Kol Nidra

LO! above the mournful chanting, Rise the fuller-sounded wailings Of the soul’s most solemn anthem. Hark! the strains of deep Kol Nidra— Saddest music ever mortal Taught his lips to hymn or sound! Not the heart of one lone mortal Told his anguish in that strain; All the sorrow, pain, and struggles Of a people in despair, Gathered from the vale of weeping, Through the ages of distress. ’T is a mighty cry of beings Held in bondage and affliction; All the wailing and lamenting Of a homeless people, roaming O’er the plains and scattered hamlets Of a world without a refuge, All the sorrows, trials, bereavements,— Loss of country, home, and people,— In one mighty strain uniting, Chant for every age its wail; Make the suffering years reëcho With the wounds and pains of yore; Give a voice to every martyr Ever hushed to death by pain, Every smothered shriek of daughter Burned upon the fagot’s bier; Bring the wander-years and exile, Persecution’s harsh assailment, Ghetto misery and hounding, To the ears of men to-day; Link the dark and dreary ages With the brighter future’s glow; Weave the past and hopeful present; Bind the living with the sleeping, Dust unto the dust confessing, Even with the dead uniting, When the soul would join with God. Slowly creep the muffled murmurs. As the leaves and flowers, conspiring, Steal a breeze from summer’s chamber, Hum and mumble as they stroke it, Smooth, caress, and gently coy it, So this murmur spreads the voices Of the praying synagogue, As each lip repeats the sinning Of his selfish, godless living, By each mutter low recounting Every single sin and crime— How he falsified his neighbor, Made a stumbling-block for blindness, Cursed the deaf, unstaid the cripple, Played his son and daughter wrong, Tattled of his wife’s behavior, Made his father’s age a load, Spoke belittling of his mother, Took advantage of the stupid, Made the hungry buy their bread, Turned the needy from his threshold, Clothed the naked with his bareness, Shut the stranger from his fold, Never begged forgiveness, pardon, For a wrong aimed at a foe, Never weighed the love or mercy Of the Father of the world. Low the lips are now repenting; Every mutter is a sob Ebbing from the font of being; Conscience speaks in lowest accents, Lest the voice cry out to men. Who has ever heard Kol Nidra Gushing from the breast of man, Rising, falling, as the ocean Lifts the waves in joy or fear. From Time’s ocean has it risen; Every age has lent a murmur, Every cycle built a wail; Every sorrow ever dwelling In the tortured heart of man, Tears and sighs together swelling, Answer for the pangs of ages. ’T is the voice of countless pilgrims, Sons of Jacob, with a cry, Moaning, sighing, grieving, wailing, Answering in thousand voices Fate and destiny of man, Winning soul a consolation For their sad allotment’s creed; Wander-song of homeless traveller, Outcast from the ranks of men; Echoes from the throes of mortals, Questioning the ways of God; Song hummed by the lonely desert, Prompted by the heart of night, Lisped across the sandy borders By the desert’s trailing wind; Hymn of midnight and the silence, Song the friendless stars intone, Sung whene’er the tempest hurtles, Bruits destruction to the world; Song of every song of sorrow, Wail for every grief and woe, World affliction, world lamenting; Sorrow of the lonely desert; Sadness of a homeless people; Anguish of a chided mortal, Hounded, tracked, oppressed, and beaten, Made the scourge of God on earth; Outcry of a sinful bosom Warring with his guilt and wrong. ’T is a saintly aspiration Of a holy soul in prayer; ’T is the music hummed by mercy, When the heart is touched by love. ’T is the welding of all mercy, Love, forgiveness, in a union, Sweeping o’er the span of ages, Flooding earth with one majestic, Universal hymn of woe, As if God had willed his children Weep in but one human strain. Who can hear this strange Kol Nidra Without dropping in the spell? Lift the vestige of the present, Link the momentary fleeting Of the evening with the past; Dwell a spirit in the ages, Living in the heart of time: Lose the sense of outer worlds, Soul alone in endless time, Breathing but the breath of ages.