Few poets have been so popular in Russia as Michel Gordon and S. Berenstein were in the past generation, the first singing in the Lithuanian variety of the language, the second in a southern dialect. Both published their collections in Zhitomir in 1869, and Gordon wrote an introductory poem for the book of his friend Berenstein. In this he indicates the marked contrast that exists in the productions of the two. While the first writes to chide superstition and ignorance, the other sings out of pity for his suffering race; while the one sounds the battle-cry of progress, the other consoles his brothers in their misery; the one, fearing prosecution from the fanatic Khassidim whom he attacks, sent his poems out into the world anonymously, the other signed his name to them. And yet, however unlike in form and content, they were both pervaded by a warm love for their people whom they were trying to succor, each one in his own way. Gordon's[52] poems are of a militant order:[53] he is not satisfied with indicating the right road to culture, he also sounds the battle-cry of advance. The keynote is struck in his famous 'Arise, my People!' 'Arise, my people, you have slept long enough! Arise, and open your eyes! Why has such a misfortune befallen you alone, that you are asleep until the midday hour? The sun has now long been out upon the world; he has put all men upon their feet, but you alone lie crouching and bent and keep your eyes tightly closed.' In this poem he preaches to his race that they should assimilate themselves in manners and culture to the ruling people, that they should abandon their old-fashioned garments and distinguishing characteristics of long beard and forelock, and that they should exchange even the language in which he sings to them for the literary language of the country. Assimilation was the cry of all the earnest men among the Russian Jews before the eighties, when the course of events put a damper on the sanguine expectations from such a procedure. Many of his other poems are of a humorous nature and have been enormously popular. In 'The Beard,' a woman laments the loss of that hirsute appendage of her husband, who, by shaving it off, had come to look like a despised 'German.' 'The Turnip Soup' and 'I Cannot Understand' are excellent pictures of the ignorance and superstitious awe of the Khassidim before their equally ignorant and hypocritical Rabbis; other poems deal with the stupidity of the teachers of children, and the undue use of spirituous drinks on all occasions of life.