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Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923], at sacred-texts.com


VIII.

Thou art the God of Gods, and the Lord of Lords,
Ruler of beings celestial and terrestrial,
For all creatures are Thy witnesses
And by the glory of this Thy name, every creature is bound to Thy service.
Thou art God, and all things formed are Thy servants and worshippers.
Yet is not Thy glory diminished by reason of those that worship aught beside Thee,
For the yearning of them all is to draw nigh Thee, p. 87
But they are like the blind,
Setting their faces forward on the King’s highway,
Yet still wandering from the path.
One sinketh into the well of a pit
And another falleth into a snare,
But all imagine they have reached their desire,
Albeit they have suffered in vain.
But Thy servants are as those walking clear-eyed in the straight path,
Turning neither to the right nor the left
Till they come to the court of the King’s palace.
Thou art God, by Thy Godhead sustaining all that hath been formed,
And upholding in Thy Unity all creatures.
Thou art God, and there is no distinction ’twixt Thy Godhead and Thy Unity, Thy pre-existence and Thy existence,
For ’tis all one mystery.
And although the name of each be different,
"Yet they are all proceeding to one place."


Next: IX.