Classic Poem

There are abandoned corners of our Exile,
Remote, forgotten cities of Dispersion,
Where still in secret burns our ancient light,
Where God has saved a remnant from disaster.
There, brands that glimmer in a ruin of ashes,
Pent and unhappy souls maintain the vigil —
Spirits grown old beyond the count of time,
Grown old beyond the reckoning of days.
And when thou goest forth alone, at nightfall,
Wandering in one of these, the sacred cities,
When heaven above is quick with breaking stars,
And earth beneath with whispering spirit-winds —
Thine ear will catch the murmur of a voice,
Thine eye will catch the twinkle of a light
Set in a window, and a human form —
A shadow, like the shadow of death — beyond,
A shadow trembling, swaying back and forth,
A voice, an agony, that lifts and falls,
And comes toward thee upon the waves of silence.
Mark well the swaying shadow and the voice:
It is a Mathmid in his prison-house,
A prisoner, self-guarded, self-condemned,
Self-sacrificed to study of the Law. . . .

Within these walls, within this prison-house,
Six years have passed above his swaying form:
Within these walls the child became the youth,
The youth became the man, fore-ripened swift,
And swift as these went, swifter yet were gone
The cheek's bloom and the luster of his eyes.
Six years have passed since first he set his face
To the dark corner of the inner walls;
Six years since he has seen, for joyous sunlight,
Gray limestone, lizards and the webs of spiders;
Six years of hunger, years of sleeplessness,
Six years of wasting flesh and falling cheeks —
And all, to him, as if it had not been.
He knows that Jews have studied thus of old,
He knows the fame and glory they have won.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Since that dark corner has become his own,
No man, no living thing, has seen his coming,
No man, no living thing, has seen his going.
Not even the rising and the setting suns
Have witnessed his arrival, his return;
The morning-star, black midnight and the moon
Alone knew when he slept and when he rose:
Daylight has never looked upon his ways,
The mid-day sun has never burned his skin.
In the dimmest dawn, " before thou canst distinguish
A white thread from an azure, wolf from dog " —
(Thereby the Jew shall know, the Rabbis say,
The hour for morning-prayer is not yet come) —
In the dimmest dawn, while through the lifeless dark
Ten thousand times ten thousand stars yet shine,

Before the crowing of the cock disturbs
The burghers of the city, sleep-enfolded,
Yea, even before the most elect of faith
Rise to do honor to Creation's Lord:
In that hour, when the world in silence trembles
Before the new awakening of life,
Trembles as if she dreamed the last of dreams,
As if a wandering and secret thought
Made a light stirring in her folded wings —
In that hour from his stolen sleep he starts,
Dresses in darkness and to his corner runs.
Light are his footsteps on the garden path,
Only the winds have heard them passing by,
Only the stars have seen them running swift.

But there are moments when a playful wind
Out of the blue deep like the Tempter comes,
And with a loving hand his earlock fondles,
And whispers to him with dissolving sweetness.
And the boy's eyelids cling to one another,
As if they pleaded with him: " Brother, brother ,
Have pity on the dark eyes under us;
And we are weary, for with thee we suffer:
A full day we have toiled, a summer day,
And half a summer night: it is enough.
Brother, return and sleep, and we with thee,
Too short thy sleep was to restore our strength. . . . "
But sudden starts the boy, draws his lean hand
Across his eyes, as if temptation sat
Upon his leaden lid: and clear and swift
His footsteps echo from the empty streets.

And then the wind that blows about the garden
Takes up the theme, and gentle is its voice:
" Green is my cradle, child of happiness,
Joy in my blossom, ere thine own be withered. . . . "
And left and right of him the flowers and grasses
Speak to him from their dreams, " We too are sleeping . "

Even the stars above him take on voices,
And wink: " We sleep, although our eyes are open . "
The drunken odors of a thousand flowers
Mount to his nostrils in resistless waves:
They break upon his eyes, his lips, his throat.
He bares his breast then to receive the wind,
And lifts his strengthless hands as if in prayer:
" O dear wind, take me, carry me from here,
And find a place for me where I may rest:
For here is only weariness and pain. . . . "
His raised hands bruise against the garden fence,
And tell him he has wandered from the path:
Swift he recalls his vows, recalls his corner,
And turns him from the Tempter's voice, and flees.

In the Yeshivah reigns a sacred silence
Which he, the sacred youth, is first to break;
For there, in the dark corner, wait for him —
Faithful companions since the day he came —
Three friends: his stand, his candle and his Talmud.
As if the moments could not move too swiftly
That lie between him and his trusted friends,
He hastens to his place and takes his stand,
And like a pillar stands from morn till night.
Still standing he will eat his midday crust,
Still standing he will half outwatch the night.
Granite is yielding clay compared with him —
A Jewish boy unto the Torah vowed.

" Oi, omar Rabba, tonu rabonon,
Thus Rabba speaks, and thus our teachers taught, "
(Backward and forward swaying he repeats,
With ceaseless singsong the undying words);
The dawn, the garden, the enchanted fields,
Are gone, are vanished like a driven cloud,
And earth and all her fullness are forgotten.