w was slumbering under the name Avicebron.
It remained for an inquirer of our own day, Solomon Munk, to reveal the
face of Gabirol under the mask of a garbled name. Amazed, we behold that
the pessimistic philosopher of to-day can as little as the schoolmen of
the middle ages shake himself free from the despised Jew. Schopenhauer
may object as he will, it is certain that Gabirol was his predecessor by
more than eight hundred years!

Charisi, whom we shall presently meet, has expressed the verdict on his
poetry which still holds good: "Solomon Gabirol pleases to call himself
the small--yet before him all the great must dwindle and fall.--Who can
like him with mighty speech appall?--Compared with him the poets of his
time are without power--he, the small, alone is a tower.--The highest
round of poetry's ladder has he won.--Wisdom fondled him, eloquence hath
called him son--and clothing him with purple, said: 'Lo!--my first-born
son, go forth, to conquest go!'--His predecessors' songs are naught with
his compared--nor have his many followers better fared.--The later
singers by him were taught--the heirs they are of his poetic
thought.--But still he's king, to him all praise belongs--for Solomon's
is the Song of Songs."

By Gabirol's side stands Yehuda Halevi, probably the only Jewish poet
known to the reader of general literature, to whom his name, life, and
fate have become familiar through Heinrich Heine's _Romanzero_. His
magnificent descriptions of nature "reflect southern skies, verdant
meadows, deep blue rivers, and the stormy sea," and his erotic lyrics
are chaste and tender. He sounds the praise of wine, youth, and
happiness, and extols the charms of his lady-love, but above and beyond
all he devotes his song to Zion and his people. The pearl of his poems

"Is the famous lamentation
Sung in all the tents of Jacob,
Scattered wide upon the earth ...

Yea, it is the song of Zion,
Which Yehuda ben Halevy,
Dying on the holy ruins,
Sang of loved Jerusalem."[8]

"In the whole compass of religious poetry, Milton's and Klopstock's not
excepted, nothing can be found to surpass the elegy of Zion," says a
modern writer, a non-Jew.[9] This soul-stirring "Lay of Zion," better
than any number of critical dissertations, will give the reader a clear
insight into the character and spirit of Jewish poetry in general:

O Zion! of thine exiles' peace take thought,
The remnant of thy flock, wh