I would leave a gift here If I might: not Ï! — Like a homeless laughter, Vagrant wind gone by. But while I am a glow-worm CARAVANS WHAT bring ye me, O camels, across the southern desert, The wan and parching desert, pale beneath the dusk ? Ye great slow-moving ones, faithful as care is faithful, Uncouth as dreams may be, sluggish as far-off ships, What bring ye me, O camels? "We bring thee gold like sunshine, saving that it warms not; And rarest purple bring we, as dark as all the garnered Bloom of many grape-vines; and spices subtly mingled For a lasting savor: the precious nard and aloes; The bitter-sweet of myrrh, like a sorrow having wings; Ghostly breath of lilies bruised - how white they were ! And the captive life of many a far rosegarden. Jewels bring we hither, surely stars once fallen, Torn again from darkness: the sunlit frost of topaz, Moon-fire pent in opals, pearls that even the sea loves. Webs of marvel bring we, broideries that have drunken Deep of all life-color from a thousand lives, Each the royal cere-cloth of a century. We come! What wouldst thou more ?" Joseph Leiser 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; Slowly creep the muffled murmurs. Of the praying synagogue, Ebbing from the font of being; Who has ever heard Kol Nidra Wander-song of homeless traveller, Hounded, tracked, oppressed, and beaten, As if God had willed his children Who can hear this strange Kol Nidra Without dropping in the spell? Lift the vestige of the present, Link the momentary fleeting Of the evening with the past; Dwell a spirit in the ages, Living in the heart of time: Lose the sense of outer worlds, Soul alone in endless time, Breathing but the breath of ages. Howard Weeden THE BANJO OF THE PAST You ax about dat music made On banjos long ago, An' wants to know why it ain't played By niggers any mo'. Dem banjos b'longed to by-gone days When times an' chunes was rare, When we was gay as children- 'case We did n't have a care. But in her place I 've always kept To match dat Heabenly mate. It's took a sight o' chillin, sho', Der's more den forty years, you see, Time treats us all up dere, des lak one's still What we flee that is far behind in the darkness, Where the place of abiding for us, we know not; Only we hark for the voice of the Master Herdsman. Many a weary day must pass ere we hear it, Blown on the winds, now close, now far in the distance, Deep as the void above us and sweet as the dawn-star. He it is who drives us and urges us always, Faint with a need that is ever present within us, Struggling onward and toiling one by the other. Ever we long and cry for rest, but it comes not; Broke are our feet and sore and bruised by the climbing; Sharp is his goad in our quivering flanks when we falter, And some fall down with a plaintive moaning, and perish; |