International Holocaust Remembrance Day

I Believe

Shaul Tchernichovsky

Rejoice, rejoice now in the dreams
I the dreamer am he who speaks
Rejoice, for I’ll have faith in mankind
For in mankind I believe.

For my soul still yearns for freedom
I’ve not sold it to a calf of gold
For I shall yet have faith in mankind
In its spirit great and bold

That will cast off binding chains
Raise us up, hold high our heads
Workers will not die of hunger
For souls – release, for poor folk – bread.

Rejoice for I have faith in friendship
I’ll find a heart – in this I’ve faith –
A heart that shares in all my hopes,
A heart that feels both joy and pain.

And I shall keep faith in the future,
Though the day be yet unseen
Surely it will come when nations
All live in blessed peace.

Then my people too will flourish
And a generation shall arise
In the land, shake off its chains
And see light in every eye.

It shall live, love, accomplish, labor
In the land it is alive
Not in the future, not in heaven –
And its spirit shall henceforth thrive.

A poet shall sing a new anthem,
His heart aware of beauty sublime
For him, that young man, above my tomb
Blossoms in a wreath shall twine.

Written in Odessa in 1892. Translated from Hebrew by Vivian Eden.