{"collection":"Judaism","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/jud/sig/sig88.htm","path":"jud/sig/sig88.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/jud/sig/sig88.htm","text":"Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923]\nUnworthy am I of all the mercies and all the truth\n Which Thou hast wrought for Thy servant.\n Verily, O Lord my God, will I thank Thee\n For that Thou hast given me a holy soul,\n Though by my deeds I have defiled it,\n Polluted and profaned it with my evil inclination.\n But I know that if I wrought wickedly,\n I harmed but myself, never Thee.\n In sooth, at my right hand my fierce inclination\n As an adversary standeth,\n Allowing me no breathing-space to establish my tranquillity.\n Oft have I purposed with double bridle to lead him,\n From the sea of his lusts to dry land to restore him,\n But I could not prevail.\n My devices he baulked, made profanities flow from my lips.\n I think thoughts of simplicity, he fabricates guile and iniquity,\n I am for peace, and he is for war,\n To the point that he made me his footstool,\n And even in peace-time shed the blood of war.\n How oft have I sallied forth to combat against him,\n And set in battle-array\n My camp of service and repentance,\n And placed the host of Thy mercies beside me for auxiliary, p. 114\n For I said, if my evil inclination\n Shall come to one camp and shall smite it,\n Then the camp that is left shall escape.\n As I thought, so it was.\n For temptation has routed me and scattered my forces,\n So that there is nothing left me but the camp of Thy mercies.\n But yet I know that by these I shall overcome it,\n And they shall be unto me better than a city of refuge.\n Peradventure I shall prevail and smite it and drive it away.","title":"Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol: 50. The ...","type":"page"}