IN THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AT NEWPORT
by: Emma Lazarus (1849-1887)
- ERE, where
the noises of the busy town,
- The ocean's plunge and roar can enter not,
- We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
- And muse upon the consecrated spot.
-
- No signs of life are here: the very prayers
- Inscribed around are in a language dead;
- The light of the "perpetual lamp" is spent
- That an undying radiance was to shed.
-
- What prayers were in this temple offered up,
- Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy on earth,
- By these lone exiles of a thousand years,
- From the fair sunrise land that gave them birth!
-
- How as we gaze, in this new world of light,
- Upon this relic of the days of old,
- The present vanishes, and tropic bloom
- And Eastern towns and temples we behold.
-
- Again we see the patriarch with his flocks,
- The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead,
- The slaves of Egypt,--omens, mysteries,--
- Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.
-
- A wondrous light upon a sky-kissed mount,
- A man who reads Jehovah's written law,
- 'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare,
- Unto a people prone with reverent awe.
-
- The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp,
- In the rich court of royal Solomon--
- Alas! we wake: one scene alone remains,--
- The exiles by the streams of Babylon.
-
- Our softened voices send us back again
- But mournful echoes through the empty hall:
- Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound,
- And with unwonted gentleness they fall.
-
- The weary ones, the sad, the suffering,
- All found their comfort in the holy place,
- And children's gladness and men's gratitude
- 'Took voice and mingled in the chant of praise.
-
- The funeral and the marriage, now, alas!
- We know not which is sadder to recall;
- For youth and happiness have followed age,
- And green grass lieth gently over all.
-
- Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet,
- With its lone floors where reverent feet once trod.
- Take off your shoes as by the burning bush,
- Before the mystery of death and God.
"In the Jewish Synagogue at
Newport" is reprinted from Admetus and Other Poems.
Emma Lazarus. New York: Hurd and Houghton, 1871. |
MORE
POEMS BY EMMA LAZARUS |
|