צִיּוֹן הֲלֹא תִשְׁאֲלִי — Ode to Zion (Hymn for the Fast of Ab)
Art thou not, Zion, fain
To send forth greetings from thy sacred rock
Unto thy captive train,
Who greet thee as the remnants of thy flock?
Take Thou on every side,
East, west and south and north, their greetings multiplied.
Sadly he greets thee still,
The prisoner of hope who, day and night,
Sheds ceaseless tears, like dew on Hermon’s hill.
Would that they fell upon thy mountain’s height!
Harsh is my voice when I bewail thy woes,
But when in fancy’s dreams
I see thy freedom, forth its cadence flows,
Sweet as the harps that hung by Babel’s streams.
The glory of the Lord will ever be
Thy sole and perfect light;
No need hast thou then, to illumine thee
Of sun by day, or moon and stars by night.
I would that, where God’s spirit was of yore
Poured out unto thy holy ones, I might
There too my soul outpour.
Oh, who will lead me on
To seek the spots where, in far distant years,
The angels in their glory dawned upon
Thy messengers and seers!
Oh, who will give me wings
That I may fly away,
And there, at rest from all my wanderings,
The ruins of my heart among thy ruins lay?
I’ll bend my face unto thy soil, and hold
Thy stones as special gold.
And when in Hebron I have stood beside
My fathers’ tombs, then will I pass in turn
Thy plains and forest wide,
Until I stand on Gilead and discern
Mount Hor and Mount Abarim, ’neath whose crest
Thy luminaries twain, thy guides and beacons rest.
Thy air is life unto my soul, thy grains
Of dust are myrrh, thy streams with honey flow
Naked and barefoot to thy ruined fanes
How gladly would I go!
To where the ark was treasured, and in dim
Recesses dwelt the holy cherubim.
Perfect in beauty, Zion, how in thee
Do love and grace unite!
The souls of thy companions tenderly
Turn unto thee; thy joy was their delight,
And weeping they lament thy ruin now.
In distant exile, for thy sacred height
They long, and towards thy gates in prayer they bow.
Shinar and Pathros! come they near to thee?
Naught are they by thy light and right divine.
To what can be compared the majesty
Of thy anointed line?
To what the singers, seers, and Levites thine?
The rule of idols fails and is cast down;
Thy power eternal is, from age to age thy crown.
The Lord desires thee for His dwelling-place
Eternally, and bless’d
Is he whom God has chosen for the grace
Within thy courts to rest.
Happy is he that watches, drawing near,
Until he sees thy glorious lights arise,
And over whom thy dawn breaks full and clear,
Set in the Orient skies.
But happiest he, who, with exultant eyes,
The bliss of thy redeemed ones shall behold,
And see thy youth renewed as in the days of old.
YEHUDAH HALEVI, 1145.
(Trans. Alice Lucas.)