Selected Poems (Engelse vertaling)

81 JEHUDAH HALEVI

To cover up the innermost pearls;
But torches are mine wherewith to search

his chambers,
And to bring forth from his hidden treasuries

the gems.¹And I cannot rest until the sheaves
Gen. 37,7. Bow down in wisdom to my sheaf.

And when a fool seeketh the secret, I answer
him:

Prov. 11,22. What hath a ring of gold to do upon a swine's
snout?

And how, upon a sterile place, should I seek
For my clouds to drop their rains?
And my need from fortune is light and pass-
ing,

Like the need of the soul for the body,
Which, in so far as it holdeth her she giveth
it life,

But when it wearieth she abandoneth it like
an effigy.

¹  The wisdom of his friend.