Their resolution at the opened gates
Ten days between the writing and the
sealing
Changed no crown in their suspended fate.
All days were New Year’s, all were days of
healing,
All days of awe, and of happy kneeling:
The shepherd note of the banished son
Fell straight into the chariot of the king;
Straightway perceived among the barefoot
ones,
His dancing shone beyond the peasant ring;
Israel’s pleasant voice was meant to sing.
If we could sing that song, we would be
glad,
Or walk a piece with Benjamin the third,
Or know the troubles Hananiah had—
But we should sing too sweet, and be absurd,
Or feel too much, and perish at a word.
If Tevye could hear our pleading now,
Would he turn his ancient horse aside?
We could not call a prophet from his plow—
But would Carmel join the countryside,
If we should say with Job: Men think, and
gods decide?
It is not true that they had certainty
Of grace, and we have none.
What they could do, and we must learn to
be,
Is simply not to know, and so be done.
To laugh, and shrug a shoulder at the air:
Every therefore poses a new why.
Never question the essential one:
Samson was defeated by his hair;
Let Dagon’s pillars stand, and keep your
eye.
We are not pieces, they were not entire.
We, like them, deny the miracle.
They, like us, saw no bush on fire.
That was less a vision than a will,
And we both agree: We will no more.
It were better not to have been made,
It were best to be always still.
Now that we are, ask not what we are for:
Put it off; hope, and be afraid.
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