The Body Speaking to the Soul Which Just Left It, a poem by Rosa Emma Salaman (1842)

Contributor(s): Rosa Emma Salaman and Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Shared on: 6 August 2017 under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) 4.0 International copyleft license

Categories: Mourning

Tags: 19th century C.E., 57th century A.M., Anglo Jewry, British Jewry, English Romanticism, Grief, mourning, Prayers as poems, sleep

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	The Body Speaking to the Soul Which Just Left It
	How exquisite and shadowy thou art, Departed soul! And ‘tis for this we part; Thou wert too beautiful to dwell within This earthly form, or be defiled by sin.
	I soon shall fade away, now thou art fled, For they will come and lay me with the dead; But if they call this death, why long before, Wert thou not summon’d to that blissful shore?
	Angels were waiting to encircle thee Within their arms of pure transparency; Thy robe of love, woven with sunny beams, Clings round thee as a veil; and now it seem As if it shed a ling’ring, parting ray, Before it enters everlasting day.
	Beautiful soul! Dost thou not wonder why Thou couldst have borne so long this earthly tie? Which kept thee struggling, panting to be free, Hidden awhile from thine eternity?
	And yet not hidden quite; for thro’ these eyes How often didst thou shine, as if the skies Were open to thy view; and not the less Were they the home of all thy tenderness.
	Nay, stay not, look not, on this fading clay, For unto dust I shall return this day; Dust must return unto its native earth, The spirit flies to Him who gave it birth.
	Depart, fly hence, bright spiritual thing, No longer prisoner; tho’ thine asure wing Still flutters round the frail abode, to take One farewell look of pity, for the sake Of long companionship with me endured. No wonder then that thou wert so allured By all that met thy gaze of soul and mind, By converse intellectual—refined;
	No wonder, if in me thou wert so pained,— This pallid cheek with tears so often stained! Because thy essence could not mingle here With earthly thoughts and wishes—cold and drear;
	But spirit-like, and on immortal wing, Translucent as a stay, didst fly and sing; Whilst I, alone, abstractedly did sit Waiting my soul’s return; till then unfit For mortal commune; for these lips were mute,— And I, of thee bereft, felt destitute.
	Thou wert my inward melody, my muse, And into this cold heart didst once infuse The warmth, which made it feel while here below, Such holy rapture spirits only know.
	Farewell! They bear me hence unto the grave, They would not mourn, could they, like me, but have One moment’s glimpse of my departed soul, To mark its blessedness; no bell would toll For me, the casket, while the pearl is borne On golden clouds at eve and blush of morn.
	Then fly, fly up,—seraphs are calling thee; Their liquid voices blend in harmony; Lie gently down upon that last rich tone, ’Twill bear thee onward to the heavenly throne, Where, thro’ that blue ethereal space above Thou seest the light of never-ending love.

The poem, “The Body Speaking to the Soul Which Just Left It.” by Rosa Emma Salaman, was written in March 1842 and first published in the Occident and American Jewish Advocate 2:4, Tamuz 5604, July 1844, p. 200-202. I have added lines separating the poem into a number of stanzas. –Aharon N. Varady

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“The Body Speaking to the Soul Which Just Left It, a poem by Rosa Emma Salaman (1842)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International copyleft license.

Rosa Emma Salaman

Rosa Emma Collins née Salaman (1815-1898), was a poet and translator of Hebrew and German. Poems, published in 1853, was reportedly the only book accepted by Queen Victoria in the year of mourning following Prince Albert's death in 1861. In the United States, her poetry appeared in Isaac Leeser's Occident and American Jewish Advocate. The daughter of Simeon Kensington Salaman (b.1789) and Alice Cowan, Rosa Emma was one of fourteen siblings in a large and literary Jewish family in London, part of the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community. Two sisters, Kate Salaman and Julia Goodman, were painters -- the former of miniatures and the latter, a prolific portraitist. Her brother, Charles Kensington Salaman, was a British composer and pianist. Her husband, Judah Julius Collins, was a warden of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue in London's West End, and purported to be a descendant of the Baal Shem of London. Their son, Edwin Collins, was a Jewish educator.

Aharon N. Varady (transcription)

Aharon Varady (M.A.J.Ed./JTSA Davidson) is a volunteer transcriber for the Open Siddur Project. If you find any mistakes in his transcriptions, please let him know. Shgiyot mi yavin; Ministarot naqeni שְׁגִיאוֹת מִי־יָבִין; מִנִּסְתָּרוֹת נַקֵּנִי "Who can know all one's flaws? From hidden errors, correct me" (Psalms 19:13). If you'd like to directly support his work, please consider donating via his Patreon account. (Varady also translates prayers and contributes his own original work besides serving as the primary shammes of the Open Siddur Project and its website, opensiddur.org.)

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ויהי נעם אדני אלהינו עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננה עלינו ומעשה ידינו כוננהו "May the pleasantness of אדֹני our elo’ah be upon us; may our handiwork be established for us — our handiwork, may it be established." –Psalms 90:17

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