In Exile

- 1849-1887
"Since that day till now our life is one unbroken paradise. We live a true brotherly life. Every evening after supper we take a seat under the mighty oak and sing our songs." —Extract from a letter of a Russian refugee in Texas.

Twilight is here, soft breezes bow the grass,
      Day's sounds of various toil break slowly off.
The yoke-freed oxen low, the patient ass
      Dips his dry nostril in the cool, deep trough.
Up from the prairie the tanned herdsmen pass
      With frothy pails, guiding with voices rough
Their udder-lightened kine. Fresh smells of earth,
The rich, black furrows of the glebe send forth.

After the Southern day of heavy toil,
      How good to lie, with limbs relaxed, brows bare
To evening's fan, and watch the smoke-wreaths coil
      Up from one's pipe-stem through the rayless air.
So deem these unused tillers of the soil,
      Who stretched beneath the shadowing oak tree, stare
Peacefully on the star-unfolding skies,
And name their life unbroken paradise.

The hounded stag that has escaped the pack,
      And pants at ease within a thick-leaved dell;
The unimprisoned bird that finds the track
      Through sun-bathed space, to where his fellows dwell;
The martyr, granted respite from the rack,
      The death-doomed victim pardoned from his cell,—
Such only know the joy these exiles gain,—
Life's sharpest rapture is surcease of pain.

Strange faces theirs, wherethrough the Orient sun
      Gleams from the eyes and glows athwart the skin.
Grave lines of studious thought and purpose run
      From curl-crowned forehead to dark-bearded chin.
And over all the seal is stamped thereon
      Of anguish branded by a world of sin,
In fire and blood through ages on their name,
Their seal of glory and the Gentiles' shame.

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought,
      To sing the songs of David, and to think
The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught,
      Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink
The universal air—for this they sought
      Refuge o'er wave and continent, to link
Egypt with Texas in their mystic chain,
And truth's perpetual lamp forbid to wane.

Hark! through the quiet evening air, their song
      Floats forth with wild sweet rhythm and glad refrain.
They sing the conquest of the spirit strong,
      The soul that wrests the victory from pain;
The noble joys of manhood that belong
      To comrades and to brothers. In their strain
Rustle of palms and Eastern streams one hears,
And the broad prairie melts in mist of tears.

The Feast of Lights

Kindle the taper like the steadfast star
Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth,
And add each night a lustre till afar
An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth.
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn;
Chant psalms of victory till the heart takes fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born.

Remember how from wintry dawn till night,
Such songs were sung in Zion, when again
On the high altar flamed the sacred light,
And, purified from every Syrian stain,
The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung,
With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine,
Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung
From one heroic stock, one seed divine.

Five branches grown from Mattathias' stem,
The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan,
Simon the fair, the Burst-of Spring, the Gem,
Eleazar, Help of-God; o'er all his clan
Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod,
Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king,
Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God,
Whose praise is: "He received the perishing."

They who had camped within the mountain-pass,
Couched on the rock, and tented neath the sky,
Who saw from Mizpah's heights the tangled grass
Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie
Disfigured and polluted--who had flung
Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud
And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue,
Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed,

Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame,
Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men,
They rushed upon the spoiler and o'ercame,
Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten.
Now is their mourning into dancing turned,
Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight,
Week-long the festive torches shall be burned,
Music and revelry wed day with night.

Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm,
The mystic lights of emblem, and the Word.
Where is our Judas?  Where our five-branched palm?
Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord?
Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre,
Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn,
Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire,
The Maccabean spirit leap new-born!

 

Age and Death

Come closer, kind, white, long-familiar friend,
      Embrace me, fold me to thy broad, soft breast.
Life has grown strange and cold, but thou dost bend
      Mild eyes of blessing wooing to my rest.
So often hast thou come, and from my side
So many hast thou lured, I only bide
Thy beck, to follow glad thy steps divine.
      Thy world is peopled for me; this world's bare.
      Through all these years my couch thou didst prepare.
Thou art supreme Love—kiss me—I am thine!

Echoes

Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope, 
The freshness of the elder lays, the might 
Of manly, modern passion shall alight 
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope 
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope) 
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite 
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight; 
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope. 
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave 
O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard, 
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave, 
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word, 
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong 
To one in love with solitude and song.