The Maccabaean

Circling seasons half a hundredWere the lightfoot thieves that plunderedCheek and forehead of their brightness,Foot and elbow of their lightness:And I guess no less than fiftyAre the years that owners thriftyTook before they patched and wrinkledTo such toneless, grey degreeAll the velvet sheen than twinkledOnce upon his yarmelkie.

But a roguish featness sparkles In the half-veiled eye’s recess, Like a pool that gleams and darkles When the elfish winds a-scuttle Let the shafting sunlight shuttle Through a leafy tenderness; And his fingers, deft and limber, Are like his who made the timber Loose it roots from clay and stone, Dance a saraband, then take the Downward highway and forsake the Sunny slopes of Cithaeron.

Save Amphion never won him,Maugre all his vaunted skill,From his lute such quaint nigunim,Tattered shreds of Litvak chorus,Minor patches of Haftoras,Beautified with twirl and trill,Not for him the peace that hallowsThose that, hearing Shir Hamalos,Dream the shabbos kuggel top,Nor would trees of Greece consider aBurst of wailing from Kol NidreWorth a broche off zein kopp.

In the windy sunlight dancing, Ghostly white and wildly free, Empty limbs and trunks are glancing, Gay, as if the music scatters Through the host of rags and tatters Spirits of a passing glee; And a joyous shade possesses Each of those vacated dresses, Robes of wool or linen fine, Waves the hands and legs fantastic, Or distorts and twists the plastic Body dangling from the line: And the winds that set these waggling Takes the withered wisps a-straggling From beneath his yarmelkie, Sets them jigging in elated, But belated, simulated, Thinly wistful gaietv.

Up and down the sunny airshaft Tribute to his fiddling herrschaft, Windows flung wide open show; As bewitched, the listening faces Follow with unchecked grimaces In the light and changing traces Of the wizard’s magic bow. And the ghosts of memories glisten In the eyes of those who listen, For the scenes have re-arisen With these trills for ever blent: By the rims of oceans seven, Where there’s earth and air and heaven Wheresoe’er a day is given For the Jew to pitch his tent.

That grey-bearded face Which an inward vision lights up Till a joy chassidish twinkles From the netted seams and wrinkles, With the fiddle's fitful weeping He, I know, awakes from sleeping Sounds and sights he holds in keeping Till the grave shall take them all, Hears the Mishna's sing-song mutter, While the candles dip and gutter And the shadows flap and flutter Like tachrichim on the wall.

And the buxom mother yonder— Lips in breathless trance asunder, Dark of pupil, tress and forehead— Kindles with the loud and hurried Change of music to a frantic Transatlantic Corybantic, Till the glowing of her fancy Like a witch’s necromancy Tells again an ancient tale— Of the days when blood was bolder And they danced it, hand on shoulder, Till the world was one night older And the morning star grew pale.

Now a soft and subtle turning Changes merriment to mourning, Like the helpless after-yearning Rising when the dance is done; And in me, too, far regrettings Fail like twilight's pale begettings— Ancient dawns and old sunsettings— Sands and seas of long agone— Starlight on Kinereth waning, Vines in gusty sunlight straining— And a sound of winds complaining Through the glooms of Lebanon.