Throughout its whole range modern Hebrew literature can offer no poem to rival in popularity Imber’s song. Naphtali Herz Imber was born in 1856, and wrote _Ha-Tikwah_ in his youth in one of his many moods. His disposition was wayward; he had a full share of the artistic self-consciousness. Some of his characteristics are accurately hit off in Melchitsedek Pinchas of Mr. Zangwill’s _Children of the Ghetto_. _Ha-Tikwah_ owes its fame to the directness of its sentiment. What makes for weakness in it as a poem makes for strength in it as a song. The most effective national hymns are not usually the most poetical. “God save the King” is doggerel; “Rule Britannia” is bombast. But both put patriotic thoughts in straightforward terms, both are happily wedded to simple tunes within the range of average voices. _Ha-Tikwah_ satisfies both these tests. The melody is beautiful and easily sung by large masses of people. The opening line of Imber’s refrain: “Our hope has not perished yet” is certainly derived from the National Song, “Poland has not perished yet,” to which the Polish legions marched. So the melody of _Ha-Tikwah_ is said to be a Polish folk-tune, but it closely resembles a favorite melody of the Sephardim. Various settings of the tune differ in detail, and the same is true of the current versions of Imber’s words. It is strange that the versions--all known to me--retain unanimously the ungrammatical second stanza. It would, I admit, be difficult to correct it without destroying the rhythm, and poetical license has worse things to answer for. Indeed the grammatical lapse, to which I refer, is regarded by some authorities as perfectly normal and admissible in the new Hebrew.