alms there is deep sympathy for the wilder and more awful phenomena of
nature. In the poetry of the Spanish Jews, nature is loved in her
gentler moods. One of these poets, Nahum, wrote prettily of his garden;
another, Ibn Gebirol, sang of autumn; Jehuda Halevi, of spring. Again,
in their love songs there is freshness. There is in them a quaint
blending of piety and love; they do not say that beauty is a vain thing,
but they make beauty the mark of a God-fearing character. There is an
un-Biblical lightness of touch, too, in their songs of life in the city,
their epigrams, their society verses. And in those of their verses which
most resemble the Bible, the passionate odes to Zion by Jehuda Halevi,
the sublime meditations of Ibn Gebirol, the penitential prayers of Moses
Ibn Ezra, though the echoes of the Bible are distinct enough, yet amid
the echoes there sounds now and again the fresh, clear voice of the
medieval poet.

Solomon Ibn Gebirol was born in Malaga in 1021, and died in 1070. His
early life was unhappy, and his poetry is tinged with melancholy. But
his unhappiness only gave him a fuller hope in God. As he writes in his
greatest poem, he would fly from God to God:

From thee to thee I fly to win
A place of refuge, and within
Thy shadow from thy anger hide,
Until thy wrath be turned aside.
Unto thy mercy I will cling,
Until thou hearken pitying;
Nor will I quit my hold of thee,
Until thy blessing light on me.

These lines occur in Gebirol's "Royal Crown" (_Kether Malchuth_) a
glorious series of poems on God and the world. In this, the poet pours
forth his heart even more unreservedly than in his philosophical
treatise, "The Fountain of Life," or in his ethical work, "The
Ennoblement of Character," or in his compilation from the wisdom of the
past, "The Choice of Pearls" (if, indeed, this last book be his). The
"Royal Crown" is a diadem of praises of the greatness of God, praises to
utter which make man, with all his insignificance, great.

Wondrous are thy works, O Lord of hosts,
And their greatness holds my soul in thrall.
Thine the glory is, the power divine,
Thine the majesty, the kingdom thine,
Thou supreme, exalted over all.

* * * * *

Thou art One, the first great cause of all;
Thou art One, and none can penetrate,
Not even the wise in heart, the mystery
Of thy unfathomable Unity;
Thou art One