How on them, the God-forsaken,
After gloomy wintry days,
Shone at last the rays of freedom,
Heaven's bright and cheerful rays.

How among them rose a leader,
Star-like in a gloomy night,
And he pleaded for their freedom,
And he crushed a tyrant's might.

How he taught the fettered people
Not in vain their blood to spill,
Turning bondmen into freemen,
Men of honor and of will.

How the people's march to Freedom
Could no despot's might restrain,
Till before their will resistless
Stormy ocean oped in twain.

"Then it was our people's Spring-time, After which a Summer came, Followed by a golden harvest,

Free from yoke and free from shame."

"Grand-sire, dear," I asked enraptured, "How long did that Summer last?" But he sadly gazed and pondered, And he answered me at last.

"Child, it was a long, bright Summer, But a winter came again,

Came with cold, and snow, and showers, With its gales of grief and pain.

"Frost and tempest-strife, contention-
Raged once more in every part,

Stealing into souls and freezing
Will and hope in every heart.

"Furious storm once more dispersed us;
Israel rendered free and great,

Into lands of cruel despots

Went to face a bondman's fate.

"Grand-sire, dear, why does this Winter
Seem so endless, then?"—I sighed—
And two crystal tears were trembling
In his eyes, when he replied.

"Yes, my boy, it seems so endless,
But it cannot, will not be;
Israel will not slave for ever,

One day, child, he will be free.

"In his soul will re-awaken

Courage, will, and pride, and might;
Freedom's sunrise must needs follow
Israel's starless exile night.

"But till then, ere Spring's arrival-
For the winter's steps are slow-
Pesach is a sweet remembrance
Of a spring of long ago. . . .

P. M. RASKIN.

Pesach Le' Osid

(The Passover of the Future)

ISRAEL in fetters still! The prophet's wand
Shall stretch across the tyrant's hapless land,
And prison doors shall straightway open wide,
And barring waters shall like walls divide,
To let the Lord's redeemed pass dry-shod o'er
And reach a brighter, freer, friendlier shore.
The angel that unseen spreads seeds of death
And on each house corrupt pours poisoned breath

Shall pass the homes of God's appointed by
And none that mark their lintel-posts shall die.
Hope paints this vision thus in golden hue
And, deathless as Hope, doth Faith bespeak it true,
Affliction's bread shall yield to plenty's leaven,
The clouds shall pass and earth shall grow like heaven.
ANONYMOUS.

The Omer

O, Lord, teach us to number our days,
That our hearts in the process grow wise.
But what is there for man to appraise?—
A measure of grain

And a measure of pain.

And the end? The dead chaff from the sheaf?
So this trouble leaps forth to the skies;
When Death holds us in wintry embrace,
Shall we gaze, O our God, on Thy face?
Lo, the Spring to our craving replies,
And the bud and the leaf
Are the ground of belief

That the soul, spite of dying, ne'er dies,
Takes new life in God's springtime again.

I ASKED my Muse had she any objection

To laughing with me,-not a word for reply! You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection

And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

You laughed then you say? 'tis a sound to affright one In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name?

The laugh of a Jew it is never a right one,

For laughing and groaning with him are the same.

*Sephira, a period of mourning commemorating the disasters to Israel during the Crusades.

You thought there was zest in the Jewish existence? You deemed that the star of a Jew could be kind? The spring calls and beckons with gracious insistence, Jew, sit down in sackcloth and weep yourself blind!

The garden is green and the woodland rejoices;

How cool are the breezes, with fragrance how blent; But Spring calls not you with her thousand sweet voices;

With you it is Sfere, sit still and lament.

The beautiful summer, this life's consolation,
In moaning and sighing glides quickly away,
What hope can it offer to one of my nation?
What joy can he find in the splendors of May?
MORRIS ROSENFELD.

The Covenant of Sinai

LO, this is the law that I gave you,

Who called you to honor My name:
(From the sweltering Nile did I bring you
And lead you by cloud and by rain,
Even here unto this lonely Horeb,
Where I, all enthroned do abide)
That you might be known as my people,
Espoused unto me as a bride.

O'er shimmering plains have I led you
As caravans pilgriming south,
'Mid swirling simoons and sand-storms
To languish and thirst in the drought.
I led your host steadily onward-

And the walls of the Red Sea I clove
Lest ye halt a day in your journey,

Fear-stricken as sheep in a drove.

And here have I brought you to Sinai
Where the silence and awe of the hills

Descends as the night with its terror,
And the void with its grim darkness fills—
That here all alone and a-trembling

You may list to the words that I speak: Though My words ride the wind and the thunder Yet the contrite of heart do I seek.

And ye have I raised as an emblem
And made you My sign to the world;
Wherever ye dwell, do I sojourn,

And there is My purpose unfurled:
For you are My law to the peoples;
Your ways are the paths I have trod-
In you is revealed My own being

And through you Man knows I am God.

My glory is hung on these mountains,

That 'neath them, encamped you may see The luminous tables I've graven

With truth that will make all men free. For you I turned flint into fountains

Whose waters o'er thirsty fields rolled— You are Mine, e'en though you belie Me; You are Mine whom I summoned of old.

You are Mine, though I load you with burdens
And lash you with woe and with pain.
I will send you from hence to all peoples,
To hunger and want to be slain.

I charge you to go among nations

And teach both the high and the meek, That I am the I am Eternal

And those who seek Me do I seek.

I gave you these tables of granite

And the letters of each are writ large;
And you are to bear them and do them
Forever to keep them in charge;
To die for them, yea, if it must be,