Friday, October 23, 2009

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Poem on Jewish History

We don't often associate poetry with Jewish history but there have been some notable examples.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow traveled to Newport, Rhode Island in 1854. He wrote the following poem after he visited its famous Jewish cemetery.

The Jewish Cemetery at Newport
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

How came they here? What burst of Christian hate,
What persecution, merciless and blind,
Drove o'r the sea - that desert desolate -
These Ishmaels and Hagars of mankind?

They lived in narrow streets and lanes obscure,
Ghetto and Judenstrass, in murk and mire:
Taught in the school of patience to endure
The life of anguish and death of fire.

But ah! What once has been shall be no more!
The groaning earth in travail and in pain
Brings forth its races, but does not restore,
And the dead nations never rise again.

42 comments:

  1. Hi, Constance,

    Welcome to the blogosphere.

    May I make two important suggestion?

    Please add a "subscribe to this blog via email alerts" (via Feedburner or Feedblitz) at the top of your right-hand side bar.

    After I posted about your new blog on Tracing the Tribe - The Jewish Genealogy Blog (http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com), several readers asked me how to subscribe to Jewish Narrative. The "subscribe by email" under the comment box is ONLY for the comments, not for the posts.

    Also, please add an info@jewishnarrative email so people can ask questions. I could not find an email address for you, so decided to comment here.

    A great start to a new blog.

    Schelly Talalay Dardashti
    Tracing the Tribe - The Jewish Genealogy Blog
    http://tracingthetribe.blogspot.com

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