To the Spanish-Jewish writers poetry was an end in itself. Along with religious songs, perfect in rhythm and form, they produced lyrics on secular subjects, whose grace, beauty, harmony, and wealth of thought rank them with the finest creations of the age. The spirit of the prophets and psalmists revived in these Spanish poets. At their head stands Solomon ibn Gabirol, the Faust of Saragossa, whose poems are the first tinged with _Weltschmerz_, that peculiar ferment characteristic of a modern school of poets.[47] Our accounts of Gabirol's life are meagre, but they leave the clear impression that he was not a favorite of fortune, and passed a bleak childhood and youth. His poems are pervaded by vain longing for the ideal, by lamentations over deceived hopes and unfulfilled aspirations, by painful realization of the imperfection and perishability of all earthly things, and the insignificance and transitoriness of life, in a word, by _Weltschmerz_, in its purest, ideal form, not merely self-deception and irony turned against one's own soul life, but a profoundly solemn emotion, springing from sublime pity for the misery of the world read by the light of personal trials and sorrows. He sang not of a mistress' blue eyes, nor sighed forth melancholy love-notes--the object of his heart's desire was Zion, his muse the fair "rose of Sharon," and his anguish was for the suffering of his scattered people. Strong, wild words fitly express his tempestuous feelings. He is a proud, solitary thinker. Often his _Weltschmerz_ wrests scornful criticism of his surroundings from him. On the other hand, he does not lack mild, conciliatory humor, of which his famous drinking-song is a good illustration. His miserly host had put a single bottle of wine upon a table surrounded by many guests, who had to have recourse to water to quench their thirst. Wine he calls a septuagenarian, the letters of the Hebrew word for wine (_yayin_) representing seventy, and water a nonagenarian, because _mayim_ (water) represents ninety: WATER SONG Chorus:--Of wine, alas! there's not a drop, Our host has filled our goblets to the top With water. When monarch wine lies prone, By water overthrown, How can a merry song be sung? For naught there is to wet our tongue But water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. No sweetmeats can delight My dainty appetite, For I, alas! must learn to drink, However I may writhe and shrink, Pure water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc. Give Moses praise, for he Made waterless a sea-- Mine host to quench my thirst--the churl!-- Makes streams of clearest water purl, Of water. CHORUS:--Of wine, alas! etc.