THE QUEST OF THE FATHERS

        [By James Whitcomb Riley]

What were our Forefathers trying to find

    When they weighed anchor, that desperate hour

They turned from home, and the warning wind

    Sighed in the sails of the old Mayflower ?

What sought they that could compensate

    Their hearts for the loved ones left behind —

The household group at the glowing grate ? —

    What were our Forefathers trying to find ? 

What were they trying to find more dear

    Than their native land and its annals old, —

Its throne — its church — and its worldly cheer —

    Its princely state, and its hoarded gold ?

What more dear than the mounds of green

    There o'er the brave sires, slumbering long ?

What more fair than the rural scene —

    What more sweet than the throstle's song?

Faces pallid, but sternly set,

    Lips locked close, as in voiceless prayer,

And eyes with never a. teardrop wet —

    Even the tenderest woman's there !

But O the light from the soul within,

    As each spake each with a flashing mind —

As the lightning speaks to its kith and kin !

    What were our Forefathers trying to find ?

Argonauts of a godless day —

    Seers of visions, and dreamers vain !

Their ship's foot set in a pathless way, —

    The fogs, the mists, and the blinding rain I —

When the gleam of sun, and moon and star

    Seemed lost so long they were half forgot —

When the fixed eyes found nor near nor far,

    And the night whelmed all, and the world was not.

And yet, befriended in some strange wise,

    They groped their way in the storm and stress

Through which — though their look found not the skies —

    The Lord's look found them ne'ertheless —

Found them, yea, in their piteous lot,

    As they in their faith from the first divined —

Found them, and favored them — too. But what —

    What were our Forefathers trying to find ?

Numb and agasp, with the frost for breath,

    They came on a frozen shore, at last,

As bleak and drear as the coasts of death, —

    And yet their psalm o'er the wintry blast

Rang glad as though 'twere the chiming mirth

    Of jubilant children landing there —

Until o'er all of the icy earth

    The snows seemed warm, as they knelt in prayer.

For, lo ! they were close on the trail they sought : —

    In the sacred soil of the rights of men

They marked where the Master-hand had wrought ;

    And there they garnered and sowed again. —

Their land — then ours, as to-day it is,

    With its flag of heaven's own light designed,

And God's vast love o'er all. . . . And this

    Is what our Forefathers were trying to find.

Abraham Ibn Ezra

Scholar and writer; born 1092-1093; died Jan. 28 (according to Rosin, Reime und Gedichte, p. 82, n. 6, 1167 (see his application of Gen.xii. 4 to himself). His father's name was Meïr and his family was probably a branch of the Ibn Ezra family to which Moses ibn Ezra belonged. Moses in his poems mentions Abraham by his Arabic name, Abu Isḥaḳ (Ibrahim) ibn al-Majid ibn Ezra (Steinschneider, "Cat. Bodl." col. 1801), together with Judah ha-Levi. Both were, according to Moses, from Toledo, and afterward settled in Cordova. Ibn Ezra himself once—in an acrostic—names Toledo as his native place ("Monatsschrift," xlii. 19) and at another time Cordova (beginning of the Ḥayyuj translation). According to Albrecht ("Studien zu den Dichtungen Abraham ben Ezra," in "Z. D. M. G." l.c. p. 422), it is certain that he was born in Toledo. Through his emigration from Spain his life was divided into two periods. In the first and longer of these, which extended almost to the year 1140, he won for himself in his native land a name as a poet and thinker. Moses ibn Ezra, who was an intimate friend of his, extols him as a religious philosopher ("mutakallim") and as a man of great eloquence; and a younger contemporary, Abraham ibn Daud, at the end of his history ("Sefer ha-Ḳabbalah," ed. Neubauer, p. 81), calls him the last of the great men who formed the pride of Spanish Judaism and who "strengthened the hands of Israel with songs and with words of comfort." In this first period of his life Ibn Ezra's creative activity was chiefly occupied with poetry; and the greater number of his religious and other poems were probably produced during that time. He likes to call himself "the poet" ("ha-shar," introduction to Pentateuch commentary) or "father of poems" (end of the versified calendar regulations); and in a long poem of lamentation (Rosin, "Reime und Gedichte des Abraham ibn Ezra," p. 88) he says: "Once in my youth I used to compose songs with which I decorated the Hebrew scholars as with a necklace." The fact, however, that Ibn Ezra had pursued serious studies in all branches of knowledge during his life in Spain, is shown by the writings of the second period of his life. The wealth and variety of their contents can be explained only by the compass and many-sidedness of his earlier studies.

The most prominent scholars among the Jews of Spain were Ibn Ezra's personal friends: in Cordova itself, which was his permanent residence, Joseph ibn Ẓaddiḳ and especially Judah ha-Levi. The latter was only a few years older than Ibn Ezra; and on one occasion addressed a very witty saying to Ibn Ezra's father-in-law (see Geiger, "Nachgelassene Schriften," iv. 332). In his Bible commentary Ibn Ezra afterward reported many text interpretations from his talks with Judah ha-Levi (see Bacher, "Die Bibelexegese der Jüdischen Religionsphilosophen," etc., pp. 132 et seq.). That he associated and debated with the representatives of Karaism, which was so widely spread in Spain in his time, and that he was well acquainted with their literature, is shown by many passages in his commentary on the Bible.

[ From : The unedited full-text of the 1906 Jewish Encyclopedia]

And below you can see the type of thoughtline he espouses -

In the third part, Ibn Ezra explains how the Song of Solomon depicts the whole history of Israel, from the days of Abraham to those of the Messiah : the trials of Abraham, the exile of the Israelites in Egypt, their deliverance, the giving of the Law on Sinai, the conquest of Canaan, the building of the Temple, the secession of the Ten Tribes, the Babylonian exile, the return of the captives from Babylon to Palestine, the oppression of the Jews by the Syrians, the successes of the Maccabees, the Roman exile, and the future Restoration.

[ From: Essays on the writings of Abraham Ibn Ezra, 1877]