Happy the eye

This is one of a series of poems by different poets but with the same opening line, written to be recited on Yom Kippur after the Avodah service, in which the Temple service is described in detail. They describe the sensory delight of witnessing the visual beauty of the Temple service, contrasted with the present grief of only hearing about it. Here Judah ha-Levi focuses on the vestments of the High Priest, and, specifically, on the sins for which each element of clothing atones (see b. Yoma 88b). In the last stanza, he mentions two items of clothing in one line, and therefore, to keep the line of reasonable length, he omits the word “to atone,” but the meaning needs to be understood as in the previous stanzas: a robe to atone for the sin of a deceitful tongue, and a crown to atone for the sin of an impudent face.