Abraham Samuel Schwartz (1876-1957) spent the majority of his life as a medical doctor with a busy practice in the Jewish neighborhoods of Brooklyn, until retiring at the age of 77. He was the elder brother of Israel Jacob Schwartz, the Yiddish modernist poet and translator (author, incidentally, of קענטאָקי Kentucky, a Yiddish epic about the adaptation of Lithuanian Jews to life in rural America. You can download it in Yiddish here.)
He was born outside Vilnius, in Lithuania. His father was a learned Hebrew scholar, and Schwartz himself quickly excelled in Talmudic studies. He broke with tradition when he discovered secular literature, first in Yiddish and Hebrew, then in Russian. He arrived in New York at the age of 24 (followed by his brother four years later) with the hope of making his living with literary work, but soon found this impossible. He obtained a medical degree, and thereafter began his practice. He continued to write poetry during spare moments of respite from tending the ill.
His style, however, was out of step with the dominant trends of Hebrew verse outside the US. The fact that, like most American Hebrew poets of the period, he never abandoned his Ashkenazi Hebrew dialect in verse, was a major strike against him. The fact that he stood quite apart from dominant trends of Hebrew modernism also sealed the fate of his reception.
Schwartz's work, rejected by publishers never saw the light of day in his lifetime. Two years after his death, it took the combined sympathies and effort of Zalman Shazar and Simon Halkin to see a single (and thus far the only) volume of his work to publication in Israel.
Aspects of sound-play relying on Ashkenazic Hebrew can be found in the poem translated here. For example, חולים sick and חולם dreaming may sound somewhat similar in Israeli Hebrew but they are more so in Ashkenazic, and in some registers and dialects of Ashkenazic they are identical. Schwartz himself may have pronounced both identically.
Among the Sick
By Abraham Samuel Schwartz
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Again today I walk among the sick. In pain
Susie again lies thin and delicate,
A childlike charm to her emaciated face.
But her white blood cells seal her fate.
It cheers me up to see a smile on Leah's lips
She has been out with fever all week long.
Her heart disease is chronic and uncurable.
But if she takes some care, she might live long.
Spiegel. Age seventy. Prognosis good. He's stopped
Vomiting blood. He's got his appetite.
The stomach growths have proven non-malignant ulcers
Which medicine successfully can fight.
I pause with Schnur, a deep-eyed kid who dreams of light,
For all the blood occlusion in his heart.
He asks me "Hey doc shouldn't I be up already?"
I lie "A little while and then you'll start."
Sometimes I stop and hear a sudden repressed thought
Taunting me in my gut with whispers: "this
Whole world you see hangs by a hair above
The screaming yawn of an abyss.
You're like a man divining fate of hidden worlds
Aflutter in between deep hope and dread.
You weigh with a physician's balance: life or death.
You're day-full, tired of lives swept dead.
You're glad when you can manage just to paste together
Some scattered fragments of the human urn,
To hold a few more drops of stolen life before
Fate's mysteries shatter it in turn?
What of your own heart's pain, your tear for that
Dreamer of light when light departs his eye,
And for the charming girl about to be worm fodder,
Were all of humankind about to die?"
The Original:
He was born outside Vilnius, in Lithuania. His father was a learned Hebrew scholar, and Schwartz himself quickly excelled in Talmudic studies. He broke with tradition when he discovered secular literature, first in Yiddish and Hebrew, then in Russian. He arrived in New York at the age of 24 (followed by his brother four years later) with the hope of making his living with literary work, but soon found this impossible. He obtained a medical degree, and thereafter began his practice. He continued to write poetry during spare moments of respite from tending the ill.
His style, however, was out of step with the dominant trends of Hebrew verse outside the US. The fact that, like most American Hebrew poets of the period, he never abandoned his Ashkenazi Hebrew dialect in verse, was a major strike against him. The fact that he stood quite apart from dominant trends of Hebrew modernism also sealed the fate of his reception.
Schwartz's work, rejected by publishers never saw the light of day in his lifetime. Two years after his death, it took the combined sympathies and effort of Zalman Shazar and Simon Halkin to see a single (and thus far the only) volume of his work to publication in Israel.
Aspects of sound-play relying on Ashkenazic Hebrew can be found in the poem translated here. For example, חולים sick and חולם dreaming may sound somewhat similar in Israeli Hebrew but they are more so in Ashkenazic, and in some registers and dialects of Ashkenazic they are identical. Schwartz himself may have pronounced both identically.
Among the Sick
By Abraham Samuel Schwartz
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Again today I walk among the sick. In pain
Susie again lies thin and delicate,
A childlike charm to her emaciated face.
But her white blood cells seal her fate.
It cheers me up to see a smile on Leah's lips
She has been out with fever all week long.
Her heart disease is chronic and uncurable.
But if she takes some care, she might live long.
Spiegel. Age seventy. Prognosis good. He's stopped
Vomiting blood. He's got his appetite.
The stomach growths have proven non-malignant ulcers
Which medicine successfully can fight.
I pause with Schnur, a deep-eyed kid who dreams of light,
For all the blood occlusion in his heart.
He asks me "Hey doc shouldn't I be up already?"
I lie "A little while and then you'll start."
Sometimes I stop and hear a sudden repressed thought
Taunting me in my gut with whispers: "this
Whole world you see hangs by a hair above
The screaming yawn of an abyss.
You're like a man divining fate of hidden worlds
Aflutter in between deep hope and dread.
You weigh with a physician's balance: life or death.
You're day-full, tired of lives swept dead.
You're glad when you can manage just to paste together
Some scattered fragments of the human urn,
To hold a few more drops of stolen life before
Fate's mysteries shatter it in turn?
What of your own heart's pain, your tear for that
Dreamer of light when light departs his eye,
And for the charming girl about to be worm fodder,
Were all of humankind about to die?"
The Original:
בֵּין חוֹלִים
בֵּין חוֹלִים בְּהִתְהַלְּכִי כִּתְמוֹל שִׁלְשׁוֹם: כּוֹאֵב
עַל סוּזִי הַשַּׁתְקָנִית הָעֲדִינָה,
שֶׁמִּתּוֹךְ רְזוֹן פָּנֶיהָ חֵן יַלְדוּתִי רוֹעֵף,
אַךְ לֹבֶן־דָּמָהּ חָתַם אֶת גְּזַר־דִּינָהּ;
שָׂמֵחַ מְאֹד בְּבַת הַצְּחוֹק עַל שִׂפְתֵי לֵאָה
שֶׁנִּרְדְּמָה מֵחֹם שָׁבוּעַ תָּמִים,
וְאִם מַחֲלַת לִבָּהּ מַחֲלַת־תָּמִיד וְאֵין גֵּהָה,
אִם רַק תִּזָּהֵר אוּלַי תַּאֲרִיךְ יָמִים;
שְׂבַע רָצוֹן, כִּי כְבָר חָדַל שְׁפִּיגְל בֶּן הַשִּׁבְעִים
מֵהָקִיא דָם וְתַאֲבוֹן־אֹכֶל שָׁב לוֹ,
כִּי אֵין כָּל גִּדּוּל בִּישׁ בַּקֵּבָה לוֹ, רַק כִּיבִים,
שֶׁלְּהַגְלִידָם כֹּחַ רוֹפֵא רָב לוֹ;
מִתְעַכֵּב אֵצֶל שְׁנוּר, הַבָּחוּר עֲמֹק הָעַיִן,
חַחוֹלֵם אוֹר, אַךְ נִרְפַּשׁ דַּם לְבָבוֹ,
הַשּׁוֹאֵל: ״דַּק׳, הֲלָקוּם לִי לֹא בָּא עֲדַיִן
הַתּוֹר?״ אֲנִי מְשַׁקֵּר: ״עוֹד מְעַט וְיָבוֹא!״ —
יֵשׁ פִּתְאֹם אֲשֶׁר אֶעֱמֹד אֶשְׁמַע הִרְהוּר כָּלוּא,
הַלּוֹחֵשׁ לִי בַּלֵּב וְכֻלּוֹ לוֹעֵג:
״בְּחוּט הַשַּׂעֲרָה כָּל הָעוֹלָם כֻּלּוֹ תָּלוּי
עַל עֶבְרֵי תְּהוֹם אֲבַדּוֹן שׁוֹאֵג —
וְאַתָּה פֹּה כִּמְנַחֵשׁ גּוֹרַל שַׁ״י עוֹלָמוֹת,
בֵּין פַּחַד וּבֵין תִּקְוָה רַבָּה מְרַחֵף,
בְּמֹאזְנֵי רוֹפְאִים תִּשְׁקֹל: הַיְחִי אוֹ יָמוּת
שְׂבַע יָמִים, עֲיֵף חַיִּים שֶׁנִּסְתַּחֵף.
וְתִשְׂמַח מְאֹד אִם חַרְסֵי־אָדָם הָעֲזוּבִים
תְּאַחֶה בְּרֹב עָמָל עוֹד לְכֶלִי,
הַטּוֹב לְהָכִיל מִסְפַּר נִטְפֵי חַיִּים גְּנוּבִים
בְּטֶרֶם יְנַפְּצֵהוּ גוֹרָל פֶּלִאי,
וּמַה לְּמַכְאוֹב לִבְּךָ פְּנִימָה, מַה לַּדִּמְעָה
עַל חוֹלֵם אוֹר שֶׁעוֹד מְעַט וְנָדָם,
עַל יַלְדַּת חֵן שֶׁעוֹד מְעַט תֹּאכְלֶנָּה רִמָּה,
אִם עוֹד מְעַט וְאָבַד כָּל הָאָדָם?
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