Have threshed us, yet we have not blenched:
The sea of blood could naught prevail,
That fire is burning, still unquenched.

Our fall is great, our fall is real,
(You need but look on us to tell!)
Yet in us lives the old Ideal
Which all the nations shall not quell.




Sfere


I asked of my Muse, had she any objection
To laughing with me,--not a word for reply!
You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection,--
And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

You laughed then, you say? 'tis a sound to affright one!
In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name?
The laugh of a Jew! It is never a right one,
For laughing and groaning with him are the same.

You thought there was zest in a Jewish existence?
You deemd that the star of a Jew could be kind?
The Spring calls and beckons with gracious insistence,--
Jew,--sit down in sackcloth and weep yourself blind!