irony turned against one's own
soul life, but a profoundly solemn emotion, springing from sublime pity
for the misery of the world read by the light of personal trials and
sorrows. He sang not of a mistress' blue eyes, nor sighed forth
melancholy love-notes--the object of his heart's desire was Zion, his
muse the fair "rose of Sharon," and his anguish was for the suffering of
his scattered people. Strong, wild words fitly express his tempestuous
feelings. He is a proud, solitary thinker. Often his _Weltschmerz_
wrests scornful criticism of his surroundings from him. On the other
hand, he does not lack mild, conciliatory humor, of which his famous
drinking-song is a good illustration. His miserly host had put a single
bottle of wine upon a table surrounded by many guests, who had to have
recourse to water to quench their thirst. Wine he calls a
septuagenarian, the letters of the Hebrew word for wine (_yayin_)
representing seventy, and water a nonagenarian, because _mayim_ (water)
represents ninety:

WATER SONG

Chorus:--Of wine, alas! there's not a drop,
Our host has filled our goblets to the top
With water.

When monarch wine lies prone,
By water overthrown,
How can a merry song be sung?
For naught there is to wet our tongue
But water.
CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc.

No sweetmeats can delight
My dainty appetite,
For I, alas! must learn to drink,
However I may writhe and shrink,
Pure water.
CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc.

Give Moses praise, for he
Made waterless a sea--
Mine host to quench my thirst--the churl!--
Makes streams of clearest water purl,
Of water.
CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc.

To toads I feel allied,
To frogs by kinship tied;
For water drinking is no joke,
Ere long you all will hear me croak
Quack water!
CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc.

May God our host requite;
May he turn Nazirite,
Ne'er know intoxication's thrill,
Nor e'er succeed his thirst to still
With water!
CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc."

Gabirol was a bold thinker, a great poet wrestling with the deepest
problems of human thought, and towering far above his contemporaries and
immediate successo