Songs from Bialik

by Bialik, Hayyim Nahman; Hadari, Atar; Miron, Dan

• ISBN13: 9780815606055
• ISBN10: 0815606052
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-06-01
• Publisher: Syracuse Univ Pr

Summary

Hayim Nahman Bialik is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets of modern times. As he possessed a thorough command of Hebrew and the unusual ability to use fully the resources of the language, his literary career is touted as a turning point in modern Hebrew literature. He greatly influenced and, to a large degree, anticipated the Hebrew spoken in modern Israel.

Several poems, particularly his immensely popular children's verse, has been set to music. He is considered Israel's national poet. Until now there has been little academic attention in English about Bialik's work; Hadari's new translation of a selection of his major work fills that void.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	xi
Translator's Note	xiii
Hayim Nahman Bialik's Poetry: An Introduction	xvii
Dan Miron
City of the Killings	1	(9)
Stand Strong, Wall of Sorrow	10	(1)
On the Slaughter	11	(1)
I Knew in a Night of Fog	12	(1)
Night Thoughts	13	(2)
To the Legend	15	(2)
King David's Tomb	17	(1)
My Mother, Her Memory Be Blessed	18	(2)
My Father	20	(3)
Alone	23	(1)
If the Angel Asks	24	(2)
Before the Book Closet	26	(3)
They Are Shaking Themselves Off from Dust	29	(1)
Prophet, Go Flee!	30	(1)
My Soul Bows	31	(1)
I Was Not Given Light	32	(1)
I Sowed to the Wind My Sigh	33	(1)
Dusk	34	(1)
The Tear Drop Dropped	35	(1)
The Sea of Silence	36	(1)
Butterfly	37	(2)
Ring Ring	39	(1)
Yesterday's Stems	40	(1)
Nobody Knew Who She Was	41	(3)
Your Two Eyes	44	(1)
It Was a Summer Night	45	(2)
Tonight I Lurked	47	(1)
Only One Ray	48	(1)
Her Eyes	49	(2)
The Hungry Eyes	51	(1)
Take Me In under Your Wing	52	(1)
Where Are You	53	(1)
You Are Going from Me	54	(2)
To Your Hidden Way	56	(1)
If There Comes a Day When You Shall Find	57	(2)
After My Death	59	(2)
With the Last Red Dregs of Sunset	61	(1)
God Did Not Show	62	(2)
When I Return	64	(1)
Summer Is Waning	65	(1)
Stars Wink and Go Out	66	(1)
Sometimes the Heart	67	(1)
A New Way	68	(1)
Not in the Day nor in the Night	69	(1)
My Peacock of Gold	70	(1)
A Golden Carriage	71	(1)
One Has a Precious Stone	72	(2)
One Finds Dinars	74	(1)
One, Two	75	(1)
I've a Garden	76	(2)
Between the River Prat and Stream Hidkel	78	(3)
A Little Note	81	(2)
A Penny, A Penny	83	(1)
If Satan...	84	(1)
Outside the Countenance of God	85	(1)
In False Promises Don't Trust	86	(1)
A Twig Fell	87	(1)
And Whoever He Be Who Comes After	88	(2)
Who Am I and What Am I	90	(1)
That I Could Be One of You	91	(2)
One by One and with No One Seeing	93	(4)
Be to Me Once More a Shelter	97	(1)
Your Breath Passed upon My Face	98	(2)
Speech	100	(2)
And It Came to Pass	102	(2)
Even in His Revelation to Your Eyes	104	(1)
In Me There Nest Snakes and Adders	105	(1)
Call for the Snakes	106	(2)
Indeed This People Is Grass	108	(2)
On Your Heart That's Barren	110	(1)
[Untitled]	111	(1)
Secrets of Night	112	(4)
One Distant Star	116	(2)
Graveyard	118	(1)
On a Day of Summer, Hot Day	119	(2)
At Close of Day	121	(2)
A Faithful Tear	123	(1)
Midnight Prayer	124	(2)
Songs of Winter	126	(8)
On the Morning Star	134	(3)
The Conductor of the Dance	137	(3)
The Pool	140	(6)
The Scroll of Fire	146