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While Man Explores With Curious Eye, a hymn on “Self-Knowledge” by Penina Moïse (Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim 1842)

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While man explores, with curious eye,
The works of nature and of art,
He passeth real wisdom by,
Nor cares to read the human heart.
A stranger to himself alone,
He walketh forth in worldly guise;
Nor wouldst thou in his lofty tone
The child of frailty recognize.
Yet pause, oh! man in thy career,
And search the chambers of thy soul;
For passions dark and deep are there.
That spurn at reason’s weak control.
A thirst for blood, for gold, for fame.
Pollutes thee, yet thou know’st it not;
Because it borrows glory’s name,
And sheds false lustre on thy lot.
Seek piety—self-knowledge seek,
Their guidance ask to virtue’s road;[1] The rhyme scheme here seems to suggest “virtue’s rod.” A casual survey of “virtue’s road” in 18th and 19th century hymnals finds the phrase to be a familiar by-lane. 
On thee will heaven’s light then break,
And them wilt know and bless thy God,

“While man explores, with curious eye,” by Penina Moïse, published in 1842, appears under the subject “Self-Knowledge” as Hymn 23 in Hymns Written for the Service of the Hebrew Congregation Beth Elohim, South Carolina (Penina Moïse et al., Ḳ.Ḳ. Beth Elohim, 1842), p. 27. –Aharon Varady

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Notes

Notes
1 The rhyme scheme here seems to suggest “virtue’s rod.” A casual survey of “virtue’s road” in 18th and 19th century hymnals finds the phrase to be a familiar by-lane.

 

 

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