English

There, they sat them down awhile,
With that terrible joy which cannot smile
Because the heart of it is staid
And stunn'd, as it were, by a too swift pace.
And the dismal Presence abroad on the place
So took them with awe that they rested afraid
Almost to look into each other's face.
Moreover, the nearness of what should change,
Like a change in a dream, their lives for ever
Into something suddenly bright and strange,
Paused upon them, and made them shiver.
The old woman mumbled at length: “I am old:

A square stone cut
With letters. Thick the moss is driven
Thro' the graver's work now blunt and blurr'd:
There be seven words with letters seven:
A finger-touch on the letter third
Of seven in the seventh word,
And the stone is heaved back: earth yawns and gapes:
A cold strikes up the clammy dark,
And clings: a spawn of vaporous shapes
Floats out in films: a sanguine spark
The taper spits: the snaky stair
Gleams, curling down the abyss laid bare,
Where Rabbi Ben Ephraim's treasure is laid.

“Rachel, Rachel, for ye are tall,
Lift the light along the wall.”

“Mother, give me the hand, and follow,
Once … twice … thrice … the earth sounds hollow!”

“Rachel, Rachel, ye walk so fast!”

“Mother, the light will barely last.”

“What see ye, Rachel?”

And, when to the place of tombs they came,
The spotted moon sunk. Night stood bare
In the waste unlighted air
Wide-arm'd, waiting, and aware,
To horribly hem them in. The flame
The little candle feebly gave,
As it wink'd and winced from grave to grave,
Went fast to furious waste; the same
As some soul-consuming hope
Doom'd, from grief to grief, to grope
In wavering ways about the world.
The deep enormous night unfurl'd
Her banner'd blackness left and right,
Fold heap'd on fold, to mock such light

So poor indeed, they had been constrain'd
To filch from the refuse flung out to the streets
('Mid the rags and onion-peelings rain'd
Where the town's worst gutter's worst filth greets
With his strongest gust and most savoury sweets
Those blots and failures of Human Nature,
Refused a name in her nomenclature,
That spawn themselves toward night, and bend
To finger the husks and shucks heap'd there,)
The wretched, rat-bitten candle-end
Which, found by good luck, they had treasured with care
Not a whit less solemn than tho' it were

When he had utter'd this
Rabbi Ben Ephraim turn'd his face,

Rabbi Ben Ephraim never more
Saw Cordova. For the Lord had will'd
That the dust should be dropp'd on his eyes before
The curse upon Israel was fulfill'd.
Therefore he ended the days of his life
In evil times; and by the hand
Of Rachel his daughter, and Zillah his wife,
Was laid to rest in another land.
But, before his face to the wall he turn'd,
As the eyes of the women about his bed
Grew hungry and hard with a hope unfed,
And the misty lamp more misty burn'd,
To Zillah and Rachel the Rabbi said

In the gloomy Ghetto's gloomiest spot,
A certain patch of putrid ground,
There is a place of tombs: Moors rot,
Rats revel there, and devils abound
By night, no cross being there to keep
The evil things in awe: the dead
That house there, sleep no Christian sleep—
They do not sleep at all, it is said;
Tho' how they fare, the Fiend best knows,
Who never vouchsafes to them any repose,
For their worm is awake in the narrow bed,
And the fire that will never be quenched is fed
On the night that will never close.

The days of Rabbi Ben Ephraim
Were two score years and ten, the day
The hangman call'd at last for him,
And he privily fled from Cordova.
Drop by drop, he had watch'd the cup
Of the wine of bitterness fill'd to the brim;
Drop by drop, he had drain'd it up;
And the time was an evil time for him.
An evil time! For Jehovah's face
Was turn'd in wrath from His chosen race,
And the daughter of Judah must mourn,
Whom His anger had left, in evil case,
To be dogg'd by death from place to place,
With garments bloody and torn.

Osweet Diana, virtuous queen,
That dost affect the meadows green!
By heaven's edict the guide of night,
And dost in fresh leaved woods delight!
Like to the nymphs, so suffer me
To consecrate myself to thee.

Thou that for lust didst transform
Actæon to a hart, so charm
With virtuous spells each virgin's heart
That men may never them divert
From purity; or else pray make
Them other hearts for virgins' sake.