The New Jewish Hospital At Hamburg
(From the German of Heine)
A hospital for the poor and weary JewFor sons of man who suffer threefold ills—Burdened and baned with three infirmities:With poverty, disease, and Judaism!
The worst of all has ever been the last, The Jewish sickness of the centuries; The plague caught in the Nile-stream's slimy vale, The old unwholesome faith that Egypt knew.
No healing for this sickness! All in vainThe vapor-bath and douche, vain all the tricksOf surgery, vain all this house may bringOf simples to its fever-tossing guests!
Will Time perchance, the eternal goddess, blotThis gloomy sorrow that is handed downFrom sire to son—will some far children knowThe perfect happiness of cloudless health?
None can foretell! Yet meantime let us praiseThe heart that full of love and wisdom soughtTo trickle balm upon the rankling woundAnd give what comfort still is possible.
This loving man has built a shelter here For sufferings that a skilful hand may soothe Or cure, or haply Death's if others fail; Beds set he here and cooling drinks and care.
A man of deeds, he did what one might do;And in the evening of his days he paidUnto good works the needful due, and dreamedTo rest from labor in kind charity.
Unstinted was his hand—yet richer gifts Rolled down his cheeks so many a time—the tears, The precious, generous tears that oft we wept For his poor brethren’s immedicable ill.