“Hast thou, O Zion, forsaken thy captive children? Hearest thou not the heartfelt greetings thy flock sendeth thee from the end of the earth? They look to thee with longing hearts, and from year to year they shed their tears on thy beautiful hills and mountains. Had I but wings I would fly to thy ruins, that my head might touch thy sacred ground, and my feet rest on the holy tombs of my fathers. In thy fragrant air I should breathe the breath of life, and inhale the perfume of thy dust, and eagerly I should drink the sweet waters of thy streams. O Zion, crown of beauty, towards thee are bent the hearts of thy lovers; they rejoice in thy joy, and weep with thee in the days of thine affliction. Towards thy gates they pour forth their fervent prayers, and long for the shade of thy palm-trees. Oh thrice happy mortal, who shall live to see the dawn of thy renewed glory, and be present when thou wilt shine again in splendour and beauty as in the days of thy youth.” Jehuda Halevi has also written a considerable number of secular poems and songs, having love, friendship, and the joys of life for their theme. Some of them are light and humorous, as the following lines will show:— A Fancy^[63-1]. I once nursed Love upon my knee, I saw his likeness in my eye, He kissed the lid so tenderly, 'Twas himself he kissed, the rogue, not me. A Serenade. Awake, O my dear one, from slumber arise, The sight of thy face will give ease to my pain. If thou dreamest of one that is kissing thine eyes, Awake, and the dream I full soon shall explain^[63-2]. On a Rain Cloud^[63-3]. Without an eye it weeps, and we Do laugh with joy its kiss to see, But when its eyeless face is dry, 'Tis then our turn to weep and sigh. The last of the famous quartette of Spanish Hebrew poets living in the Middle Ages, exclusive of the famous Moses Ibn Ezra, was Jehuda ben Shelomoh Alcharizi. He flourished in Spain in the first half of the thirteenth century, and was famous in his day not only as a linguist and philosopher, but even more so as a master of sparkling rhymed prose and verse. His reputation rests chiefly on his charming book entitled _Tachkemoni_, which consists of fifty chapters, having for their model the peculiar form of the so-called Makāma, which the author has adopted from his favourite Arabic poet, Al Hariri. Alcharizi and his _Tachkemoni_ have in modern times been exhaustively criticized, so that there is very little left to be said about him. A specimen of his humour may, however, be aptly given here; it is an extract from the sixth Makāma of the _Tachkemoni_, which is called “The Unlucky Marriage.”