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My Heart Is In The East

Yehudah HaLevi

My heart is in the east, and I in the uttermost west—
How can I find savour 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.
 
Translated by Nina Salaman

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 14, 2023

25 sec read
165

Quick analysis:

Scheme XAXXBA B
Closest metre Iambic heptameter
Characters 411
Words 85
Stanzas 2
Stanza Lengths 6, 1
Full analysis for My Heart Is In The East »

Yehudah HaLevi

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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