And he went his way
  Barefooted, fasting long, with many prayers;
  But even as one who, followed unawares,
  Suddenly in the darkness feels a hand
  Thrill with its touch his own, and his cheek fanned
  By odors subtly sweet, and whispers near
  Of words he loathes, yet cannot choose but hear,
  So, while the Rabbi journeyed, chanting low
  The wail of David’s penitential woe,
  Before him still the old temptation came,
  And mocked him with the motion and the shame
  Of such desires that, shuddering, he abhorred
  Himself; and, crying mightily to the Lord
  To free his soul and cast the demon out,
  Smote with his staff the blackness round about.

  At length, in the low light of a spent day,
  The towers of Ecbatana far away
  Rose on the desert’s rim; and Nathan, faint
  And footsore, pausing where for some dead saint
  The faith of Islam reared a domed tomb,
  Saw some one kneeling in the shadow, whom
  He greeted kindly:  “May the Holy One
  Answer thy prayers, O stranger!” Whereupon
  The shape stood up with a loud cry, and then,
  Clasped in each other’s arms, the two gray men
  Wept, praising him whose gracious providence
  Made their paths one.  But straightway, as the sense
  Of his transgression smote him, Nathan tore
  Himself away:  “O friend beloved, no more
  Worthy am I to touch thee, for I came,
  Foul from my sins to tell thee all my shame. 
  Haply thy prayers, since naught availeth mine,
  May purge my soul, and make it white like thine. 
  Pity me, O Ben Isaac, I have sinned!”
  Awestruck Ben Isaac stood.  The desert wind
  Blew his long mantle backward, laying bare
  The mournful secret of his shirt of hair. 
  “I too, O friend, if not in act,” he said,
  “In thought have verily sinned.  Hast thou not read,
  ’Better the eye should see than that desire
  Should wander’?  Burning with a hidden fire
  That tears and prayers quench not, I come to thee
  For pity and for help, as thou to me. 
  Pray for me, O my friend!” But Nathan cried,
  “Pray thou for me, Ben Isaac!”

      Side by side
  In the low sunshine by the turban stone
  They knelt; each made his brother’s woe his own,
  Forgetting, in the agony and stress
  Of pitying love, his claim of selfishness;
  Peace, for his friend besought, his own became;
  His prayers were answered in another’s name;
  And, when at last they rose up to embrace,
  Each saw God’s pardon in his brother’s face!

  Long after, when his headstone gathered moss,
  Traced on the targum-marge of Onkelos
  In Rabbi Nathan’s hand these words were read: 
  “Hope not the cure of sin till Self is dead;
  Forget it in love’s service, and the debt
  Thou canst not pay the angels shall forget;
  Heaven’s gate is shut to him who comes alone;
  Save thou a soul, and it shall save thy own!”