The Poems of Emma Lazarus, Vol.II, Jewish Poems: Translations

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POET.
Dear sister, if thou ask but this,
From friendly lips a gentle kiss,
Or one soft tear from kindly eyes,
These will I gladly give to thee.
Our love remember tenderly,
If thou remountest to the skies.
No longer I of hope shall sing,
Of fame or joy, of love or art,
Alas, not even of suffering,
My lips are locked--I lean and cling,
To hear the whisper of my heart.

MUSE.
What! am I like the autumn breeze for you,
Which feeds on tears even to the very grave,
For whom all grief is but a drop of dew?
O poet, but one kiss--'t was I who gave.
The weed I fain would root from out this sod
Is thine own sloth--thy grief belongs to God.
Whatever sorrow thy young heart have found,
Open it well, this ever-sacred wound
Dealt by dark angels--give thy soul relief.
Naught makes us nobler than a noble grief.
Yet deem not, poet, though this pain have come,
That therefore, here below, thou mayst be dumb.
Best are the songs most desperate in their woe--
Immortal ones, which are pure sobs I know.
When the wave-weary pelican once more,
Midst evening-vapors, gains his nest of reeds,
His famished brood run forward on the shore
To see where high above the surge he speeds.
As though even now their prey they could destroy,
They hasten to their sire with screams of joy,
On swollen necks wagging their beaks, they cry;
He slowly wins at last a lofty rock,
Shelters beneath his drooping wing his flock,
And, a sad fisher, gazes on the sky.
Adown his open breast the blood flows there;
Vainly he searched the ocean's deepest part,
The sea was empty and the shore was bare,
And for all nourishment he brings his heart.
Sad, silent, on the stone, he gives his brood
His father-entrails and his father-blood,
Lulls with his love sublime his cruel pain,
And, watching on his breast the ruddy stain,
Swoons at the fatal banquet from excess
Of horror and voluptuous tenderness.
Sudden amidst the sacrifice divine,
Outworn with such protracted suffering,
He fears his flock may let him live and pine;
Then up he starts, expands his mighty wing,
Beating his heart, and with a savage cry
Bids a farewell of such funereal tone
That the scared seabirds from their rock-nests fly,
And the late traveller on the beach alone
Commends his soul to God--for death floats by.
Even such, O poet, is the poet's fate.
His life sustains the creatures of a day.
The banquets served upon his feasts of state
Are like the pelican's--sublime as they.
And when he tells the world of hopes betrayed,
Forgetfulness and grief, of love and hate,
His music does not make the heart dilate,
His eloquence is as an unsheathed blade,
Tracing a glittering circle in mid-air,
While blood drips from the edges keen and bare.

POET.
O Muse, insatiate soul, demand
No more than lies in human power.
Man writes no word upon the sand
Even at the furious whirlwind's hour.
There was a time when joyous youth
Forever fluttered at my mouth,
A merry, singing bird, just freed.
Strange martyrdom has since been mine,
Should I revive its slightest sign,
At the first note, my lyre and thine
Would snap asunder like a reed.

THE OCTOBER NIGHT.

POET.
My haunting grief has vanished like a dream,
Its floating fading memory seems one
With those frail mists born of the dawn's first beam,
Dissolving as the dew melts in the sun.

MUSE.
What ailed thee then, O poet mine;
What secret misery was thine,
Which set a bar 'twixt thee and me?
Alas, I suffer from it still;
What was this grief, this unknown ill,
Which I have wept so bitterly?

POET.
'T was but a common grief, well known of men.
But, look you, when our heavy heart is sore,
Fond wretches that we are! we fancy then
That sorrow never has been felt before.

MUSE.
There cannot be a common grief,
Save that of common souls; my friend,
Speak out, and give thy heart relief,
Of this grim secret make an end.
Confide in me, and have no fear.
The God of silence, pale, austere,
Is younger brother unto death.
Even as we mourn we're comforted,
And oft a single word is said
Which from remorse delivereth.

POET.
If I were bound this day to tell my woe,
I know not by what name to call my pain,
Love, folly, pride, experience--neither know
If one in all the world might thereby gain.
Yet ne'ertheless I'll voice the tale to thee,
Alone here by the hearth. But do thou take
This lyre--come nearer--so; my memory
Shall gently with the harmonies awake.

MUSE.
But first, or ere thy grief thou say,
My poet, art thou healed thereof?
Bethink thee, thou must speak to-day,
As free from hatred as from love.
For man has given the holy name
Of consolation unto me.
Make me no partner of thy shame,
In passions that have ruined thee.

POET.
Of my old wounds I am so sound and whole,
Almost I doubt they were, nor find their trace;
And in the passes where I risked my soul,
In mine own stead I see a stranger's face.
Muse, have no fear, we both may yield awhile
To this first inspiration of regret.
Oh, it is good to weep, 't is good to smile,
Remembering sorrows we might else forget.

MUSE.
As the watchful mother stoops
O'er her infant's cradled rest,
So my trembling spirit droops
O'er this long-closed, silent breast.
Speak! I touch the lyre's sweet strings,
Feebly, plaintively it sings,
With thy voice set free at last.
While athwart a radiant beam,
Like a light, enchanted dream,
Float the shadows of the past.

POET.
My days of work! sole days whereon I lived!
O thrice-beloved solitude!
Now God be praised, once more I have arrived
In this old study bare and rude.
These oft-deserted walls, this shabby den,
My faithful lamp, my dusty chair,
My palace, my small world I greet again,
My Muse, immortal, young and fair.
Thank God! we twain may sing here side by side,
I will reveal to thee my thought.
Thou shalt know all, to thee I will confide
The evil by a woman wrought.
A woman, yes! (mayhap, poor friends, ye guess,
Or ever I have said the word!)
To such a one my soul was bound, no less
Than is the vassal to his lord.
Detested yoke! within me to destroy
The vigor and the bloom of youth!
Yet only through my love I caught, in sooth,
A fleeting glimpse of joy.
When by the brook, beneath the evening-star,
On silver sands we twain would stray,
The white wraith of the aspen tree afar
Pointed for us the dusky way.
Once more within the moonlight do I see
That fair form sink upon my breast;
No more of that! Alas, I never guessed
Whither my fate was leading me.
The angry gods some victim craved, I fear,
At that ill-omened time,
Since they have punished me as for a crime,
For trying to be happy here!

MUSE.
A vision of remembered joy
Reveals itself to thee once more;
Why fearest thou to live it o'er,
Retracing it without annoy?
Wouldst thou confide the truth to me,
And yet those golden days disprove?
If fate has been unkind to thee,
Do thou no less, my friend, than she,
And smile upon thine early love.

POET.
Rather I dare to smile upon my woe.
Muse, I have said it, I would fain review
My crosses, visions, frenzy,--calmly show
The hour, place, circumstance, in order due.
'T was an autumnal evening, I recall,
Chill, gloomy; this one brings it back again.
The murmuring wind's monotonous rise and fall
Lulled sombre care within my weary brain.
I waited at the casement for my love,
And listening in the darkness black as death,
Such melancholy did my spirit move
That all at once I doubted of her faith.
The street wherein I dwelt was lonely, poor,
Lantern in hand, at times, a shade passed by,
When the gale whistled through the half-oped door.
One seemed to hear afar a human sigh.
I know not to what omen, sooth to say,
My superstitious spirit fell a prey.
Vainly I summoned courage--coward-like
I shuddered when the clock began to strike.
She did not come! Alone, with downcast head,
I stared at street and walls like one possessed.
How may I tell the insensate passion bred
By that inconstant woman in my breast!
I loved but her in all the world. One day
Apart from her seemed worse than death to me.
Yet I remember how I did essay
That cruel night to snap my chain, go free.
I named her traitress, serpent, o'er and o'er,
Recalled the anguish suffered for her sake,
Alas! her fatal beauty rose once more,
What grief, what torture in my heart to wake!
At last morn broke; with waiting vain outworn,
I fell asleep against the casement there.
I oped my lids upon the day new born,
My dazzled glance swam in the radiant air.
Then on the outer staircase, suddenly,
I heard soft steps ascend the narrow flight.
Save me, Great God! I see her--it is she!
Whence com'st thou? speak, where hast thou been this night?
What dost thou seek? who brings thee here thus late?
Where has this lovely form reclined till day,
While I alone must watch and weep and wait?
Where, and on whom hast thou been smiling, say!
Out, insolent traitress! canst thou come accurst,
And offer to my kiss thy lips' ripe charms?
What cravest thou? By what unhallowed thirst
Darest thou allure me to thy jaded arms?
Avaunt, begone! ghost of my mistress dead,
Back to thy grave! avoid the morning's beam!
Be my lost youth no more remembered!
And when I think of thee, I'll know it was a dream!

MUSE.
Be calm! I beg thee, I implore!
I shudder, hearing of thy pain.
O dearest friend, thy wound once more
Is opening to bleed again.
Is it so very deep, alas!
How slowly do the traces pass
Of this world's troubles! Thou, my son,
Forget her! let thy memory shun
Even to this woman's very name,
My pitying lips refuse to frame.

POET.
Shame upon her, who first
Treason and falsehood taught!
With grief and wrath accurst,
Who set my brain distraught.
Shame, woman baleful-eyed,
Whose fatal love entombed
In shadows of thy pride
My April ere it bloomed.
It was thy voice, thy smile,
Thy poisoned glances bright,
Which taught me to revile
The semblance of delight.
Thy grace of girlish years
Murdered my peace, my sleep.
If I lose faith in tears,
'T is that I saw thee weep.
I yielded to thy power
A child's simplicity.
As to the dawn the flower,
So oped my heart to thee.
Doubtless this helpless heart
Was thine without defence.
Were 't not the better part
To spare its innocence?
Shame! thou who didst beget
My earliest, youngest woe.
The tears are streaming yet
Which first thou madest flow.
Quenchless this source is found
Which thou hast first unsealed.
It issues from a wound
That never may be healed.
But in the bitter wave
I shall be clean restored,
And from my soul shall lave
Thy memory abhorred!

MUSE.
Poet, enough! Though but one single day
Lasted thy dream of her who faithless proved,
That day insult not; whatsoe'er thou say,
Respect thy love, if thou would be beloved.
If human weakness find the task too great
Of pardoning the wrongs by others done,
At least the torture spare thyself of hate,
In place of pardon seek oblivion.
The dead lie peaceful in the earth asleep,
So our extinguished passions too, should rest.
Dust are those relics also; let us keep
Our hands from violence to their ashes blest.
Why, in this story of keen pain, my friend,
Wilt thou refuse naught but a dream to see?
Does Nature causeless act, to no wise end?
Think'st thou a heedless God afflicted thee?
Mayhap the blow thou weepest was to save.
Child, it has oped thy heart to seek relief;
Sorrow is lord to man, and man a slave,
None knows himself till he has walked with grief,--
A cruel law, but none the less supreme,
Old as the world, yea, old as destiny.
Sorrow baptizes us, a fatal scheme;
All things at this sad price we still must buy.
The harvest needs the dew to make it ripe,
And man to live, to feel, has need of tears.
Joy chooses a bruised plant to be her type,
That, drenched with rain, still many a blossom bears.
Didst thou not say this folly long had slept?
Art thou not happy, young, a welcome guest?
And those light pleasures that give life its zest,
How wouldst thou value if thou hadst not wept?
When, lying in the sunlight on the grass,
Freely thou drink'st with some old friend--confess,
Wouldst thou so cordially uplift thy glass,
Hadst thou not weighed the worth of cheerfulness?
Would flowers be so dear unto thy heart,
The verse of Petrarch, warblings of the bird,
Shakespeare and Nature, Angelo and Art,
But that thine ancient sobs therein thou heard?
Couldst thou conceive the ineffable peace of heaven,
Night's silence, murmurs of the wave that flows,
If sleeplessness and fever had not driven
Thy thought to yearn for infinite repose?
By a fair woman's love art thou not blest?
When thou dost hold and clasp her hand in thine,
Does not the thought of woes that once possessed,
Make all the sweeter now her smile divine?
Wander ye not together, thou and she,
Midst blooming woods, on sands like silver bright?
Does not the white wraith of the aspen-tree
In that green palace, mark the path at night?
And seest thou not, within the moon's pale ray,
Her lovely form sink on thy breast again?
If thou shouldst meet with Fortune on thy way,
Wouldst thou not follow singing, in her train?
What hast thou to regret? Immortal Hope
Is shaped anew in thee by Sorrow's hand.
Why hate experience that enlarged thy scope?
Why curse the pain that made thy soul expand?
Oh pity her! so false, so fair to see,
Who from thine eyes such bitter tears did press,
She was a woman. God revealed to thee,
Through her, the secret of all happiness.
Her task was hard; she loved thee, it may be,
Yet must she break thy heart, so fate decreed.
She knew the world, she taught it unto thee,
Another reaps the fruit of her misdeed.
Pity her! dreamlike did her love disperse,
She saw thy wound--nor could thy pain remove.
All was not falsehood in those tears of hers--
Pity her, though it were,--for thou canst love!

POET.
True! Hate is blasphemy.
With horror's thrill, I start,
This sleeping snake to see,
Uncoil within my heart.
Oh Goddess, hear my cries,
My vow to thee is given,
By my beloved's blue eyes,
And by the azure heaven,
By yonder spark of flame,
Yon trembling pearl, the star
That beareth Venus' name,
And glistens from afar,
By Nature's glorious scheme,
The infinite grace of God,
The planet's tranquil beam
That cheers the traveler's road,
The grass, the water-course,
Woods, fields with dew impearled,
The quenchless vital force,
The sap of all the world,--
I banish from my heart
This reckless passion's ghost,
Mysterious shade, depart!
In the dark past be lost!
And thou whom once I met
As friend, while thou didst live,
The hour when I forget,
I likewise should forgive.
Let me forgive! I break
The long-uniting spell.
With a last tear, oh take,
Take thou, a last farewell.
Now, gold-haired, pensive Muse,
On to our pleasures! Sing--
Some joyous carol choose,
As in the dear old Spring.
Mark, how the dew-drenched lawn
Scents the auroral hour.
Waken my love with dawn,
And pluck her garden's flower.
Immortal nature, see!
Casts slumber's veil away.
New born with her are we
In morning's earliest ray.

NOTES TO "EPISTLE" OF JOSHUA IBN VIVES OF ALLORQUI.

The life and character of Paulus de Santa Maria are thus described
by Dr. Graetz:--

"Among the Jews baptized in 1391, no other wrought so much harm to
his race as the Rabbi Solomon Levi of Burgos, known to Christians
as Paulus Burgensis, or de Santa Maria (born about 1351-52, died
1435) who rose to very high ecclesiastical and political rank. . . .
He had no philosophical culture; on the contrary, as a Jew, he had
been extremely devout, observing scrupulously all the rites, and
regarded as a pillar of Judaism in his own circle. . . . Possessed
by ambition and vanity, the synagogue where he had passed a short
time in giving and receiving instruction, appeared to him too narrow
and restricted a sphere. He longed for a bustling activity, aimed
at a position at court, in whatever capacity, began to live on a
grand scale, maintained a sumptuous equipage, a spirited team, and
a numerous retinue of servants. As his affairs brought him into
daily contact with Christians and entangled him in religious
discussions, he studied ecclesiastical literature in order to
display his erudition. The bloody massacre of 1391 robbed him of
all hope of reaching eminence as a Jew, in his fortieth year, and
he abruptly resolved to be baptized. The lofty degree of dignity
which he afterwards attained in Church and State, may even then have
floated alluringly before his mind. In order to profit by his
apostasy, the convert Paulus de Santa Maria gave out that he had
voluntarily embraced Christianity, the theological writings of the
Scholiast Thomas of Aquinas having taken hold of his inmost
convictions. The Jews, however, mistrusted his credulity, and
knowing him well, they ascribed this step to his ambition and his
thirst for fame. His family, consisting of a wife and son, renounced
him when he changed his faith. . . . He studied theology in the
University of Paris, and then visited the papal court of Avignon,
where Cardinal Pedro de Juna had been elected papal antagonist to
Benedict XIII. of Rome. The church feud and the schism between the
two Popes offered the most favorable opportunity for intrigues and
claims. Paulus, by his cleverness, his zeal, and his eloquence, won
the favor of the Pope, who discerned in him a useful tool. Thus he
became successively Archdeacon of Trevinjo, Canon of Seville, Bishop
of Cartagena, Chancellor of Castile, and Privy Councillor to King
Henry III. of Spain. With tongue and pen he attacked Judaism, and
Jewish literature provided him with the necessary weapons. Intelligent
Jews rightly divined in this convert to Christianity their bitterest
enemy, and entered into a contest with him. . . .

The campaign against the malignity of Paul de Santa Maria was
opened by a young man who had formerly sat at his feet, Joshua ben
Joseph Ibn Vives, from the town of Lorca or Allorqui, a physician
and Arabic scholar. In an epistle written in a tone of humility as
from a docile pupil to a revered master, he deals his apostate
teacher heavy blows, and under the show of doubt he shatters the
foundations of Christianity. He begins by saying that the apostasy
of his beloved teacher to whom his loyal spirit had formerly clung,
has amazed him beyond measure and aroused in him many serious
reflections. He can only conceive four possible motives for such a
surprising step. Either Paulus has been actuated by ambition, love

of wealth, pomp, and the satisfaction of the senses, or else by doubt
of the truth of Judaism upon philosophic grounds, and has renounced
therefore the religion which afforded him so little freedom and
security; or else he has foreseen through the latest cruel
persecutions of the Jews in Spain, the total extinction of the race;
or, finally, he may have become convinced of the truth of Christianity.
The writer enters therefore into an examination based upon his
acquaintance with the character of his former master, as to which of
these four motives is most likely to have occasioned the act. He
cannot believe that ambition and covetousness prompted it, "For I
remember when you used to be surrounded by wealth and attendants, you
sighed regretfully for your previous humble station, for your retired
life and communion with wisdom, and regarded your actual brilliant
position as an unsatisfactory sham happiness. Neither can Allorqui
admit that Paulus had been disturbed by philosophic scepticism, for
to the day of his baptism he had observed all the Jewish customs and
had only accepted that little kernel of philosophy which accords
with faith, always rejecting the pernicious outward shell. He must
also discard the theory that the sanguinary persecution of the Jews
could have made Paulus despair of the possible continuation of the
Jewish race, for only a small portion of the Jews dwelt among
Christians, while the majority lived in Asia and enjoyed a certain
independence. There remains only the conclusion that Paulus has
tested the new dogmas and found them sufficient. . . . Allorqui
therefore begs him to communicate his convictions and vanquish his
pupil's doubts concerning Christianity. Instead of the general
spread of divine doctrine and everlasting peace which the prophets
had associated with the advent of the Messiah, only dissension and
war reigned on earth. Indeed, after Jesus' appearance, frightful
wars had but increased. . . . And even if Allorqui conceded the
Messiahship of Jesus, the Immaculate Conception, the Resurrection,
and all incomprehensible miracles, he could not reconcile himself to
the idea of God becoming a man. Every enlightened conception of the
Deity was at variance with it.

[Page 77 et seq. Volume 8, Second half, Graetz' History of
the Jews.]

Marrano..--See Verse xix., Line 7th of "Epistle."

The enforced recipients of baptism who remained in Spain formed a
peculiar class, outwardly Christians, inwardly Jews. They might
have been called Jewish-Christians. They were looked upon with
suspicion by the Christian population, and shunned with a still
more intense hatred by the loyal Jews who gave them the name of
Marranos, the accursed.
[Page 73.]

"Master, if thou to thy prides' goal should come,
Where wouldst thou throne--at Avignon or Rome?"
Verse xxviii. 7, 8.

This sentence occurs in another Epistle to Paulus by Profiat Duran.

Verses 29 and 30 are paraphrases from an epistle to Paulus by
Chasdai Crescas.

"These are burning questions, from which the fire of the stake may
be kindled. Christianity gives itself out as a new revelation in a
certain sense completing and improving Judaism. But the revelation
has so little efficacy, that in the prolonged schism in the Church,
a new divine message is already needed to scatter the dangerous errors.
Two Popes and their partisans fulminate against each other bulls of
excommunication and condemn each other to profoundest hell. Where is
the truth and certainty of revelation?" [Graetz' History of the Jews.]

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