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Home  »  The Standard Book of Jewish Verse  »  Judah’s Hallowed Bards

Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917.

By Aubrey De Vere

Judah’s Hallowed Bards

LET those who will hang rapturously o’er

The flowing eloquence of Plato’s page;

Repeat, with flashing eyes, the sounds that pour

From Homer’s verse as with a torrent’s rage;

Let those who list ask Tully to assuage

Wild hearts with high-wrought periods, and restore

The reign of rhetoric; or maxims sage

Winnow from Seneca’s sententious lore.

Not these, but Judah’s hallowed bards, to me

Are dear: Isaiah’s noble energy;

The temperate grief of Job; the artless strain

Of Ruth and pastoral Amos; the high songs

Of David; and the tale of Joseph’s wrongs,

Simply, pathetic, eloquently plain.