O let Thy banner soar
The scattered remnants o'er,
And gather them once more,
Like ours on harvest-day.

Who bear through all their line
Thy covenant's holy sign,
And in Thy name divine
Are sanctified alway.

Let all the world behold
Their token prized of old,
Who on their garment's fold
The thread of blue display.

Be then the truth made known
From whom, and whom alone,
The twisted fringe is shown,
The covenant kept this day.

O let them, sanctified,
Once more with Thee abide,
Their sunshine far and wide
And chase the clouds away.

The well-beloved declare
Thy praise in song and prayer;
"Who can with Thee compare,
O Lord of Hosts?" they say.

When as a wall the sea

In heaps uplifted lay,

A new song unto Thee,

Sang the redeemed that day.

JUDAH HA-LEVI.

(Translated by Alice Lucas.)

The All Father's Word

WHEN ransomed Israel saw the returning sea

O'erwhelm the vast array of Pharaoh's pride, And raised exultant hymn above the tide:"Lord God eternal who is like to Thee, Awful in praises, working wondrously!"

God silent bode; but when His angels vied With men in choir antiphonal, and cried :"His outstretched arm hath set His children free!" And heaven like earth rocked with tumultuous song, God spake rebuking; and the shamed, mute throng, Awe-swept and trembling, glimpsed a vision new Of Love and Pity Infinite, as they heard

The fathomless sorrow of the All Father's word: "Peace. They that perish are My children too." EMILY SOLIS-COHEN, JR.

I

The Feast of Freedom
REMEMBER in my childhood
From my grandfather I heard
Charming tales of gone-by ages
That my soul so deeply stirred.
Charming tales of ancient sages
That I felt, I knew were true;:
Stories of the hoary ages

That remain forever new.

Of the Pesach-days he told me,
Days that joy and sunshine bring;

Of the Festival of Freedom,

Of Revival and of Spring.

Of the slave-people in Egypt,
Whose hot blood so rashly spilt,
Soaked into cold bricks and mortar
Of the fortresses they built.

How on them, the God-forsaken,
After gloomy wintry days,
Shone at last the rays of freedom,
Heaven's bright and cheerful rays.

How among them rose a leader,
Star-like in a gloomy night,
And he pleaded for their freedom,
And he crushed a tyrant's might.

How he taught the fettered people
Not in vain their blood to spill,
Turning bondmen into freemen,
Men of honor and of will.

How the people's march to Freedom
Could no despot's might restrain,
Till before their will resistless
Stormy ocean oped in twain.

"Then it was our people's Spring-time, After which a Summer came, Followed by a golden harvest,

Free from yoke and free from shame."

"Grand-sire, dear," I asked enraptured, "How long did that Summer last?" But he sadly gazed and pondered, And he answered me at last.

"Child, it was a long, bright Summer, But a winter came again,

Came with cold, and snow, and showers, With its gales of grief and pain.

"Frost and tempest-strife, contention-
Raged once more in every part,
Stealing into souls and freezing
Will and hope in every heart.

"Furious storm once more dispersed us;
Israel rendered free and great,

Into lands of cruel despots

Went to face a bondman's fate..

"Grand-sire, dear, why does this Winter
Seem so endless, then?"-I sighed-
And two crystal tears were trembling
In his eyes, when he replied.

"Yes, my boy, it seems so endless,
But it cannot, will not be;
Israel will not slave for ever,
One day, child, he will be free.

"In his soul will re-awaken

Courage, will, and pride, and might;
Freedom's sunrise must needs follow
Israel's starless exile night.

"But till then, ere Spring's arrival-
For the winter's steps are slow—
Pesach is a sweet remembrance
Of a spring of long ago.

P. M. RASKIN.

Pesach Le' Osid

(The Passover of the Future)

ISRAEL in fetters still! The prophet's wand
Shall stretch across the tyrant's hapless land,
And prison doors shall straightway open wide,
And barring waters shall like walls divide,
To let the Lord's redeemed pass dry-shod o'er
And reach a brighter, freer, friendlier shore.
The angel that unseen spreads seeds of death
And on each house corrupt pours poisoned breath

Shall pass the homes of God's appointed by
And none that mark their lintel-posts shall die.
Hope paints this vision thus in golden hue
And, deathless as Hope, doth Faith bespeak it true,
Affliction's bread shall yield to plenty's leaven,

The clouds shall pass and earth shall grow like heaven.
ANONYMOUS.

The Omer

SO, Lord, teach us to number our days,
That our hearts in the process grow wise.
But what is there for man to appraise?—
A measure of grain

And a measure of pain.

And the end? The dead chaff from the sheaf?
So this trouble leaps forth to the skies;
When Death holds us in wintry embrace,
Shall we gaze, O our God, on Thy face?
Lo, the Spring to our craving replies,
And the bud and the leaf
Are the ground of belief

That the soul, spite of dying, ne'er dies,
Takes new life in God's springtime again.

Sfere *

M. M.

I

ASKED my Muse had she any objection

To laughing with me, not a word for reply!

You see, it is Sfere, our time for dejection

And can a Jew laugh when the rule is to cry?

You laughed then you say? 'tis a sound to affright one In Jewish delight, what is worthy the name?

The laugh of a Jew it is never a right one,

For laughing and groaning with him are the same.

*Sephira, a period of mourning commemorating the disasters to Israel during the Crusades.