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VI.

THE TWO RABBIS.

THE Rabbi Nathan, twoscore years and ten,
Walked blameless through the evil world, and

then,

Just as the almond blossomed in his hair,
Met a temptation all too strong to bear,
5 And miserably sinned. So, adding not
Falsehood to guilt, he left his seat, and taught
No more among the elders, but went out
From the great congregation girt about
With sackcloth, and with ashes on his head,
10 Making his gray locks grayer. Long he prayed,
Smiting his breast; then, as the Book he laid
Open before him for the Bath-Col's choice,
Pausing to hear that Daughter of a Voice,
Behold the royal preacher's words: “A friend
15 Loveth at all times, yea, unto the end;
And for the evil day thy brother lives."
Marvelling, he said: "It is the Lord who gives

Counsel in need. At Ecbatana dwells
Rabbi Ben Isaac, who all men excels

20 In righteousness and wisdom. as the trees

Of Lebanon the small weeds that the bees
Bow with their weight. I will arise, and lay
My sins before him."

12. Daughter of the Voice is the meaning of Bath-Col, which was a sort of divination practised by the Jews when the gift of prophecy had died out. Something of the same sort of divination has been used amongst Christians when the Bible has been opened at hap-hazard and some answer expected to a question in the first passage that meets the eye.

And he went his way

Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers; 25 But even as one who, followed unawares, Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand

Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned
By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near

Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear, 30 So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low The wail of David's penitential woe,

Before him still the old temptation came,

And mocked him with the motion and the shame Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred 35 Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord To free his soul and cast the demon out, Smote with his staff the blankness round about.

At length, in the low light of a spent day,
The towers of Ecbatana far away

40 Rose on the desert's rim; and Nathan, faint
And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint
The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb,
Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom
He greeted kindly: "May the Holy One

45 Answer thy prayers, O stranger!" Whereupon
The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then,
Clasped in each other's arms, the two gray men
Wept, praising Him whose gracious providence
Made their paths one. But straightway, as the

sense

50 Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore
Himself away:
"O friend beloved, no more
Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came,
Foul from my sins, to tell thee all my shame.
Haply thy prayers, since nought availeth mine,

55 May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!”

Awestruck Ben Isaac stood. The desert wind

Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare

The mournful secret of his shirt of hair.

66

60 "I too, O friend, if not in act," he said,

"In thought have verily sinned. Hast thou not

read,

'Better the eye should see than that desire

Should wander'? Burning with a hidden fire That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee 65 For pity and for help, as thou to me.

Pray for me, O my friend!" But Nathan cried,
Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!'

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Side by side

In the low sunshine by the turban stone

They knelt; each made his brother's woe his own,

70 Forgetting, in the agony and stress

Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness; Peace, for his friend besought, his own became; His prayers were answered in another's name; And, when at last they rose up to embrace, 75 Each saw God's pardon in his brother's face!

Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos

In Rabbi Nathan's hand these words we read:

66

Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;

59. Which he wore as a mortification of the flesh.

77. The targum was a paraphrase of some portion of Scriptare in the Chaidee language. It was on the margin of the most ancient targum—that of Onkelos wrote his words.

that Rabbi Nathan

80 Forget it in love's service, and the debt
Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget;
Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone;
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own

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VII.

THE GIFT OF TRITEMIUS.

TRITEMIUS OF HERBIPOLIS, one day,
While kneeling at the altar's foot to pray,
Alone with God, as was his pious choice,
Heard from without a miserable voice,
5 A sound which seemed of all sad things to tell,
As of a lost soul crying out of hell.

Thereat the Abbot paused: the chain whereby
His thoughts went upward broken by that cry;
And, looking from the casement, saw below
to A wretched woman, with gray hair a-flow,

And withered hands held up to him, who cried
For alms as one who might not be denied.

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She cried, "For the dear love of Him who gave His life for ours, my child from bondage save, 15 My beautiful, brave first-born, chained with slaver In the Moor's galley, where the sun-smit waves Lap the white walls of Tunis!"—" What I can I give," Tritemius said: "my prayers."

20

man

"0

Of God!" she cried, for grief had made her bold "Mock me not thus; I ask not prayers, but gold.

Words will not serve me, alms alone suffice;
Even while I speak perchance my first-born dies."

"Woman!" Tritemius answered, "from our door None go unfed; hence are we always poor: 25 A single soldo is our only store.

Thou hast our prayers;-what can we give thee more?"

"Give me," she said, "the silver candlesticks
On either side of the great crucifix.

God well may spare them on His errands sped, 30 Or He can give you golden ones instead.'

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"Even as thy word,

Then spake Tritemius,
Woman, so be it! (Our most gracious Lord,
Who loveth mercy more than sacrifice,
Pardon me if a human soul I prize

35 Above the gifts upon His altar piled!)

Take what thou askest, and redeem thy child."

But his hand trembled as the holy alms He placed within the beggar's eager palms; And as she vanished down the linden shade, 40 He bowed his head and for forgiveness prayed.

So the day passed, and when the twilight came
He woke to find the chapel all aflame,

And, dumb with grateful wonder, to behold
Upon the altar candlesticks of gold!

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