For ages have Thy children sought
And find Thy mercy hath no end,
Greater thought and deeds are wrought
On earth to-day, than in the trend
Of generations turned to dust;

Still must with love our bosom heave,
With hope and common manful trust,
The rest-to God we meekly leave.

And lo! upon yon lum'nous ascent,
There glitters joyously the star
Proclaiming night. Ah, day hath sent
Her messengers of light afar,
Come spirit of the evening, dwell
With us, and in our life's increase
Of doubt and the annoying spell,
Of discontent-to us-bring peace.

JOSEPH LEISER.

The New Jewish Hospital at Hamburg

A

HOSPITAL for the poor and weary Jew,
For sons of man that suffer three-fold ills;
Burdened and baned with three infirmities;
With poverty, disease, and Judaism!

The worst of all has ever been the last,
The Jewish sickness of the centuries,

The plague caught in the Nile stream's slimy vale,
The old unwholesome faith that Egypt knew.

No healing for this sickness! All in vain
The vapor-bath and douch, vain all the tricks
Of surgery, vain all this house may bring
Of simples to its fever-tossing guests.

Will Time perchance, the eternal goddess, blot
This gloomy sorrow that handed down
From sire to son-will some far children know
The perfect happiness of cloudless health?

None can foretell! Yet meantime let us praise
The heart that full of love and wisdom sought
To trickle balm upon the rankling wound,
To give what comfort still is possible.

This loving man has built a shelter here
For suffering that a skillful hand may soothe
Or cure, or haply Death's if others fail.
Beds sets he here and cooling drinks and care.

A man of deeds, he did what one might do
And in the evening of his days he paid
Unto good works the needful due, and dreamed
To rest from labor in kind charity.

Unstinted was his hand-yet richer gifts

Rolled down his cheeks so many a time-the tears, The precious, generous tears that oft he wept

For his poor brethren's immedicable ill.

HEINRICH HEINE.

OH!

The Rose of Sharon

H! I love to roam in fancy o'er the hills where
Zion stood,

There to watch the daughter Zion weeping o'er her

widowhood;

She was like the bride of beauty storied in the Song

of Songs,

Who was queen of all the maidens, peer among the lily throngs.

Sharon's lily, bride of beauty how I love to think of thee,

For thy lips were threads of crimson and thy neck

of ivory,

For thine eyes seemed pools of water, clear as Heshbon's melted dew,

And thy lips were dripping honey, so I love to think

of you.

Oh! for all the wise king's glory who was Israel's paragon,

He was like a stately cedar, cedar of the Lebanon:
I can see his litter lifted by his expert men of war,
As it passed sweet odor drifted, myrrh and spikenard
through its door.

Israel wedded to its glory, like a garden to its flowers, When the north wind blew upon it, it was sweet with scented showers;

For the bride, the Rose of Sharon, was the land of Palestine,

There the fig tree grew and ripened, there the apple and the vine.

There sweet cinnamon and saffron and the incense bearing trees,

There the calamus and spices perfumed each passing

breeze;

There grew myrrh and there the aloe, there the nard. and henna bloom,

There to die on Zion's bosom made of death the sweetest doom.

Oh! how I would love to see thee as thou wast when in thy prime,

When thy marble pavements echoed with the sandals keeping time

To the chorus of the Levites as they climbed the temple steep,

Singing psalms and hallelujahs, with their ranks a thousand deep.

Yet I would not weep, O daughter, for a better day

must near,

And I would not back to Zion, for the prophets made this clear,

That the world shall be our garden where shall blossom Zion's tree,

This, the "tree of life," the Torah, which shall bloom. eternally.

Then, away with clouds of ashes and the weeds of widowhood,

For the world's a greater temple than the shrine where Zion stood;

And I would not back to Zion and I would not back

again,

For our God has made our mission not for us but for HARRY WEISS.

all men.

"The Age of Toleration"

WHAT this "the age of toleration "-Yet 'Tis well so named for you that wield Earth's state: 'Tis a vast, bloody show ye tolerate,

Mute mouths, glazed eyes, round Hate's arena set! Behold your "Christian" robes all dabbled wet,

With human crimson, stains which to abate

No throat thrills out (though soft ye come, too late With bootless gold and maudlin, vain regret!) Comes this of Fear, great Nations? Can it be

None dares the dripping monster's bloodshot eye? Not pious Germany, not ransomed Gaul, Proud Britain, nor— Oh, shame, thy form to see With theirs, my country! leaning from thy stall, Pale but still mute, while Hell goes glittering by! ARTHUR UPTON.

Intolerance

THOU canst have no other God but mine;
Of what avail is holy script?

Who is this God thou call'st thine;
He utters not from heart, but-lip;
Go get thee hence before ye rue;
My God, my creed's alone sublime,
Thy creeds, thy laws are all untrue,
My God, and mine's alone divine.
RAY TRUM NATHAN.

THE

They Tell Me

'HEY tell me, "Give thy nation up;
The ancient graves resign!

Give us thy soul-then plenty, wealth,
And greatness shall be thine."

They tell me: "Think not to rebuild
The City, proud and tall,

Of whose old splendor there is left
Only a crumbling wall.

"Dream not thy nation to arouse
Out of its slumber deep;
Behold, it has so many years
Lain in a marmot's sleep!"

False prophets, hush! Fie, charlatans!
I swerve not from the goal.

I will not give my honor up,-
I will not sell my soul.

The path my fathers trod through life
I follow straight and clear;

Should Death demand me, I will mount
The scaffold without fear.

My God, my race, I will not change
For gold or jewels' fires.

More than a stranger's treasure-house

A grave among my sires.

EZEKIEL LEAVITT.

(Translation from the Hebrew by Alice Stone

Blackwell.)