Explore "THE DEATH OF RASCHI. [Aaron Ben Mier "loquitur. "]" by Emma Lazarus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
If I remember Raschi? An I live, / Grandson, to bless thy grandchild, I'll forget / Never that youth and what he did for Prague. / Aye, aye, I know! he slurred a certain verse / In such and such a prayer; omitted quite / To stand erect there where the ritual / Commands us rise and bow towards the East; / Therefore, the ingrates brand him heterodox, / Neglect his memory whose virtue saved / Each knave of us alive. Not I forget, / No more does God, who wrought a miracle / For his dear sake. The Passover was here. / Raschi, just wedded with the fair Rebekah, / Bode but the lapsing of the holy week / For homeward journey with his bride to France.
The sacred meal was spread. All sat at board / Within the house of Rabbi Jochanan: / The kind old priest; his noble, new-found son, / Whose name was wrung in every key of praise, / By every voice in Prague, from Duke to serf / (Save the vindictive bigot, Narzerad); / The beautiful young wife, whose cup of joy / Sparkled at brim; next her the vacant chair / Awaited the Messiah, who, unannounced, / In God's good time shall take his place with us. / Now when the Rabbi reached the verse where one / Shall rise from table, flinging wide the door, / To give the Prophet entrance, if so be / The glorious hour have sounded, Raschi rose, / Pale, grave, yet glad with great expectancy, / Crossed the hushed room, and, with a joyous smile / To greet the Saviour, opened the door.