Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE TEMPLE, by DAVID LEVI


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE TEMPLE, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Go forth, o people
Last Line: With truth and peace.
Subject(s): God; Jews; Temples; Judaism; Mosques


GO forth, O people,
Sacred to thought, to labour and to sorrow,
And through the centuries pursue thy way.
God of Infinity, He is thy God,
And measureless alike 'mid alien fanes,
Along the sea and lands that thou shalt tread,
Pilgrim of endless years, thy path shall be.
The road is dark, is long and full of pain;
Beside thee still shall go, at God's behest,
Like to the fiery column, quenchless Hope.
As winnowed grain is flung into the air,
So, 'midst all peoples God shall scatter thee,
And thou shalt bear, as well as thine own griefs,
The griefs and burdens of all other races.
Peoples shall rise, shall shine, shall pass away,
But thou, sacred to life, beside the graves
Of all shall pass immortal, vaster far than time
Or than this earth, no tomb can hold
Thy thoughts immeasurable.

Sorrowful and grand,
Thou to the rush confused of years to come,
And in the wreck of peoples and of empires,
Thou in all ages, living, speaking witness,
Shalt say to all—"I am." And to the past
The future thou shalt bind, and race to race,
People to people, and the scattered limbs
Of Adam drawing into thine own self,
In thee, new Adam, one mankind shall grow
Like unto God, and holy on the earth.
Thou the reviving universe shalt fill
With truth and peace.





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