Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

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

By P. M. Raskin

The Feast of Freedom

I REMEMBER in my childhood

From my grandfather I heard

Charming tales of gone-by ages

That my soul so deeply stirred.

Charming tales of ancient sages

That I felt, I knew were true;

Stories of the hoary ages

That remain forever new….

Of the Pesach-days he told me,

Days that joy and sunshine bring;

Of the Festival of Freedom,

Of Revival and of Spring….

Of the slave-people in Egypt,

Whose hot blood so rashly spilt,

Soaked into cold bricks and mortar

Of the fortresses they built.

How on them, the God-forsaken,

After gloomy wintry days,

Shone at last the rays of freedom,

Heaven’s bright and cheerful rays.

How among them rose a leader,

Star-like in a gloomy night,

And he pleaded for their freedom,

And he crushed a tyrant’s might.

How he taught the fettered people

Not in vain their blood to spill,

Turning bondmen into freemen,

Men of honor and of will.

How the people’s march to Freedom

Could no despot’s might restrain,

Till before their will resistless

Stormy ocean oped in twain….

“Then it was our people’s Spring-time,

After which a Summer came,

Followed by a golden harvest,

Free from yoke and free from shame.”

“Grand-sire, dear,” I asked enraptured,

“How long did that Summer last?”

But he sadly gazed and pondered,

And he answered me at last.

“Child, it was a long, bright Summer,

But a winter came again,

Came with cold, and snow, and showers,

With its gales of grief and pain.

“Frost and tempest-strife, contention—

Raged once more in every part,

Stealing into souls and freezing

Will and hope in every heart.

“Furious storm once more dispersed us;

Israel rendered free and great,

Into lands of cruel despots

Went to face a bondman’s fate….”

“Grand-sire, dear, why does this Winter

Seem so endless, then?”—I sighed—

And two crystal tears were trembling

In his eyes, when he replied.

“Yes, my boy, it seems so endless,

But it cannot, will not be;

Israel will not slave for ever,

One day, child, he will be free.

“In his soul will re-awaken

Courage, will, and pride, and might;

Freedom’s sunrise must needs follow

Israel’s starless exile night.

“But till then, ere Spring’s arrival—

For the winter’s steps are slow—

Pesach is a sweet remembrance

Of a spring of long ago….”