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| THE RABBI NATHAN, twoscore years and ten, | |
| Walked blameless through the evil world, and then | |
| Just as the almond blossomed in his hair, | |
| Met a temptation all too strong to bear, | |
| And miserably sinned. So, adding not | 5 |
| Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught | |
| No more among the elders, but went out | |
| From the great congregation girt about | |
| With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head, | |
| Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed, | 10 |
| Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid | |
| Open before him for the Bath-Col’s choice, | |
| Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice, | |
| Behold the royal preacher’s words: “A friend | |
| Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end; | 15 |
| And for the evil day thy brother lives.” | |
| Marvelling, he said: “It is the Lord who gives | |
| Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells | |
| Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels | |
| In righteousness and wisdom, as the trees | 20 |
| Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees | |
| Bow with their weight. I will arise and lay | |
My sins before him.”
And he went his way | |
| Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; | |
| But even as one who, followed unawares, | 25 |
| Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand | |
| Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned | |
| By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near | |
| Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, | |
| So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low | 30 |
| The wail of David’s penitential woe, | |
| Before him still the old temptation came, | |
| And mocked him with the motion and the shame | |
| Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred | |
| Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord | 35 |
| To free his soul and cast the demon out, | |
| Smote with his staff the blackness round about. | |
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| At length, in the low light of a spent day, | |
| The towers of Ecbatana far away | |
| Rose on the desert’s rim; and Nathan, faint | 40 |
| And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint | |
| The faith of Islam reared a domèd tomb, | |
| Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom | |
| He greeted kindly: “May the Holy One | |
| Answer thy prayers, O stranger!” Whereupon | 45 |
| The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then, | |
| Clasped in each other’s arms, the two gray men | |
| Wept, praising him whose gracious providence | |
| Made their paths one. But straightway, as the sense | |
| Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore | 50 |
| Himself away: “O friend beloved, no more | |
| Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came, | |
| Foul from my sins to tell thee all my shame. | |
| Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine, | |
| May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. | 55 |
| Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!” | |
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| Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind | |
| Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare | |
| The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. | |
| “I too, O friend, if not in act,” he said, | 60 |
| “In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not read, | |
| ‘Better the eye should see than that desire | |
| Should wander’? Burning with a hidden fire | |
| That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee | |
| For pity and for help, as thou to me. | 65 |
| Pray for me, O my friend!” But Nathan cried, | |
“Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!”
Side by side | |
| In the low sunshine by the turban stone | |
| They knelt; each made his brother’s woe his own, | |
| Forgetting, in the agony and stress | 70 |
| Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; | |
| Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; | |
| His prayers were answered in another’s name; | |
| And, when at last they rose up to embrace, | |
| Each saw God’s pardon in his brother’s face! | 75 |
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| Long after, when his headstone gathered moss, | |
| Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos | |
| In Rabbi Nathan’s hand these words were read: | |
| “Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead; | |
| Forget it in love’s service, and the debt | 80 |
| Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget; | |
| Heaven’s gate is shut to him who comes alone; | |
| Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!” | |
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