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Home  »  The Standard Book of Jewish Verse  »  They Tell Me

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

By Ezekiel Leavitt (Trans. from the Hebrew by Alice Stone Blackwell)

They Tell Me

THEY tell me, “Give thy nation up;

The ancient graves resign!

Give us thy soul—then plenty, wealth,

And greatness shall be thine.”

They tell me: “Think not to rebuild

The City, proud and tall,

Of whose old splendor there is left

Only a crumbling wall.

“Dream not thy nation to arouse

Out of its slumber deep;

Behold, it has so many years

Lain in a marmot’s sleep!”

False prophets, hush! Fie, charlatans!

I swerve not from the goal.

I will not give my honor up,—

I will not sell my soul.

The path my fathers trod through life

I follow straight and clear;

Should Death demand me, I will mount

The scaffold without fear.

My God, my race, I will not change

For gold or jewels’ fires.

More than a stranger’s treasure-house

A grave among my sires.