18. God and Israel

Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923], at sacred-texts.com

p. 22

18

GOD AND ISRAEL

God:

Though bereaved and in mourning, why sit thus in tears?
Shall thy spirit surrender its hopes to its fears?
Though the end has been long and no light yet appears,
       Hope on, hapless one, a while longer.

I will send thee an angel My path to prepare,
On the brow of Mount Zion thy King to declare,
The Lord ever regnant shall reign again there,
       Thy King, O proclaim, comes to Zion.

Israel:

How long, O my God, shall I wait Thee in vain?
How long shall Thy people in exile remain?
Shall the sheep ever shorn never utter their pain
       But dumbly through all go on waiting?

p. 23

God:

Have faith, hapless one, I will pardon and free,
Not always shalt thou be abhorrent to Me,
But be Mine e’en as I shall return unto thee,
       ’Tis yet but a little space longer.

Israel:

How long till the turn of my fate shall draw near,
How long ere the sealed and the closed be made clear,
And the palace of strangers a roof shall appear?

God:

Hope on for a shelter and refuge.
With healing shall yet thy entreaties be graced,
As when Caphtor was crushed shalt thou triumph re-taste,
And the flowers cast off shall re-bloom in the waste,
       Hope on but a little space longer.

Israel:

My people of yore ’neath one people was drowned,
But from Egypt or Babel deliverance found,
But now we are hopelessly compassed around
By four birds of prey grim and speckled.
They have eaten my flesh, yet to leave me are loath.

p. 24

God:

The Rock you must trust to remember His oath,
Your lover that went shall return to His troth,
       Hope on, hapless one, a whit longer.