And, O, the look of lingering caress,
The faltering tone (too tear-laden to bless)
At parting, when the patriarch of lore
Stood wistfully beside the open door,
And, finding voice, this last injunction gave
To serve him on his journey to the grave:
Be flexible, as is the tender reed,
And not unbending as the cedar! Heed
God's high commands; they point the road to bliss!"
(Which gentle speech he hallowed with a kiss)—
Thus conjured forth, his fancy spared him naught,
As Conscience woke each tantalizing thought.
"Alas!" rued he, and felt it as a pang,
Before my mule had gone a parasang,
I've sheer forgot the precepts of the Sage
Who taught me every grief to assuage,
And never with a conscious wrong intent
Violate the Law's high sacrament.
O, woe is me, I, self-condemned, must bear
The throe of guilt henceforward everywhere!"
Thus mournfully the Rabbi pondered, and,
Flushed scarlet with his own self-reprimand,
Dismounted slowly, and, with humble mien,
Knelt in the dust to show his sorrow keen.
"Forgive me, brother," ran his plea, "behold
Him humble, who once essayed to be bold.
Contritely I beseech thee to be kind;
My heart spake not; it was my wayward mind
That shaped the words which hurt thee to the quick!"
THE RABBI AND THE CRIPPLE 257
The cripple, deaf to plaintive rhetoric,
And, nursing still his grievance, said with scorn: "Better far that thou hadst not been born
Than thus to mock a creature, maimed and ill,
To merely vent thy sacrilegious will.
And thou'rt ordained a Rabbi? Would there were,
In Israel's ranks, none like unto thee, sir!"
Crestfallen now, the culprit scholar strode
Beside his mule, the weary homeward road.
No word was more exchanged betwixt the twain:
Each felt the other's palpitating pain,
Each knew the other's secret thought, and weighed
The consequence of this grim escapade.
The village reached, they wondered both to see
Approaching them a goodly company.
Young men and old, fair maidens, clad in white,
Turned out to meet the laurelled Israelite,
Who, full of honors, in his tender years,
Was held to be the favored of the seers
Of Talmud lore. The hamlet was agleam
With color and device, as did beseem
The welcome of a venerated guest.
And lo! an old man headed all the rest,
Who, clasping in his tremulous embrace,
The shamefaced youth before the populace,
Intoned the hallowed formula of prayer.-
The peace-salaam yet quivered in the air,
When he, whose soul was bitter with its pain,
Broke out, his features quivering again:
"Ye call him Rabbi, who disdains to greet
A fellow-creature walking in the street;
Who taunts him with the blemish of his frame
In language far too frivolous to name?
Alas, for Israel, if her leaders may
Insult the Lord's own handiwork of clay!"
Thus spake the cripple, and then turned to go,
His stature waxing greater in the glow.
Reb Simeon, to those assembled there
Had seemed till then an angel of despair
-So grief-stricken and motionless he stood,
As though his limbs were petrified to wood.-
But now he moves, and every nerve is tense
To hear the Rabbi's piteous defence:
"Alas, dear friends, I stand condemned of sin
Before my nearest hoary-headed kin;
But yet I fain would have you intercede
With him who spake so harshly of my deed.
My soul is draped in cerements of woe;
I've plead with him to pardon me, but no
(Resentment drives forgiveness from the breast),
His heart remains relentless to my quest.
O, bid him stay and mercifully show
The kindness I neglected to bestow!"
The Rabbi paused, and every eye now sought
The cripple, who seemed riveted in thought.
A murmur thrilled his being like a prayer,
As earnest faces met him everywhere—
One mute appeal looked out at him from all.
At last, he whispered, answering the call,
His face aglow with yielding till it shone:
"O Rabbi, thou hast taught me to condone.
Forget the grudge I've harbored; let us be
Good comrades allied through this misery!"—
The Rabbi kissed the proffered hand, and stood
Transfigured into sweeter brotherhood.
Then, lifting up his voice, in accents low
But tender as a comforting in woe,
And waxing stronger, as he gathered force
From out the Torah's ever-limpid source,
He preached a sermon resonant of what
His wayward mood had venerated not:
Of courtesy and kindness, its half-kin,
Of how atonement expiated sin.—
And all that newly-consecrated throng
In wonderment forgot the Rabbi's wrong
As he invoked the lullaby-refrain
The Master taught in Migdal, when the pain
Of parting brought such exquisite caress
As caused his very soul to effervesce,
And ever after, through the teeming years,
That message was like music to their ears.
ON OCEAN'S BOSOM
The awful wind, the storm with peril fraught,
Is wrestling with a ship upon the sea.
It would destroy her, she in sore distress.
Cleaves the deep waters, groaning heavily.
The mast is cracking, quivering is the sail,
Frightful the water's depth of roaring strife;
The wind contends and struggles with the ship
In fury, in a fight for death and life.
Now she is driven forward and now back,
Now she must stoop, now rise upon the main.
The ship is but a plaything of the waves
That swallow her, then spew her forth again.
The ocean roars, the billows lift themselves,
And awfully they thunder, lash, and hiss;
The murderous storm seeks all things to destroy,
And opened are the jaws of the abyss.
Sighs, prayers are heard, for great the peril is,
And dreadful the distress. With suppliant breath
Now every man is calling on his God
To save the people from a certain death.
The children weep, the women wail in fear,
The folk confess their sins with desperate mind; And souls are fluttering, bodies quivering,
In terror of the mad, destructive wind.
But in the steerage down below two men
Sit quietly; no pangs their heart-strings thrill;
They seek no rescue and they make no plans,
As if all things around were safe and still.
The water roars, the billows foam, the winds
Howl with prodigious tumult as they blow;
The boiler gasps, the smoke-stack buzzes loud,
But calm and silent are the men below.
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