Peace to the house of Israel!
May joy within it ever dwell!
May sorrow on the opening year,
Forgetting its accustomed tear,
With smiles again fond kindred meet,
With hopes revived the festal greet!
THE TWO VOICES
MEDITATION FOR THE NEW YEAR
Between the past and future year
We pause awhile in our career
Two voices to attend.
One speaks of life and light and bloom,
One warns us of the unseen tomb
To which all must descend.
Experience and hope thus stand
Addressing all the human band,
As on they swiftly speed.
Young pilgrims but the promise hear,
That time in every coming year
Will but to pleasure lead.
Few even of maturer age
Can that grave wisdom long engage
Which for reflection calls.
Still blind and rash, they forward pass,
The last few minutes of their glass
Wasting in mirth's gay halls.
O, listen to the warning tone
In sorrow sent from mem'ry's throne,
Ye children of the dust!
No falsehood rests upon the tongue
That counsels both the old and young
In God alone to trust.
Put off each ling'ring weakness now!
Faith will your minds with strength endow
Self-conquest to achieve ;-
Will give you fortitude to bear
The chastenings, frequent and severe,
You may on earth receive.
(From "The Day of Atonement")
Lo! above the mournful chanting,
Rise the fuller-sounded wailings
Of the soul's most solemn anthem.
Hark! the strains of deep Kol Nidra-
Saddest music ever mortal
Taught his lips to hymn or sound!
Not the heart of one lone mortal
Told his anguish in that strain ;
All the sorrow, pain, and struggles
Of a people in despair,
Gathered from the vale of weeping,
Through the ages of distress.
'Tis a mighty cry of beings
Held in bondage and affliction ;
All the wailing and lamenting
Of a homeless people, roaming
O'er the plains and scattered hamlets
Of a world, without a refuge;
All the sorrows, trials, bereavements,-
Loss of country, home, and people,—
In one mighty strain uniting,
Chant for every age its wail;
Make the suffering years re-echo
With the wounds and pains of yore;
Give a voice to every martyr
Ever hushed to death by pain;
Every smothered shriek of daughter
Burned upon the fagot's bier;
Bring the wander-years and exile,
Persecution's harsh assailment,
Ghetto misery and hounding,
To the ears of men to-day;
Link the dark and dreary ages
With the brighter future's glow;
Weave the past and hopeful present;
Bind the living with the sleeping;
Even with the dead uniting,
When the soul would join with God.
Slowly creep the muffled murmurs. As the leaves and flowers, conspiring,
Steal a breeze from summer's chamber,
Hum and mumble as they stroke it,
Smooth, caress, and gently coy it,
So this murmur spreads the voices
Of the praying Synagogue,
As each lip repeats the sinning
Of his selfish, godless living;
By each murmur low recounting
Every single sin and crime:-
How he falsified his neighbor,
Made a stumbling-block for blindness,
Cursed the deaf, unstaid the cripple,
Played his son and daughter wrong,
Tattled of his wife's behavior,
Made his father's age a load,
Spoke belittling of his mother,
Took advantage of the stupid,
Made the hungry buy their bread,
Turned the needy from his threshold,
Shut the stranger from his fold,
Never begged forgiveness, pardon
For a wrong aimed at a foe,
Never weighed the love or mercy
Of the Father of the world.
Low the lips are now repenting;
Every murmur is a sob
Ebbing from the font of being.
Who has ever heard Kol Nidra
Gushing from the breast of man ;
Rising, falling, as the ocean
Lifts the waves in joy or fear?
From Time's ocean has it risen;
Every age has lent a murmur,
Every cycle built a wail;
Every sorrow ever dwelling
In the tortured heart of man,
Tears and sighs together swelling,
Answer for the pangs of ages.
'Tis the voice of countless pilgrims,
Sons of Jacob, with a cry,
Moaning, sighing, grieving, wailing,
Answering in thousand voices,
Fate and destiny of man;
Wander-song of homeless traveller, Outcast from the ranks of men; Echoes from the throes of mortals, Questioning the ways of God;
'Tis a saintly aspiration
Of a holy soul in prayer;
'Tis the music hummed by mercy,
Love, forgiveness, in a union,
Sweeping o'er the span of ages,
Flooding earth with one majestic,
Universal hymn of woe,
As if God had willed his children
Weep in but one human strain.
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