David Kaufmann

AMID the murm’ring din and seething strife

Of all the world’s contending victories,

Thou, modest scholar, writing histories

Hast caused Judæa’s past to pulse with life;

Hast conjured, with the magic of thy touch,

Whose quiver had the thrill of the sublime,

The soul from its clay; and hast rescued time

From its only foe: oblivion’s clutch,

Which holds enthralled beneath its aged crust

The teeming mysteries of throbbing thought

So many tried to find, yet few have sought

To read aright, and read aright, to trust.

Great Poet-Thinker, Critic of the Past,

Thine is a memory to live, to last!