Water Song

HE Feast's begun

THE

And the Wine is done,

So my sad tears run

Like streams of water, streams of water.

Three score and ten were Wine's bold braves,
But a full score more were Water's knaves,
And silent are our watery graves.
For-whence tuneful note?
When the minstrel's throat

Tastes naught but Water, Water, Water!

Around the board you see no smile;
Untasted dishes rest in file,

How can I touch these dainties while

There stands my cup

To the brim filled up

With hated Water, Water, Water!

Old Moses chid the Red Sea tide,
And Egypt's dusky streams he dried,
Till Pharaoh's fools for Water cried!
But Moses dear,

Why dost thou here

Turn all to Water, hated Water?

Can I myself to aught compare?
To the frog who damp in watery lair,
With dismal croakings fills the air.
So frog and I

Will sing or cry,

The song of Water, the dirge of Water.

The man whom water can delight
For aught I care may turn Nazirite;
Total abstention shall be his plight!
And all his days

To his lips shall raise

Cups of Water, always Water!

The Feast is done,

And Wine there's none;

So my sad tears run

Like streams of Water, streams of Water.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL.

(Translated by Israel Abrahams.)

FULL

I

sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine, But sorely we miss this blessing divine,

And how can we waken a song or a laugh

When we find that we simply have nothing to quaff But water, mere water?

II

The banquet has little contentment to bring,
Bears little incitement to joke or to sing,
When the potions we hoped to our future would
Turn out in the end to be nothing at all,

But water, yes water.

III

Good Moses of old caused the waters to flee,
And led all his people dryshod o'er the sea;
But Moses, our host, at the precedent frowns,
And us, his poor guests, he unflinchingly drowns
In water, cold water.

IV

We sit round the table like cold-blooded frogs,
Who live out their lives in the watery bogs;
Well, if we have fallen on watery days,

Let us, too, like them, croak a pæan in praise
Of water, dear water.

V

Long, long may our host here with main and with

might

By night and by day for his temperance fight,
And may he and his line find it writ in the law
That their business in life will be ever to draw
Water, pure water.

SOLOMON IBN GABIROL.
(Translated by Joseph Chotzner.)

DEAR

Wine Song

EAR friend, beneath this spreading tree
Where flitting shadows come and go,
With myrtles crowned and roses we
The joys of wine will freely know.

Drink wisdom in with every draught,
In wine shalt thou discover here
Thy inner fires, thy mental craft,

Increasing with each passing year.

The thousand years of this our earth
To God are but short lasting hours;
A moment's death, a moment's birth,
To God is one long year of ours.

Ah! would that I might live and laugh
Through one God-year a thousand fold;

That I, forever young might quaff
Oceans of wine that e'er grows old.

JUDAH AL-HARIZI. (Translated by I. A.)

The Ballad of Ephron, Prince of Topers

COME listen to a merry song about a merry

wight

The sovereign of all topers he, Ephron the Prince that hight;

He strict forbade that any lad who aimed to live aright Should ever drink a drop-a drop of water!

When with his court he sate at board, they always brought him first,

A bowl of twenty flagons for to slake his royal thirst; Then he'd fall to, and crunch and chew until you thought he'd burst

But never stop to drink a drop-of water! i

Each morn Prince Ephron said his prayers before he broke his fast

"Good Lord!" he'd cry, "My mouth is dry, my tongue and lips stick fast;

My throat's on fire, my heart's a pyre, my frame's a furnace vast,

Oh, quench my flames with drink-but not with water!

"Make haste, dear friends, for love of God and my immortal soul,

And fetch me good old white wine in my lordly silver bowl;

Oh, that's the thing to heart a king and make a sick man whole

But spoil it not, Oh, spoil it not, with water!

"The harm that water does to folk, if that you doubt," says he,

"There's quite a bit in Holy Writ, for everyone to see; Examples few, I think will do, to make you say with

me,

That danger lurks in every drop of water.

"There's Noah's flood-that near made mud of all the world then known

The Nile-wherein by tyrants vile, our baby boys were thrown—

And the Red Sea-where Pharaoh's host went down like any stone—

Now what were flood, and Nile, and sea, but water!

"There's Moses-meekest shepherd he, of an unruly flock

Yet lost the Promised Land because, in rage, he struck the rock;

If blame to him, no shame to him, for sure 'twas quite a shock

To hear the people grumble so for water!

"Look ye, how pride," he often cried, "makes for contracted view;

Your glass-blowers now, from potters well might learn and tinkers too!

This thing they call a wine-glass, pah! "Twould hold a drop of dew

But I'm not drinking dew-or any water!"

Prince Ephron kept the sacred days of Israel's faith. At least,

If fasts him irked, he never shirked a single holy

feast;

And on the Days of Penitence, was none, in West or East,

That, more than he, kept gullet-free-from water.

Tebèt would make him whine and fret; through Tamuz he would bawl;

And sore he'd moan and fast he'd groan, in Ab for Zion's fall,

Till by the ninth too weak he'd grown, to try to fast at all;

Yet still he strict abstained-from drinking water.