brother, brother, I share the blame,
Arcades sumus ambo!
Darkling, I keep my sunrise-aim,
Lack not the critic's flambeau,

but once!

And look to my ways, yet, much the same, Offend with my tongue · like Pambo!