ry
has the charm of endless variety, always with graceful adaptation to the
nature of the theme.

The _oriental imagery_ in which Hebrew poetry abounds imparts to it a
peculiar and striking costume. Palestine was, in an emphatic sense, the
Hebrew poet's world. It was the land given by God to his fathers for an
everlasting possession; about which all his warm affections clustered;
with whose peculiar scenery and climate, employments and associations,
all his thoughts and feelings had been blended from childhood. It
followed of necessity that these must all wear an oriental costume. As
soon as he opens his mouth there comes forth a stream of eastern
imagery, very natural and appropriate to him, but much of it very
strange to us of these western regions. To understand the extent of this
characteristic one has only to peruse the Song of Solomon. The bride is
black but comely as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. She
is a dove in the clefts of the rock; her hair is as a flock of goats,
that appear from Mount Gilead; her teeth are like a flock of sheep which
come from the washing; her lips are like a thread of scarlet; her
temples are like a piece of a pomegranate; her stature is like a palm
tree, and her breasts like clusters of grapes--all thoroughly oriental.
So also the bridegroom is like a roe or a young hart leaping upon the
mountains; his eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters;
his cheeks are as a bed of spices; his lips like lilies, dropping
sweet-smelling myrrh, and his countenance as Lebanon, excellent as the
cedars. So also if we open the book of Isaiah, we find the Messiah
described as "the shadow of a great rock in a weary land"--a figure
which could not well occur to an Englishman or an American, but was
perfectly natural in the mouth of a Hebrew familiar with the terrible
sun of the Asiatic deserts, where neither tree nor cloud offers a
shelter to the thirsty and fainting traveller. Precisely here lies much
of the obscurity of which the expounders of Hebrew poetry complain.
True, there are other difficulties of a formidable character. The theme
is often vast, stretching into the distant and dimly-revealed future;
the language rugged with abrupt transitions, the historic allusions
obscure, and the meaning of the terms employed doubtful. But aside from
all these considerations the western scholar encounters a perpetual
difficulty in the fact that he is not of oriental birth, and can en