Page:Chapters on Jewish literature (IA chaptersonjewish00abra).pdf/133

Rh attempt was made by the Jews to keep him among them. But it was vain. Onward to Jerusalem: this was his one thought. He tarried in Egypt but a short while, then he passed to Tyre and Damascus. At Damascus, in the year 1140 or thereabouts, he wrote the ode to Zion which made his name immortal, an ode in which he gave vent to all the intense passion which filled his soul. The following are some stanzas taken from this address to Jerusalem:

The glory of the Lord has been alway

Thy sole and perfect light;

Thou needest not the sun to shine by day,

Nor moon and stars to illumine thee by might.

I would that, where God's spirit was of yore

Poured out unto thy holy ones, I might

There too my soul outpour!

The house of kings and throne of God wert thou,

How comes it then that now

Slaves fill the throne where sat thy kings before?

Oh! who will lead me on

To seek the spots where, in far distant years,

The angels in their glory dawned upon

Thy messengers and seers?