Selected Poems (Engelse vertaling)

xxviii INTRODUCTION

This great poet of the Jewish hope said of
himself when singing to Zion of her further
restoration, "I am a harp for thy songs."
Here indeed we hear the real man. His love
poems, as Harizi said, are made of dew and fire.
But in his poems to Zion there is no such combi-
nation of a poet's ordinary artifices. It is
his soul that is the instrument—and on his
heartstrings is played the song of Israel's hope.

Many other compositions were modelled on
Jehudah Halevi's Ode to Zion, as the liturgy for
the Fast of Ab proves. These have their beauty,
but the poets who followed Halevi appear to us
like the stars after the moon has risen. In
Spain the poets still sang because, for many
years after Jehudah Halevi's death, his voice
re-echoed in theirs. A poet and the begetter
of poets—we need seek no more splendid epi-
taph for this "poet by the grace of God."

In the selection contained in the present
volume it has been sought to present specimens
of the poet's various styles and subjects.
No selection can do Halevi justice. There
are few poets who have maintained so consis-
tently high a level; scarcely a line of his but de-
serves to be read.

The Hebrew text is, to a very large extent, that
edited by Dr. Brody, and it is with great pleasure