th of the
perplexed;

2. Hallevi, the honey-tongued poet, wakening amid the silent ruins
of Zion the sleeping lyre of David;

3. Moses, the wise son of Mendel, who made the Ghetto illustrious;

4. Abarbanel, the counselor of kings; Alcharisi, the exquisite
singer; Ibn Ezra, the perfect old man; Gabirol, the tragic seer;

5. Heine, the enchanted magician, the heartbroken jester;

6. Yea, and the century-crowned patriarch whose bounty engirdles
the globe;--

7. These need no wreath and no trumpet; like perennial asphodel
blossoms, their fame, their glory resounds like the brazen-throated
cornet.

8. But thou--hast thou faith in the fortune of Israel? Wouldst thou
lighten the anguish of Jacob?

9. Then shalt thou take the hand of yonder caftaned wretch with
flowing curls and gold-pierced ears;

10. Who crawls blinking forth from the loathsome recesses of the
Jewry;

11. Nerveless his fingers, puny his frame; haunted by the bat-like
phantoms of superstition is his brain.

12. Thou shalt say to the bigot, "My Brother," and to the creature
of darkness, "My Friend."

13. And thy heart shall spend itself in fountains of love upon the
ignorant, the coarse, and the abject.

14. Then in the obscurity thou shalt hear a rush of wings, thine
eyes shall be bitten with pungent smoke.

15. And close against thy quivering lips shall be pressed the live
coal wherewith the Seraphim brand the Prophets.

VII. CHRYSALIS.

1. Long, long has the Orient-Jew spun around his helplessness the
cunningly enmeshed web of Talmud and Kabbala.

2. Imprisoned in dark corners of misery and oppression, closely he
drew about him the dust-gray filaments, soft as silk and stubborn
as steel, until he lay death-stiffened in mummied seclusion.

3. And the world has named him an ugly worm, shunning the blessed
daylight.

4. But when the emancipating springtide breathes wholesome,
quickening airs, when the Sun of Love shines out with cordial
fires, lo, the Soul of Israel bursts her cobweb sheath, and flies
forth attired in the winged beauty of immortality.

TO CARMEN SYLVA.

Oh, that the golden lyre divine
Whence David smote flame-tones were mine!
Oh, that the silent harp which hung
Untune