| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | “Full sweet of a truth is the sparkle of wine” | | By Solomon Ibn Gabirol (Trans. Joseph Chotzner) |
| | I FULL 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? | 5 |
| |
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. | 10 |
| |
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. | 15 |
| |
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. | 20 |
| |
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. | 25 | | | |
|
|
