The Poetry Corner

Fragment. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

By Emma Lazarus

My friend spoke with insinuating tongue: "Drink wine, and thy flesh shall be made whole. Look how it hisses in the leathern bottle like a captured serpent." Oh fool! can the sun be forged into a cask stopped with earthly bungs. I know not that the power of wine has ever overmastered my sorrows; for these mighty giants I have found as yet no resting-place. Solomon Ben Judah Gabirol (Died Between 1070-80.)