Night, a poem by Rosa Emma Salaman (1846)

Contributor(s):

Aharon N. Varady (transcription) and Rosa Emma Salaman

Shared on:

2 August 2017 under the Creative Commons Zero (CC 0) Universal license a Public Domain dedication

Categories:

Maariv Aravim

Tags:

Darkness, night, 57th century A.M., British Jewry, Anglo Jewry, English Romanticism, Inner light, Prayers as poems, 19th century C.E.

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Contribute a translation	Source (English)
	NIGHT
	How exquisite is night! When bursting on the sight In all its brilliancy of starlight splendour; When with transparent face, Or shadowy silent pace, The moon glides by, and brightest stars attend her.
	Night is the time for thought, When all that’s great is brought, Is opened to the mental eye ecstatic; When all our noonday dreams Are melted by the beams Of the bright soul, no more in maze erratic.
	It is in this still hour, Religion has full pow’r, To raise the mind from earth, and earth’s dominion; The soul thro’ darkest night, Sees only realms of light, And there sits musing on her airy pinion.
	Night is the child’s relief, When all its little grief, Forgotten now, is hidden in sweet dreaming; When on the little cheek, So beauteous and so meek, The tears have dried, and joy once more is beaming.
	The bud we watched by day, The moon’s soft tender ray, Or starlight influence has combined to waken; For now, as if some spell Had oped the pearly bell, The gentle moaning wind a flower has shaken.
	This is the sober time, When thought and reason chime, When wonder is absorbed in adoration; When fancy’s visions fall, And God is all in all, ’Tis then we see the grandeur of creation.
	If morn’s most silver hour, If noon in richest dow’r, Can give unto the mind a heavenly blessing; Think you what pensive eve And holy midnight leave Upon the soul, when thought is worth possessing.
	But ‘tis not night or day, That bears more holy sway, Laden is every hour with richest treasure! And had we but the lore, To reap this hidden store, We night be wise and happy beyond measure.

The poem, “Night” by Rosa Emma Salaman, was first published in the Occident 3:11, Shebat 5606, February 1846.

Source

[gview file=”https://opensiddur.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Night-by-Rosa-Emma-Salaman-from-The-Occident-February-1846.pdf”]

“Night, a poem by Rosa Emma Salaman (1846)” is shared through the Open Siddur Project with a Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication 1.0 Universal license.

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.)

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.

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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