Jewish Literature Trends

(Continued from Page 8)
to the masses of which he was It would be ridiculous to re-
one, one of the many, "one of peat the ecstatic utterances of
certain reviewers and critics who
the people."
compared Bialik with Jehudah
Bialik and Chernichowsky
Chaim Nachman Bialik, the Halevi and even Isaiah. He is
second in- the group I - have se- neither of these; he is just Chaim
lected,- and Saul Chernichowsky, Nachman Bialik—a distinct liter-
the last of the trio, rank as the ary entity, a product of the Jew-
foremost Jewish poets of this cen- ish Renaissance • of modern times.
Bialik was born in 1873 in a
tury. Bialik is distinctly national,
awhile Chernichowsky is more of small hamlet in Volhynia. His
a_ universalist in his muse. He is education was the usual educa-
a lyric poet, who culls also from tion accorded the Jewish youth
extraneous sources, and renders of those times, and thus he
the gems of all literature in his inevitably b e c am e acquainted
beloved Hebrew. For instance, quite early in life with the Beth
Longfellow's "Hiawatha" was Hamidrash. And yet his career
done by him most beautifully in was not comet-like, but proceed-
that tongue. There are very few ed by steady evolution; no abrupt
genuinely national poems in changes are noticeable. He grad-
Chernichowsky's collections. I ually emerges from the. Beth
here quote- or that I have trans- Hamidrash and ascends upon the
lated into English to the best of back of - Pegagus the path of the
Olympian heights. No sudden
my ability:
travails are discernible, no inner
CREDO—ANIMAAMIN
Scoff at me and cast derision,
conflicts and no "Sturm and
Laugh and scorn and rail at me;
Drang" period. He evenly climbs
Yet my creed it holds a vision:
Man, I still believe in thee.
to the summit and we see before
us Bialik.
In thy soul the breath of freedom,
Free from greed and lust for gold;
I quote one stanza from his im-
Out of -bondage ever rising
pasioned lyric "Eneha" (Her
Soars thy soul a thousandfold.
Eyes) first in Hebrew and then
Soul, that fathoms deep abysses,
in English to show how flexible
Spirit raised to dizzy heights;
Slaves may cringe 'neath chains and and adaptable the language is.
shackles,
This is the meter:
But thy soul aspires to light.
•
- u - 11
-

Scoff! I still believe in friendship,
I believe in human hearts ;
Hearts of hope, the heart of mankind,
As it seeds and buds and starts.

I believe in man's great future,'
Tho the hour be far remote;
It will come with peace triumphant,
In its chords a blissful note.

Thus my people's rod will flower,
Fragrant flowers in the night;
Iron chains will fall asunder
As it sees the dawn of light.

It will live and love and labor,
God for shield and time for• guard;
And in coming generation
It will find its own reward.

Then the bard will sing its epic,
And sweet melodies will break;
Rarest flowers will then blossom,
When my people will awake.

Insofar as the liVing- Hebrew
cannot entirely rely for its growth
and development On artificial or
:extraneous sources, we cannot
therefore design4te Chernichow-
sky as a real national poet; But
be it as it may; Chernichowsky's
ebrew-praxes to the world 'and
Jewry how flexible and adaptable
this language may become to all
needs and exigencies.
Comparing these two, it might
be said that although Bialik may
at times appear more versatile,
his muse is primarily permeated
with the fire of nationalism, and
his greatest strength lies therein.
His poems breathe once, more the
air of spring, the fragrance of
flowers, the beauty and passion
of love, and now and then the
warning voice of the prophet.
Two poems follow to illustrate
the above; one is entitled "Hach-
nisini tahath K'nafech" ("0 Gath-
er Me Unto Thy • Sheltering
Wings"), and the other _"Bassa-
' deh" ("In the. Field"). The form-
er is a renunciation and a cry
of dissatisfaction of all human
emotions, sentiments , and hopes,
save that of his muse, and the
latter is a vivid, clear picture of
nature, which I only 'quote in
part:

0, GATHER ME
Oh, gather me unto thy sheltering
wing,
And be to me mother and all;
My head on thy bosom a refuge shall
seek, -
Where prayers incessantly fall.

In hours of sweet grace when the twi-
light's attemble
To thee I'll reveal what I languish.
They say there abideth still youth upon
earth,
Forsooth it has left me in anguish.

And trustingly secrets I'll whispfr to
thee,
My heart is aglow with a flame;
• They say there abideth still love upon
earth,
To me it is only a name.

The stars that shone brightly deceived
and grew dim,—
A dream—it has flitted and passed;
longings
have ceased and my yearn-
My
ings are stilled,
Desire has been vanquished at last.

Oh, gather me unto thy sheltering
wing,
And be to me mother and all;
My head on thy bosom a refuge shall

find

Where prayers incessantly fall.

IN THE FIELDS
Only by travail and ceaseless toil
Have the stalks sprung up apd
grown:
I have neither, Allied nor have I sown—
Could such harvest then be called
my own?
.
-
You have thrived,' my. heart . remained
unstirred; -
Joy has fled and all was vain.
Neither could my songs enthrall and
please,

Page Twenty three

-

THE JEWISH NEWS

Friday, December 12, 1947

Songs) betoken a pure esthetic May heaven cease and return to
spirit far removed from the prag- chaos! And ye, barbarians, ty-
rants, ye may live on; live on in
matic or descriptive type of your crimson glory and lave
poetry. His masterpiece, "Sohar" yourselves clean in our blood."
A poet once said "What wants
(Splendor), is profoundly senti-
mental and recalls to us Schiller's to understand must travel to the
"Spaziergang." Another piece of poet's land." In order to fully
charming artistry is his fantastic appreciate his poetry and many
poem "Gamode Lailah" (Dwarfs other gems of Jewish literature,
of the Night). Thus you see how we must first understand their
our poet travels from one•esthetic sources—the Hebrew tongue and
mode to another, descriptive in Hebrew culture. What we know
one, imaginative in another. And of it is mighty little, • so little,
this is done in a most beautiful indeed, that it does absolutely no
and. perfect Hebrew. Our anti-
Hebraists will surely have no
fault to find either with his dic-
tion, style or the meter.
In another series of poems or
prophetic polemics, he enters a
new sphere and assumes the role
of a prophet. "Mishirei Hasaam"
(Songs of Poison) follow in the
wake of the Kishineff massacres.
They are composed - of three
poems in all; let me quote a part
of it in prose—a metrical trans-
lation is impossible: What bitter-
ness and misery! the 'gauntlet is
flung at justice, at human society
and at the banalaties and mean-
inglesses of history. •
"Justice," he cries out, "if thou
The © seal of approval of
art not a mirage, what art thou?
the UNION OF ORTHODOX
But shall ever thy kingdom be
JEWISH CONGREGATIONS
OF AMERICA is on the
established and thy throne erect-
front
of the
ed after I am no more, of what
bright green label.
avail is it to me? May thy throne
crumble and be thou accursed!

-U-U-U
Achlu, sarful, yatsku raal,
Isham achala.thni-
Shaddai, Shaddai, k'ra hasatan!
Lilith tsad tsadathni!

Or, as rendered in English:

They gnaw and they burn and blitter
and gleam,
As if living flames have enwrapped
me;
Oh, Lord, 0 Lord, call this Satan from
me,
Lilith, the imp, has entrapped me.

justice to Bialik, no matter how
well his works are rendered in
other languages.
We as Jews should cultivate
the Hebrew considerably .more
than other languages of antiquity
—such as Greek and Latin. We
should become familiar with the
gems of our literature, a litera-
ture that has few equals in the'
entire domain of human Culture.
We have acquired Babel but not
Bible and are complacently satis-
fied with the dregs of a decadent
twentieth century literature.

In Line with Good Health.

Sounds 'almost like the "Erl-
koenig."
Carlyle recommended his pupils
to master the Gernian language
in order to be able to read Goethe
in the original. I would recom-
mend our Jewish-American youth
to learn enough Hebrew. -So as to
understand Bialik. Translations
are at best perversions of the
original; they lack something es-
sential to every language—the
biologic quality of idiom.
This is well illustrated in the
"Haxnaththid" '(The Student), so
ably rendered into English by
Maurice Samuel; to be sure, it is
a most thorough and accurate
translation and has much of the
original spirit of Bialik injected
into it; yet something is missing,
something that is untranslatable.
In a measure all translations suf-
fer from this shortcoming, and
principally those of poetry.
"Hamathmid" is an epic glorify-
ing the Bachur or Talmudic, stu-
dent. Our poet depicts the utter
wretchedness of the Bachur, who
actually drowns his youth in the
depths of the Talmud. Here Bia-
lik displays his power of portrai-
ture and his psychclogic insight,
because he himself was once a
Bachur studying upon the hard
benches of. the Beth . Hamidrash.
At times he forgets his pictur-
esque past and becomes a real
artist inspired by • visions and
dreams. Such poems as "Rase
Lailah" (Mysteries of the Night),
"Tsafririm" (Morning Spirits),
and his "Shirei Kaits" (Spring

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