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| “COME, my beloved, to meet the Bride; the Face of the Sabbath let us welcome.” | |
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| Sweet Sabbath-Bride, the Hebrew’s theme of praise, | |
| Celestial maiden with the starry eyes, | |
| Around thine head a sacred nimbus plays, | |
| Thy smile is soft as lucent summer skies, | 5 |
| Before thy purity all evil dies, | |
| In wedding-robe of stainless sunshine drest, | |
| Thou dawnest on Life’s darkness and it dies; | |
| Thy bridal-wreath is lilies Heaven-blest, | |
| Thy dowry Peace and Love and Holiness and Rest. | 10 |
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| For in thy Presence he forgets a while | |
| The gloom and discord of man’s mortal years, | |
| To seek the Light that streameth from thy Face, | |
| To list thy tender lullaby, which cheers | |
| His soul and lies like music on his ears. | 15 |
| His very sorrows with soft splendor shine, | |
| Transfigured by a mist of sacred tears; | |
| He drinks thy gently offered Anodyne, | |
| And feels himself absorbed into the Peace divine. | |
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| The Father from the Synagog returns | 20 |
| (A singing-bird is nestling at his heart), | |
| And from without the festive light discerns | |
| Which tells his faithful wife has done her part | |
| To welcome Sabbath with domestic art. | |
| He enters and perceives the picture true, | 25 |
| And tears unbidden from his eyelids start, | |
| As Paradise thus opens on his view, | |
| And then he smiles and thanks his God he is a Jew. | |
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| For “Friday-night” is written on his home | |
| In fair, white characters; his wife has spread | 30 |
| The snowy Sabbath-cloth; the Hebrew tome, | |
| The flask and cup are at the table’s head, | |
| There’s Sabbath magic in the very bread, | |
| And royal fare the humble dishes seem; | |
| A holy light the Sabbath candles shed, | 35 |
| Around his children’s shining faces beam, | |
| He feels the strife of every day a far-off dream. | |
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| His buxom wife he kisses, then he lays | |
| Upon each child’s young head two loving hands | |
| Of benediction, so in after-days, | 40 |
| When they shall be afar in other lands, | |
| They shall be knit to God and home by bands | |
| Of sacred memory. And then he makes | |
| The blessing o’er the wine, and while each stands, | |
| The quaintly convoluted bread he breaks, | 45 |
| Which tastes to all to-night more sweet than honeyed cakes. | |
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| And now they eat the Sabbath meal with laugh | |
| And jest and gossip till all fun must cease, | |
| While Father chants the Grace, all singing half, | |
| And then the Sabbath hymns of Love and Peace | 50 |
| And Hope from alien lands to find release. | |
| No evil can this night its head uprear, | |
| Earth’s joys loom larger and its ills decrease; | |
| To-night of ghosts the youngest has no fear— | |
| Does not his guardian Sabbath-Angel hover near? | 55 |
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| So in a thousand squalid Ghettoes penned, | |
| Engirt yet undismayed by perils vast, | |
| The Jew in hymns that marked his faith would spend | |
| This night and dream of all his glorious Past | |
| And wait the splendors by his seers forecast. | 60 |
| And so while medieval creeds at strife | |
| With nature die, the Jew’s ideals last, | |
| The simple love of home and child and wife, | |
| The sweet humanities which make our higher life. | |
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