Narrative and Legendary Poems, Complete eBook

The Rabbi Ishmael, with the woe and sin
Of the world heavy upon him, entering in
The Holy of Holies, saw an awful Face
With terrible splendor filling all the place. 
“O Ishmael Ben Elisha!” said a voice,
“What seekest thou?  What blessing is thy choice?”
And, knowing that he stood before the Lord,
Within the shadow of the cherubim,
Wide-winged between the blinding light and him,
He bowed himself, and uttered not a word,
But in the silence of his soul was prayer
“O Thou Eternal!  I am one of all,
And nothing ask that others may not share. 
Thou art almighty; we are weak and small,
And yet Thy children:  let Thy mercy spare!”
Trembling, he raised his eyes, and in the place
Of the insufferable glory, lo! a face
Of more than mortal tenderness, that bent
Graciously down in token of assent,
And, smiling, vanished!  With strange joy elate,
The wondering Rabbi sought the temple’s gate. 
Radiant as Moses from the Mount, he stood
And cried aloud unto the multitude
“O Israel, hear!  The Lord our God is good! 
Mine eyes have seen his glory and his grace;
Beyond his judgments shall his love endure;
The mercy of the All Merciful is sure!”
1881.

THE ROCK-TOMB OF BRADORE.

H. Y. Hind, in Explorations in the Interior of the Labrador Peninsula (ii. 166) mentions the finding of a rock tomb near the little fishing port of Bradore, with the inscription upon it which is given in the poem.

A drear and desolate shore! 
Where no tree unfolds its leaves,
And never the spring wind weaves
Green grass for the hunter’s tread;
A land forsaken and dead,
Where the ghostly icebergs go
And come with the ebb and flow
Of the waters of Bradore!

A wanderer, from a land
By summer breezes fanned,
Looked round him, awed, subdued,
By the dreadful solitude,
Hearing alone the cry
Of sea-birds clanging by,
The crash and grind of the floe,
Wail of wind and wash of tide. 
“O wretched land!” he cried,
“Land of all lands the worst,
God forsaken and curst! 
Thy gates of rock should show
The words the Tuscan seer
Read in the Realm of Woe
Hope entereth not here!”

Lo! at his feet there stood
A block of smooth larch wood,
Waif of some wandering wave,
Beside a rock-closed cave
By Nature fashioned for a grave;
Safe from the ravening bear
And fierce fowl of the air,
Wherein to rest was laid
A twenty summers’ maid,
Whose blood had equal share
Of the lands of vine and snow,
Half French, half Eskimo. 
In letters uneffaced,
Upon the block were traced
The grief and hope of man,
And thus the legend ran
“We loved her! 
Words cannot tell how well! 
We loved her! 
God loved her! 
And called her home to peace and rest. 
We love her.”