Selected Poems (Engelse vertaling)

INTRODUCTION xxiii

is bound up with his love for his people and their
lost land. It was about the year 1141 that
he set out on his journey to Palestine, cheer-
fully facing the hardships of the way and the
stormy seas, and making songs about them as
he went. Not the least of his inheritance from
the sweet singer of Israel was his descriptive
power. He pictures storm and landscape with
the vivid touch of actuality. His praise of
nature is no literary trick, we catch the genuine
notes of a nature-lover. As evening falls and
the stars come out, he writes of sea and sky:

They are like two seas bound up together;

And between them is my heart—a third sea

Lifting up ever anew my waves of praise.¹

So we can trace his steps from Spain to
Alexandria, the Jews everywhere giving him
a friendly reception, and strongly *but vainly
urging him to remain with them and to dis-
continue his perilous pilgrimage. Further we
hear of his passing up the Nile and visiting the
community at Cairo and Damietta, and he is
known to have touched Tyre and Damascus.
But after his arrival in Palestine, definite
reports fade into rumours. Tradition tells us
that he was ridden down and slain by an Arab

¹  Last lines of No. 5 in Selection.