18 REDEMPTION.
And yet, perchance, it is not known to thee,
What causes Israel's joy, to me is grief.
Two score and ten measure the narrow span
Of years to my brief life and full of woe.
No scion of our race smiles on my house ;
None calls me sire. Anne, my tender spouse,
Has ceased to be as other women are ;
And now no hope remains, but, barren as
We both have lived, so, barren, we shall die.
My substance yearly I divide ; one part
Devote t' our frugal wants, one to the poor,
The third to God. This Issachar despised,
And stern reproved Why dost thou, childless one,
Heav'n accurs'd, presume to blend thine off'rings
With the just? Know'st thou not 'tis writ Cursed
Is every one that beareth not ? Depart,
Thou sinful man. Thus openly reproach'd,
The scorn of all our tribe, esteem'd more vile
Than the unclean, a leper, whose foul spots,
Not Jordan's floods can heal, I fled the haunts
Of men, and sought with savage beasts to die.
From David's royal race Messias comes;
Of David's line by Nathan, I was born,
But born with fruitless loins, unworthy deem'd,
Israel's hope and long sought joy to share."
Complacently the angel lent his ear, Though conusant of all he heard relate; Then, after decent pause, thus courteously, With this epitropy began : " Thy aim Is just, Joachim, and approved ; who would Not emulate relation with the Lord ? The highest archangels near the throne, might well,
�� �
