By his side the woodland through?
'Tis our ancient friend the Jew!
No sweet fancies hover round him,
Naught but terror and distress.
Wounds unhealed
Where lie revealed
Ghosts of former recollections,
Corpses, corpses, old affections,
Buried youth and happiness.

Brier and blossom bow to meet him
In derision round his path;
Gloomily the hemlocks greet him
And the crow screams out in wrath.
Strange the birds and strange the flowers,
Strange the sunshine seems and dim,
Folk on earth and heav'nly powers!--
Lo, the May is strange to him!

Little flowers, it were meeter
If ye made not quite so bold:
Sweet ye are, but oh, far sweeter
Knew he in the days of old!
Oranges by thousands glowing
Filled his groves on either hand,--
All the plants were God's own sowing
In his happy, far-off land!

Ask the cedars on the mountain!
Ask them, for they know him well!