Nights

Leah Goldberg

1943

All those things whose names I hushed

in secret, I meet in the night’s abyss.

I face the dark. Alert, remembering. Silently,

again I’ll let you in—my friends, my beloved dead.

And here you are as then, crowned with the small serenity

of bright gardens and roadside lawns. . . .

In the folds of your clothes—a whole year’s worries

and the…

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Creator Bio

Leah Goldberg

1911–1970

Hebrew poet, playwright, and professor Leah Goldberg was born in Königsberg and grew up in Kovno (Kaunas), Lithuania, where she attended a Hebrew high school. She studied in Berlin and Bonn, earning a doctorate in Semitic languages. Goldberg returned to Kaunas in 1932 and was an active member of the Petaḥ group of poets. In 1935, she moved to Mandatory Palestine, where she taught and edited children’s books. In the 1950s, she commenced teaching at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and founded the department of comparative literature. Goldberg published a large number of volumes of poetry, novels, plays, translations, and books for children. Steeped in Russian culture and European aesthetics, she eschewed national themes in her writing. She was awarded the Israel Prize for Literature in 1970.

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