In these poetic trifles, it delighted him to display his skill in overcoming the difficulties of elaborate and involved meters. Very often he concluded a poem with an Arabic or a Castilian verse. One recognizes in the words and the structure the great master who had the power of presenting a complete picture by a few bold strokes of the pen. His delineations of nature may be placed side by side with the best poetical productions of all languages. We see the flowers bursting forth and blooming; we inhale in deep draughts the balm with which his verse is impregnated. The boughs bend beneath the burden of their golden fruit; we hear the songsters of the air pouring forth their sweet strains of love; he paints sunshine and the pure air with a masterly hand. When he is describing the turbulence of a tempest-tossed sea, he communicates to the reader all the emotions of sublimity and anxiety which he himself felt. But in all this the working of his great soul is not revealed; it was, in a measure, only the tribute which he paid to its human part and to the fashion of the time. Not even his religious poems, which in number were not exceeded by those of his older fellow-poet, Moses Ibn-Ezra, for they amount to three hundred, but which in depth, heartfelt fervor and polish, surpass his as well as those of other predecessors, disclose the true greatness of his poetical genius. The importance of Jehuda Halevi as a poet lies in those poems that breathe a national-religious spirit. In these his ideas burst from the depths of his heart, his whole being rises upwards in ecstasy, and when he sings of Zion and its past and future glory, when he veils his head in mourning over its present slavery, we find the true spirit of his poetry, nothing artificial or simulated, but all pervaded by strong feeling. In all neo-Hebraic poetry Jehuda Halevi's songs of Zion may best be compared with the Psalms. When he is breathing forth his laments for Zion's widowhood, or dreaming of her future splendor, and depicts how she will again be united to her God and her children, we fancy that we are listening to one of the sons of Korah. The muse of Jehuda Halevi, in her maturity, had a lofty purpose; it was to sing of Israel, his God and the sanctuary, his past and his future, and to lament his humiliation. He was a national poet, and hence it is that his songs seize upon the reader with irresistible force. The complaints of Ibn-Gebirol about his own deserted condition can arouse only faint interest; the sufferings of Moses Ibn-Ezra on account of his unfortunate love leave us unaffected; but the affliction of Jehuda Halevi on account of his dearly beloved Zion cannot fail to move every susceptible heart.