A creature of his surroundings, and a disciple of the Rabbis, as he was,
the dialectics of a logician were in him joined to native simplicity of
spirit, yet he never reached the point of understanding the inner world
of struggles and passions that agitate the individual lives of men. For
a love song or a poem in praise of nature, he thought it necessary only
to copy the German authors and link together a series of pointed verses.
The poem "David and Bath-sheba" is a failure. His descriptions of nature
are dry and artificial. He was never able to account for what was
happening under his eyes and around him. Events produced an effect upon
him out of all proportion to their importance. The military and civic
reforms of Nicholas I, he celebrated in an ode, in which he applied the
enthusiastic praise "Henceforth Israel will see only good!" to
regulations that were wholly prejudicial to Jewish interests. When some
Jewish banker or other was appointed consul-general in the Orient, he
welcomed the occurrence in dithyrambic verses, dedicated to the poor
fellow in the name of the Jews of Lithuania and White Russia. But
whenever the heart of our poet beats in unison with the sentiments of
his Jewish brethren, whenever he surrenders himself to the sadness, the
peculiar melancholy, that pervades Jewish relations, then he attains to
moral heights and lyric vigor unsurpassed. In his three volumes of
poetry, by the side of numerous worthless pieces, we meet many gems of
style and thought. The distressed cry of humanity against the
wretchedness under which it staggers, the sorrowful protest man makes
against the lack of compassion he encounters in his fellow, his
obstinate refusal to understand the implacable cruelty of nature when
she snatches his dearest from him, and his impotence in the presence of
death--these are the subjects that have inspired Lebensohn's best
efforts. He insists constantly, Is not pity the daughter of heaven? Do
we not find her among beasts even, and among reptiles? Man alone is a