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A Longing to Return to the Land of Israel

Yehudah HaLevi

My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west.
How can I find savor in food? How shall it be sweet to me?
How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet
Zion lieth beneath the fetter of Edom, and I in Arab chains?
A light thing would it seem to me
to leave all the good things of Spain -
Seeing how precious in mine eyes
to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

24 sec read
86

Quick analysis:

Scheme ABCDBEFB
Closest metre Iambic hexameter
Characters 385
Words 82
Stanzas 1
Stanza Lengths 8
Full analysis for A Longing to Return to the Land of Israel »

Yehudah HaLevi

1075 · Spain

Judah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. more…

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