Hymns Written for the Use of Hebrew Congregations. Charleston, Congregation Beth Elohim
Penina Moïse
1867
Duties Towards Ourselves
1. Self-Knowledge.
While man explores, with curious eye,
The works of nature and of art,
He passeth real wisdom by,
Nor cares to read the human heart.
A stranger to himself alone,
He walketh forth in worldly guise;
Nor wouldst thou in his lofty tone
The child of frailty recognise.
Yet pause, O man! in thy career,
And search the chambers of thy soul;
For passions dark and deep are there,
That spurn at reason’s weak control.
A thirst for blood, for gold, for fame,
Pollutes thee, yet thou know’st it not;
Because it borrows glory’s name,
And sheds false lustre on thy lot.
Seek piety—self-knowledge seek,
Their guidance ask to virtue’s road;
On thee will Heaven’s light then break,
And thou wilt know and bless thy God.
11. Our Country
Father of nations! Judge divine!
From Thy blessed realms above
Thine ear to prayers and hymns incline,
Breathed by patriotic love.
Is there one upon this earth,
Who in welfare or in woe,
For the country of his birth,
Feels not sympathy’s strong glow?
Oh! may we not this feeling trace
To creation’s primal date?
When the great parent of our race
Felt the exiles’ bitter fate?
His first tears were not for toil,
But for his lost flower-land—
Paradise, his native soil,
Closed on him by God’s command.
That pure sentiment was nursed
When man’s innocence had waned;
His progeny, where’er dispersed,
Kept this virtue unprofaned.
Native to all human kind
Is the sod of liberty!
Where no tyrant’s law may bind
Souls by nature’s God made free. [ . . . ]
Passover
Oh! let us mingle heart and voice,
In unison let us rejoice,
To one great God appealing;
The children of the Hebrew race,
Who, tho’ divided now by space,
Are linked by fate and feeling.
Bondage hath ceased,
And freedom’s feast
For souls released,
By mem’ry kept,
Each chord hath swept,
In which her sacred music slept.
The sword of vengeance flashed abroad!
The sceptre that became a rod
Has by a rod been broken;
The child redeemed from Nile’s great flood,
Has changed its waters into blood!
A warning and a token
Of plagues reserved
For those who swerved,
By power nerved,
From laws humane,
And dared constrain
God’s witnesses to works profane!
The clime of darkness blacker grows,
No beam the worship’d sun-god throws
Within the heathen’s palace;
Regardless of the despot’s prayer
Compell’d with trembling and with fear
To drain the bitter chalice;
Behold and praise
God’s wondrous ways
Each hour displays!
In contrast bright
To Egypt’s night
On Israel’s home shines perfect light.
And thus with concentrated ray
On all who Heaven’s will obey,
Whate’er may be their station,
Through all the shadows cast by time,
Shall rise in lustrous grace sublime
The blest star of salvation!
The tyrant’s doom
In midnight gloom,
From throne to tomb
On freedom’s spot
It resteth not:
Light to man’s spirit there is brought.
Creator! Liberator! Lord!
Let peace to us its palm accord,
Twined with faith’s pure evergreen;
Oh! bless the rulers of each land,
Who cause its branches to expand,
Its rare fruitage to be seen.
Most holy King!
Let Judah cling
To laws that spring
From Mercy’s seat,
While at Thy feet
This day’s memorial we repeat.
Credits
Penina Moïse, Hymns Written for the Use of Hebrew Congregations, ed. Kahal Kadosh Beth Elohim (Charleston, S.C.), [written primarily by Penina Moïse], 4th ed., revised and corrected (Charleston, S.C: Congregation Beth Elohim, 1867), 82-83 (Hymn 82: Self-knowledge), 144-145 (Hymn 149: Our Country), 192–193 (Hymn 198: Passover), https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b286647&seq=102.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.
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