Jewish soul. Poets, indeed, arose after Jehuda Halevi in Germany as in Spain. Sometimes, as in the hymns of the “German” Meir of Rothenburg, a high level of passionate piety is reached. But it has well been said that “the hymns of the Spanish writers link man’s soul to his Maker: the hymns of the Germans link Israel to his God.” Only in Spain Hebrew poetry was universal, in the sense in which the Psalms are universal. Even in Spain itself, the death of Jehuda Halevi marked the close of this higher inspiration. The later Spanish poets, Charizi and Zabara (middle and end of the twelfth century), were satirists rather than poets, witty, sparkling, ready with quaint quips, but local and imitative in manner and subject. Zabara must receive some further notice in a later chapter because of his connection with medieval folk-lore. Of Charizi’s chief work, the Tachkemoni, it may be said that it is excellent of its type. The stories which it tells in unmetrical
