אל הצפור | El ha-tsipor | To The Bird (1912)
Artist: Abraham Zvi Idelsohn (1882-1938)
Lyrics: Haim Nahman Bialik
Tune: Ben-Yehuda
Haim Nahman Bialik wrote “El ha-tsipor” in Odessa, when he was nineteen years, and it was his first poem to be published in the "Pardes" literary collection in 1892. It circulated among Zionist circles, and Bialik became known as a promising Hebrew poet. The original poem had sixteen verses.
Idelsohn chose three of the sixteen original verses by Bialik: verses 1, 2, and 11; while Idelsohn’s last verse is composed of the first line of Bialik’s first verse, the second line of his second verse, and the third and fourth lines of his sixteenth verse.
The song expresses the Zionist idea of bringing an end to the Jewish exile by returning to the Jewish historic homeland of Zion. The text presents a dialogue between the poet and a bird, who returns from warm lands and recounts the opportunities that await the Jewish returnees to Zion.
The text became popular and was adapted to known melodies, and new melodies were also composed for the text. Idelsohn (Ben-Yehuda) composed a melody for two voices, in a minor key.
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