There is nothing mournful in Halevi’s poetry. In his early youth he sang of wine and of the gazelle-like eyes of his beloved, of her rosy lips, of her raven hair, and of her unfaithfulness. In his manhood he studied the Talmud, natural science, and metaphysics. He also, like many other Jewish writers, practised medicine; not with conspicuous success, as he naïvely confesses in a letter to a friend: “I occupy myself in the hours which belong neither to the day nor to the night with the vanity of medical science, although I am unable to heal.” Halevi’s heart remained wholly devoted to poetry, and his masterpiece is the _Songs of Zion_, wherein he pours forth all that deep veneration for the past and that ardent belief in the future glory of Israel, which have inspired Jewish genius through the ages. Jehuda voices the national sentiment in the following touching lines: “O City of the world, beauteous in proud splendour, From the far West, behold me solicitous on thy behalf! Oh that I had eagle’s wings, that I might fly to thee, Till I wet thy dust with my flowing tears! My heart is in the East, Whilst I tarry in the West. How may I be joyous, Or where find my pleasure? How fulfil my vow, O Zion! when I am in the power of Edom, And bend beneath Arabia’s yoke? Truly Spain’s welfare concerns me not; Let me but behold thy precious dust, And gaze upon the spot where once the Temple stood.” Nor was the longing a mere matter of sentiment. Jehuda was earnestly convinced that Israel could not have a national existence outside the Holy Land. He urged his people to quit the fields of Edom and to seek its native home in Zion. But the cry aroused no echo. The Jews of Spain, allowed to enjoy the comforts and luxuries of existence, felt no desire to exchange the real for a wild chase after the ideal. The poet, however, proved his own sincerity by undertaking a weary pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Leaving his peaceful home, his only daughter, his friends, his pupils, and his studies, he set out on his adventurous journey, accompanied by the good wishes and praises of numerous admirers through Spain. The long and stormy voyage and the hardships thereof did not quench the poet’s enthusiasm for the Holy Land: “The sea rages, my soul rejoices; It draws near the Temple of its God!” At Alexandria, Halevi was met by a crowd of Jews to whom his name was known and dear. They entertained him sumptuously, but could not prevail upon him to relinquish his aim. Once more Halevi resisted the seductions of safety and comfort and set out for Jerusalem, which he found in the possession of unsympathetic Christian princes and bishops. His sentiments of disillusion and sorrow are commemorated in the lines: