Raschi in Prague by Emma Lazarus — Read

Raschi of Troyes, the Moon of Israel, / The authoritative Talmudist, returned / From his wide wanderings under many skies, / To all the synagogues of the Orient, / Through Spain and Italy, the isles of Greece, / Beautiful, dolorous, sacred Palestine, / Dead, obelisked Egypt, floral, musk-breathed Persia, / Laughing with bloom, across the Caucasus, / The interminable sameness of bare steppes, / Through dark luxuriance of Bohemian woods, / And issuing on the broad, bright Moldau vale, / Entered the gates of Prague. Here, too, his fame, / Being winged, preceded him. His people swarmed / Like bees to gather the rich honey-dew / Of learning from his lips. Amazement filled / All eyes beholding him. No hoary sage, / He who had sat in Egypt at the feet / Of Moses ben-Maimuni, called him friend; / Raschi the scholiast, poet, and physician, / Who bore the ponderous Bible's storied wisdom, / The Mischna's tangled lore at tip of tongue, / Light as a garland on a lance, appeared / In the just-ripened glory of a man.

From his clear eye youth flamed magnificent; / Force, masked by grace, moved in his balanced frame; / An intellectual, virile beauty reigned / Dominant on domed brow, on fine, firm lips, / An eagle profile cut in gilded bronze, / Strong, delicate as a head upon a coin, / While, as an aureole crowns a burning lamp, / Above all beauty of the body and brain / Shone beauty of a soul benign with love. / Even as a tawny flock of huddled sheep, / Grazing each other's heels, urged by one will, / With bleat and baa following the wether's lead, / Or the wise shepherd, so o'er the Moldau bridge / Trotted the throng of yellow-caftaned Jews, / Chattering, hustling, shuffling. At their head / Marched Rabbi Jochanan ben-Eleazar, / High priest in Prague, oldest and most revered, / To greet the star of Israel. As a father / Yearns toward his son, so toward the noble Raschi / Leapt at first sight the patriarch's fresh old heart.