The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume II Part 49

What dost thou seek? who brings thee here thus late?

Where has this lovely form reclined till day, While I alone must watch and weep and wait?

Where, and on whom hast thou been smiling, say!

Out, insolent traitress! canst thou come accurst, And offer to my kiss thy lips' ripe charms?

What cravest thou? By what unhallowed thirst Darest thou allure me to thy jaded arms?

Avaunt, begone! ghost of my mistress dead, Back to thy grave! avoid the morning's beam!

Be my lost youth no more remembered!

And when I think of thee, I'll know it was a dream!

MUSE.

Be calm! I beg thee, I implore!

I shudder, hearing of thy pain.

O dearest friend, thy wound once more Is opening to bleed again.

Is it so very deep, alas!

How slowly do the traces pa.s.s Of this world's troubles! Thou, my son, Forget her! let thy memory shun Even to this woman's very name, My pitying lips refuse to frame.

POET.

Shame upon her, who first Treason and falsehood taught!

With grief and wrath accurst, Who set my brain distraught.

Shame, woman baleful-eyed, Whose fatal love entombed In shadows of thy pride My April ere it bloomed.

It was thy voice, thy smile, Thy poisoned glances bright, Which taught me to revile The semblance of delight.

Thy grace of girlish years Murdered my peace, my sleep.

If I lose faith in tears, 'T is that I saw thee weep.

I yielded to thy power A child's simplicity.

As to the dawn the flower, So oped my heart to thee.

Doubtless this helpless heart Was thine without defence.

Were 't not the better part To spare its innocence?

Shame! thou who didst beget My earliest, youngest woe.

The tears are streaming yet Which first thou madest flow.

Quenchless this source is found Which thou hast first unsealed.

It issues from a wound That never may be healed.

But in the bitter wave I shall be clean restored, And from my soul shall lave Thy memory abhorred!

MUSE.

Poet, enough! Though but one single day Lasted thy dream of her who faithless proved, That day insult not; whatsoe'er thou say, Respect thy love, if thou would be beloved.

If human weakness find the task too great Of pardoning the wrongs by others done, At least the torture spare thyself of hate, In place of pardon seek oblivion.

The dead lie peaceful in the earth asleep, So our extinguished pa.s.sions too, should rest.

Dust are those relics also; let us keep Our hands from violence to their ashes blest.

Why, in this story of keen pain, my friend, Wilt thou refuse naught but a dream to see?

Does Nature causeless act, to no wise end?

Think'st thou a heedless G.o.d afflicted thee?

Mayhap the blow thou weepest was to save.

Child, it has oped thy heart to seek relief; Sorrow is lord to man, and man a slave, None knows himself till he has walked with grief,-- A cruel law, but none the less supreme, Old as the world, yea, old as destiny.

Sorrow baptizes us, a fatal scheme; All things at this sad price we still must buy.

The harvest needs the dew to make it ripe, And man to live, to feel, has need of tears.

Joy chooses a bruised plant to be her type, That, drenched with rain, still many a blossom bears.

Didst thou not say this folly long had slept?

Art thou not happy, young, a welcome guest?

And those light pleasures that give life its zest, How wouldst thou value if thou hadst not wept?

When, lying in the sunlight on the gra.s.s, Freely thou drink'st with some old friend--confess, Wouldst thou so cordially uplift thy gla.s.s, Hadst thou not weighed the worth of cheerfulness?

Would flowers be so dear unto thy heart, The verse of Petrarch, warblings of the bird, Shakespeare and Nature, Angelo and Art, But that thine ancient sobs therein thou heard?

Couldst thou conceive the ineffable peace of heaven, Night's silence, murmurs of the wave that flows, If sleeplessness and fever had not driven Thy thought to yearn for infinite repose?

By a fair woman's love art thou not blest?

When thou dost hold and clasp her hand in thine, Does not the thought of woes that once possessed, Make all the sweeter now her smile divine?

Wander ye not together, thou and she, Midst blooming woods, on sands like silver bright?

Does not the white wraith of the aspen-tree In that green palace, mark the path at night?

And seest thou not, within the moon's pale ray, Her lovely form sink on thy breast again?

If thou shouldst meet with Fortune on thy way, Wouldst thou not follow singing, in her train?

What hast thou to regret? Immortal Hope Is shaped anew in thee by Sorrow's hand.

Why hate experience that enlarged thy scope?

Why curse the pain that made thy soul expand?

Oh pity her! so false, so fair to see, Who from thine eyes such bitter tears did press, She was a woman. G.o.d revealed to thee, Through her, the secret of all happiness.

Her task was hard; she loved thee, it may be, Yet must she break thy heart, so fate decreed.

She knew the world, she taught it unto thee, Another reaps the fruit of her misdeed.

Pity her! dreamlike did her love disperse, She saw thy wound--nor could thy pain remove.

All was not falsehood in those tears of hers-- Pity her, though it were,--for thou canst love!

POET.

True! Hate is blasphemy.

With horror's thrill, I start, This sleeping snake to see, Uncoil within my heart.

Oh G.o.ddess, hear my cries, My vow to thee is given, By my beloved's blue eyes, And by the azure heaven, By yonder spark of flame, Yon trembling pearl, the star That beareth Venus' name, And glistens from afar, By Nature's glorious scheme, The infinite grace of G.o.d, The planet's tranquil beam That cheers the traveler's road, The gra.s.s, the water-course, Woods, fields with dew impearled, The quenchless vital force, The sap of all the world,-- I banish from my heart This reckless pa.s.sion's ghost, Mysterious shade, depart!

In the dark past be lost!

And thou whom once I met As friend, while thou didst live, The hour when I forget, I likewise should forgive.

Let me forgive! I break The long-uniting spell.

With a last tear, oh take, Take thou, a last farewell.

Now, gold-haired, pensive Muse, On to our pleasures! Sing-- Some joyous carol choose, As in the dear old Spring.

Mark, how the dew-drenched lawn Scents the auroral hour.

Waken my love with dawn, And pluck her garden's flower.

Immortal nature, see!

Casts slumber's veil away.

New born with her are we In morning's earliest ray.

NOTES TO "EPISTLE" OF JOSHUA IBN VIVES OF ALLORQUI.

The life and character of Paulus de Santa Maria are thus described by Dr. Graetz:--

"Among the Jews baptized in 1391, no other wrought so much harm to his race as the Rabbi Solomon Levi of Burgos, known to Christians as Paulus Burgensis, or de Santa Maria (born about 1351-52, died 1435) who rose to very high ecclesiastical and political rank.... He had no philosophical culture; on the contrary, as a Jew, he had been extremely devout, observing scrupulously all the rites, and regarded as a pillar of Judaism in his own circle.... Possessed by ambition and vanity, the synagogue where he had pa.s.sed a short time in giving and receiving instruction, appeared to him too narrow and restricted a sphere.

He longed for a bustling activity, aimed at a position at court, in whatever capacity, began to live on a grand scale, maintained a sumptuous equipage, a spirited team, and a numerous retinue of servants.

As his affairs brought him into daily contact with Christians and entangled him in religious discussions, he studied ecclesiastical literature in order to display his erudition. The b.l.o.o.d.y ma.s.sacre of 1391 robbed him of all hope of reaching eminence as a Jew, in his fortieth year, and he abruptly resolved to be baptized. The lofty degree of dignity which he afterwards attained in Church and State, may even then have floated alluringly before his mind. In order to profit by his apostasy, the convert Paulus de Santa Maria gave out that he had voluntarily embraced Christianity, the theological writings of the Scholiast Thomas of Aquinas having taken hold of his inmost convictions.

The Jews, however, mistrusted his credulity, and knowing him well, they ascribed this step to his ambition and his thirst for fame. His family, consisting of a wife and son, renounced him when he changed his faith.... He studied theology in the University of Paris, and then visited the papal court of Avignon, where Cardinal Pedro de Juna had been elected papal antagonist to Benedict XIII. of Rome. The church feud and the schism between the two Popes offered the most favorable opportunity for intrigues and claims. Paulus, by his cleverness, his zeal, and his eloquence, won the favor of the Pope, who discerned in him a useful tool. Thus he became successively Archdeacon of Trevinjo, Canon of Seville, Bishop of Cartagena, Chancellor of Castile, and Privy Councillor to King Henry III. of Spain. With tongue and pen he attacked Judaism, and Jewish literature provided him with the necessary weapons.

Intelligent Jews rightly divined in this convert to Christianity their bitterest enemy, and entered into a contest with him....