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| WHEN twilight charms the sunset into dusk | |
| The singer comes. I do not know his step | |
| Nor ever have I seen the form of him. | |
| But when through darkening window-panes I reach | |
| My vision for that straining star whose course | 5 |
| Was preconceived in me, and with me | |
| I know must pass forever, I hear his voice: | |
| Deep rhythm circling stern creation’s path | |
| And passing far beyond it—Kol Nidre! | |
| A little silence—all is swept away; | 10 |
| And there are only God and nothingness | |
| Myself besides, I who am more than God | |
| And less than nothingness—for it is rest. | |
| |
| As from dissolving mists sudden appears | |
| The city’s countenance, so from these days, | 15 |
| Melting like mists away, rise clear and stern | |
| The towers of the solemn days that were: | |
| Dread days of reckoning whose shofar blasts | |
| Like thunder, dawns of upturned faces, pleas | |
| Like wrath of midnight storms, sing in my blood | 20 |
| Wakening memories long dead, best dead … | |
| |
| Two thousand years of listless wandering! | |
| Ages without a battle cry! Lo, he | |
| Who sings behind the wall is meek; the words | |
| Flow gently from his soul, and you whose song | 25 |
| Is light, unburdened by our Elohim, | |
| Cannot conceive the terrible despair! | |
| But we who sing it know, for as we sing | |
| We suffer. Every note a lash! Each word | |
| A lovely daughter’s shame! Ay, every verse | 30 |
| A noble city’s doom of martyrdom! | |
| And the whole song the story of a race | |
| Which wrought God from itself and lost its soul. | |
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| Kol Nidre! and a hundred armies march | |
| Retreat! A hundred armies bannerless and slow, | 35 |
| A far-flung shadow o’er the fields of earth, | |
| March through my soul and will not cease. Give me | |
| Your crucifix, children of Christendom, | |
| The thing you hold up to the sun, and wail | |
| And moan—your sign of suffering! | 40 |
| The dead have pride, and seeing it on me | |
| Will go their way. Yet I’ll not desecrate | |
| The dead! Their pride—’twas all they had in life! | |
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| Kol Nidre! God! will this never have end? | |
| These mighty trumpet blasts—for whom?—the dead? | 45 |
| They do not hear, I say. | |
| The living? Lord! Have you no laughter left? | |
| These living, straws out in your mighty storm, | |
| They do not hear your storm, only the cries | |
| Of bleeding lambs and drowning swine reach them. | 50 |
| But lo, the singer sings!—all I have lived | |
| And will live yet, all that my race has lived | |
| And will live yet. Listen! All laughter dies, | |
| A knock upon my window-pane, fumbling | |
| Black flapping wings, a voice wild with despair: | 55 |
| “Traitor!—what have you mused in Ascalon?” | |
| |
| Kol Nidre! So throughout the centuries, | |
| Deep, beautiful and glorious to hear! | |
| But what would you of me? Is there a path | |
| You’d have me take? I’ve beaten every one! | 60 |
| A thousand roads are in my blood! What then? | |
| Is it a call to fight? Battle with whom? | |
| Amalak long is dead, the gentile gods | |
| Are slain, and all their golden temples dust! | |
| Perhaps it is a call to life? We long | 65 |
| Have ceased to live, wearied … Or is it death? | |
| How shall we die who knew not how to live? | |
| |
| God! God! Save me from this despair! Hurl me, | |
| If so you will, down the ravines of death, | |
| Where every sunbeam is a thorn to prick, | 70 |
| And every flower is a wound to bear, | |
| All loveliness a memory of wrath | |
| And spirit madness! I’ll not care! An end | |
| Let be to all this waste! See, if I die | |
| There is a heaven of stars goes down with me, | 75 |
And if I live on …
Hush! the song ceases, | |
| The singer goes, and with him the despair! | |
| Go singer, go! far from this land! the draught | |
| You offer—it is much too strong! Highways | |
| Broader than these shall hear your song. For me | 80 |
| The dusk deepens, deepens—there is my star! | |
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