people!
Wondrous mighty was his singing--

Verily a fiery pillar
Moving on 'fore Israel's legions,
Restless caravan of sorrow,
Through the exile's desert plain."

In his early youth the muse of poetry had imprinted a kiss upon Halevi's
brow, and the gracious echo of that kiss trembles through all the poet's
numbers. Love, too, seems early to have taken up an abode in his
susceptible heart, but, as expressed in the poems of his youth, it is
not sensuous, earthly love, nor Gabirol's despondency and unselfish
grief, nor even the sentiment of Moses ibn Ezra's artistically
conceived and technically perfect love-plaint. It is tender, yet
passionate, frankly extolling the happiness of requited love, and as
naively miserable over separation from his mistress, whom he calls Ophra
(fawn). One of his sweetest songs he puts upon her lips:

"Into my eyes he loving looked,
My arms about his neck were twined,
And in the mirror of my eyes,
What but his image did he find?

Upon my dark-hued eyes he pressed
His lips with breath of passion rare.
The rogue! 'Twas not my eyes he kissed;
He kissed his picture mirrored there."

Ophra's "Song of Joy" reminds one of the passion of the "Song of Songs":

"He cometh, O bliss!
Fly swiftly, ye winds,
Ye odorous breezes,
And tell him how long
I've waited for this!

O happy that night,
When sunk on thy breast,
Thy kisses fast falling,
And drunken with love,
My troth I did plight.

Again my sweet friend
Embraceth me close.
Yes, heaven doth bless us,
And now thou hast won
My love without end."

His mistress' charms he describes with attractive grace:

"My sweetheart's dainty lips are red,
With ruby's crimson overspread;
Her teeth are like a string of pearls;
Adown her neck her clust'ring curls
In ebon hue vie with the night;
And o'er her features dances light.

The twinkling stars enthroned above
Are sisters to my dearest love.
We men should count it joy complete
To lay our service at her feet.
But ah! what rapture in her kiss!
A forecast 'tis of heav'nly bliss!"

When the hour of parting from Ophra came, the young poet sang:

"And so we twain must part! Oh linger yet,
Let me still feed my glance upon thine eyes.
Forget not, love, the days of our delight,
And I our nights of bliss shall