Atonement Evening Prayer

Atonement Day--evening pray'r--sadness profound.
The soul-lights, so clear once, are dying around.
The reader is spent, and he barely can speak;
The people are faint, e'en the basso is weak.
The choristers pine for the hour of repose.
Just one--two chants more, and the pray'r book we close!

And now ev'ry Jew's supplication is ended,
And Nilah* approaching, and twilight descended.
The blast of the New Year is blown on the horn,
All go; by the Ark I am standing forlorn,
And thinking: "How shall it be with us anon,
When closed is the temple, and ev'ryone gone!"

Morris Rosenfeld

Morris Rosenfeld, born on December 28, 1862, and deceased on June 22, 1923, was a Yiddish poet known for his poignant and evocative poems depicting the struggles and hardships of Jewish immigrants in New York City's sweatshops in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. His work often highlighted themes of poverty, labor rights, and the immigrant experience. Rosenfeld's poetry remains significant for its historical and cultural commentary, capturing the essence of the Jewish immigrant experience in America.

Morris Rosenfeld

The Pale Operator

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

O Long The Way

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

In The Factory

Morris Rosenfeld, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

September Melodies

I


The summer is over!
'Tis windy and chilly.
The flowers are dead in the dale.
All beauty has faded,
The rose and the lily
In death-sleep lie withered and pale.

Now hurries the stormwind
A mournful procession
Of leaves and dead flowers along,
Now murmurs the forest
Its dying confession,
And hushed is the holiest song.

Their "prayers of departure"
The wild birds are singing,
They fly to the wide stormy main.
Oh tell me, ye loved ones,
Whereto are ye winging?
Oh answer: when come ye again?

Oh hark to the wailing
For joys that have vanished!
The answer is heavy with pain:
Alas! We know only
That hence we are banished--
But God knows of coming again!


II


The Tkiy...

Morris Rosenfeld

Exit Holiday

Farewell to the feast-day! the pray'r book is stained
With tears; of the booth scarce a trace has remained;
The lime branch is withered, the osiers are dying,
And pale as a corpse the fair palm-frond is lying;
The boughs of grey willow are trodden and broken--
Friend, these are your hopes and your longings unspoken!

Lo, there lie your dreamings all dimm'd and rejected,
And there lie the joys were so surely expected!
And there is the happiness blighted and perished,
And all that aforetime your soul knew and cherished,
The loved and the longed for, the striven for vainly--
Your whole life before you lies pictured how plainly!

The branches are sapless, the leaves will decay,
An end is upon us, and whence, who shall say?
The broom of the beadle outside now has h...

Morris Rosenfeld

When The Twilight Shadows Deepen.

When the twilight shadows deepen and the far-off lands are dim,
And the vesper dirge is stealing like the chant of cherubim,
There's a prayer within my bosom that's responsive to the sound,
There's a thought that springs within me--but 'tis sad and silence-bound.

There's a sorrow in those shadows as they lengthen on the lawn,
For the joy of life has vanished and its sweetness--all is gone,
And the purple mists of even as they hover o'er the glade
Seem to hush in voiceless gloom the deep recesses of the shade.

Oh thou beyond those heathery hills, beyond those woodlands blue,
Which, as they meet the eastern sky, receive its azure hue,
Ah, must I lonely linger here, where nought but griefs await,
Where life is but one long, long sigh, and all disconsolate?

I'm weep...

Lennox Amott

In The Night. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

Unto the house of prayer my spirit yearns,
Unto the sources of her being turns,
To where the sacred light of heaven burns,
She struggles thitherward by day and night.


The splendor of God's glory blinds her eyes,
Up without wings she soareth to the skies,
With silent aspiration seeks to rise,
In dusky evening and in darksome night.


To her the wonders of God's works appear,
She longs with fervor Him to draw anear,
The tidings of His glory reach her ear,
From morn to even, and from night to night.


The banner of thy grace did o'er me rest,
Yet was thy worship banished from my breast.
Almighty, thou didst seek me out and test
To try and to instruct me in the night.


I dare not idly on my pillow lie,
With winged fe...

Emma Lazarus

The Feast Of Lights

Little candles glistening,
Telling those are listening
Legends manifold,
Many a little story,
Tales of blood and glory
Of the days of old.

As I watch you flicker,
As I list you bicker,
Speak the ancient dreams:
--You have battled, Jew, one time,
You have conquer'd too, one time.
(God, how strange it seems!)

In your midst was order once,
And within your border once
Strangers took no part.
Jew, you had a land one time,
And an armed hand, one time.
(How it moves the heart!)

Glisten, candles, glisten!
As I stand and listen
All the grief in me,
All the woe is stirred again,
And the question heard again:
What the end shall be?

Morris Rosenfeld

Night-Thoughts. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

Will night already spread her wings and weave
Her dusky robe about the day's bright form,
Boldly the sun's fair countenance displacing,
And swathe it with her shadow in broad day?
So a green wreath of mist enrings the moon,
Till envious clouds do quite encompass her.

No wind! and yet the slender stem is stirred,
With faint, slight motion as from inward tremor.
Mine eyes are full of grief - who sees me, asks,
"Oh wherefore dost thou cling unto the ground?"
My friends discourse with sweet and soothing words;
They all are vain, they glide above my head.
I fain would check my tears; would fain enlarge
Unto infinity, my heart - in vain!
Grief presses hard my breast, therefore my tears
Have scarcely dried, ere they again spring forth.
For these are streams no ...

Emma Lazarus