Selected Poems (Engelse vertaling)

19 JEHUDAH HALEVI

8

BEAUTIFUL OF ELEVATION

(For rhymed version see page 157)

Beautiful of elevation! Joy of the world!

City of the Great King!
For thee my soul is longing from limits of the
west.

The tumult of my tenderness is stirred when I
remember

Thy glory of old that is departed—thine
habitation which is desolate.

0 that I might fly on eagles' wings,

That I might water thy dust with my tears
until they mingle together.

1 have sought thee, even though thy King be

not in thee and though, in place
Of thy Gilead's balm, are now the fiery
serpent and the scorpion.

Shall I not be tender to thy stones and kiss
them,

And the taste of thy soil be sweeter than
honey unto me?