Ben-Oni (Son of Sorrow)
I do not lift my supplicating hands,
O King, O Lord, O Father, yon on high,
To You whose throne dwells in the starry lands,
I neither plead nor yet Your might defy.
I do not ask of You to end my woeful bane,
To guide my steps, to aid me to return
To the distant shrine for which I long in vain,
Where the Star of Zion ne’er again shall burn.
For the Rose of Sharon I no longer pine;
Nor for the fruits from a sloping Jordan hill,
Its milk and honey I gladly will decline,
Its pleasant days, and nights so cool and still.
My plaintive prayer is free from all regret,
For wasted joys and sweetness spent in vain,
If but for once in life I could forget
The bitter drops of my fellow-men’s disdain.
Translated by Roderick A. Ginsburg.
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Credits
Siegfried Kapper, "Ben-Oni (Son of Sorrow)," trans. Roderick A. Ginsburg, from In Search of Freedom, ed. Guido Kisch (London: E. Goldston, 1949), p. 208. Used with permission of the translator's estate.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 6.
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