Poem

Esther Raab

Side by side

Thus you will love me

Thus will you love me
and day after day rend your heart for me –
for I will never
be your beloved;
since only on heights-of-sorrow
do we rest
and we will not descend
to the baseness of couches in rooms;
for I lie in wait still
beneath the warm eucalyptus trees –
crazed with love.

1926

© Translation: 2002, Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
From: Thistles: Selected Poems of Esther Raab. Translated by Harold Schimmel
Publisher: Ibis, Jerusalem, 2002

Thus you will love me

Esther Raab

(Ottoman Palestine, 1894 - 1981)

Esther Raab is often touted as Israel’s first native-born woman poet, with the accent on her being native-born. That is, the fact that she was born in Ottoman-ruled Palestine, 52 years before the founding of the state of Israel, and her attention to the landscape, are seen as her defining features. She is celebrated as a nature poet, said to be reflecting the Land of Israel as the new Jewish co...

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Poems of Esther Raab

Thus you will love me

© 2002, Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
From: Thistles: Selected Poems of Esther Raab. Translated by Harold Schimmel
Publisher: 2002, Ibis, Jerusalem

Thus you will love me

© 2002, Institute for the Translation of Hebrew Literature
From: Thistles: Selected Poems of Esther Raab. Translated by Harold Schimmel
Publisher: 2002, Ibis, Jerusalem