Altar Of Song Poem by gershon hepner

Altar Of Song

Rating: 5.0


Your answer to intellect is a great crime,
your words are quite empty, as weak as your verse,
I see that you’ve stolen a lot of my rhyme;
your spirit has failed; you are more than perverse.

If you don’t let wisdom for once be your guide
you’ll be put to shame both by verse and by prose;
since poetry is like an altar, please hide
private parts that in public you love to expose.

Though Law says that altars should all be of soil,
the one for your poems and prose hewn like stone
you’ve doubled and doubled and troubled with toil,
like a witch in a dress that the wind has upblown.



The first two quatrains are inspired by Peter Cole’s translation of a poem by Solomon Ibn Gabirol (1021/22- c.1057-58) , which may be found on p.85 of The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poems from Muslim and Christian Spain 950-1492:

Your answer betrays your transgression,
your words are empty, your verse is weak—
you’ve stolen a few of my rhymes,
but your spirit failed: you are meek.

Try taking on wisdom’s discipline,
instead of poetry’s altar and pose:
for as soon as you start your ascent,
your most private parts are exposed.



Although Peter Cole does not point this out, the poem clearly allude to Exod.20: 23: “And you shall not ascend by steps up My altar, so that your nakedness will not be uncovered upon it.” My third quatrain is inspired by the verses that precede this, Exod.20: 21-22: “An altar of soil you shall make for Me…And when you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build them hewn, for you will have raised your sword and desecrated it.”

10/26/07

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