Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By John Stuart Blackie

Abraham

I WILL sing a song of heroes,

Crowned with manhood’s diadem,

Men that lift us when we love them

Into nobler life with them.

I will sing a song of heroes

To their God-sent mission true,

From the ruin of the old time

Grandly forth to shape the new:

Men that, like a strong-winged zephyr,

Come with freshness and with power,

Bracing fearful hearts to grapple

With the problem of the hour:

Men whose prophet-voice of warning

Stirs the dull, and spurs the slow,

Till the big heart of a people

Swells with hopeful overflow.

I will sing the song of Terah,

Abraham in tented state,

With his sheep and goats and asses,

Bearing high behests from Fate;

Journeying from beyond Euphrates,

Where cool Orfa’s bubbling well

Lured the Greek and lured the Roman,

By its verdurous fringe to dwell.

When he left the flaming idols,

Sun by day and Moon by night,

To believe in something deeper

Than the shows that brush the sight,

And, as a traveller wisely trusteth

To a practiced guide and true,

So he owned the Voice that called him

From the faithless Heathen crew.

And he travelled from Damascus

Southward where the torrent tide

Of the sons of Ammon mingles

With the Jordan’s swelling pride.

To the pleasant land of Schechem,

To the flowered and fragrant ground

’Twixt Mount Ebal and Gerizim,

Where the bubbling wells abound.

To the stony slopes of Bethel,

And to Hebron’s greening glade,

Where the grapes with weighty fruitage

Droop beneath the leafy shade.

And he pitched his tent in Mamre,

’Neath an oak-tree tall and broad

And with pious care an altar

Built there to the one true God.

And the voice of God came near him,

And the angels of the Lord

’Neath the broad and leafy oak-tree

Knew his hospitable board;

And they hailed him with rare blessing

For all peoples richly stored,

Father of the faithful, elect

Friend of God, Almighty Lord.

And he sojourned ’mid the people

With high heart and weighty arm,

Wise to rein their wandering worship,

Strong to shield their homes from harm.

And fat Nile’s proud Pharaohs owned him,

As a strong, God-favored man,

Like Osiris casting broadly

Largess to the human clan.

And he lived long years a witness

To a pure high-thoughted creed,

That in ripeness of the ages

Grew to serve our mortal need.

Not a priest and not a churchman

From all proud pretentions free,

Shepherd chief and shepherd-warrior

Human-faced like you and me:

Human-faced and human-hearted,

To the pure religion true,

Purer than the gay and sensuous

Grecian, wider than the Jew.

Common sire, whom Jew and Christian,

Turk and Arab, name and praise;

Common as the sun that shines

On East and West with brothered rays.