Should wander?’ Burning with a hidden fire
That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee
For pity and for help, as thou to me.
Pray for me, O my friend!” But Nathan cried,
“Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!”
Side by side
In the low sunshine by the turban stone
They knelt; each made his brother’s woe his own,
Forgetting, in the agony and stress
Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness;
Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;
His prayers were answered in another’s name;
And, when at last they rose up to embrace,
Each saw God’s pardon in his brother’s face!
Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,
Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos
In Rabbi Nathan’s hand these words were read:
“Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;
Forget it in love’s service, and the debt
Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget;
Heaven’s gate is shut to him who comes alone;
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!”
NOREMBEGA
Norembega, or Norimbegue, is the name given by early French fishermen and explorers to a fabulous country south of Cape Breton, first discovered by Verrazzani in 1524. It was supposed to have a magnificent city of the same name on a great river, probably the Penobscot. The site of this barbaric city is laid down on a map published at Antwerp in 1570. In 1604 Champlain sailed in search of the Northern Eldorado, twenty-two leagues up the Penobscot from the Isle Haute. He supposed the river to be that of Norembega, but wisely came to the conclusion that those travellers who told of the great city had never seen it. He saw no evidences of anything like civilization, but mentions the finding of a cross, very old and mossy, in the woods.
The winding way the serpent takes
The mystic water took,
From where, to count its beaded lakes,
The forest sped its brook.
A narrow space ’twixt shore and shore,
For sun or stars to fall,
While evermore, behind, before,
Closed in the forest wall.
The dim wood hiding underneath
Wan flowers without a name;
Life tangled with decay and death,
League after league the same.
Unbroken over swamp and hill
The rounding shadow lay,
Save where the river cut at will
A pathway to the day.
Beside that track of air and light,
Weak as a child unweaned,
At shut of day a Christian knight
Upon his henchman leaned.
The embers of the sunset’s fires
Along the clouds burned down;
“I see,” he said, “the domes and spires
Of Norembega town.”
“Alack! the domes, O master mine,
Are golden clouds on high;
Yon spire is but the branchless pine
That cuts the evening sky.”
“Oh, hush and hark! What sounds are these
But chants and holy hymns?”
“Thou hear’st the breeze that stirs the trees
Through all their leafy limbs.”
“Is it a chapel bell that fills
The air with its low tone?”
“Thou hear’st the tinkle of the rills,
The insect’s vesper drone.”
“The Christ be praised!—He sets for me
A blessed cross in sight!”
“Now, nay, ’t is but yon blasted tree
With two gaunt arms outright!”
“Be it wind so sad or tree so stark,
It mattereth not, my knave;
Methinks to funeral hymns I hark,
The cross is for my grave!
“My life is sped; I shall not see
My home-set sails again;
