Selected Religious Poems of Solomon ibn Gabirol, tr. by Israel Zangwill, [1923], at sacred-texts.com
O Lord, who shall requite Thy goodness?
For Thou hast placed the soul in the body to vivify it,
And to teach and show it the path of life
And to deliver it from evil;
Thou hast formed man from a pinch of clay and breathed into him a soul,
And didst impart to him the spirit of wisdom
Whereby man is divided from the beasts
That he may ascend to a higher sphere.
Thou hast him enclosed in Thy universe,
And directest and beholdest his deeds from without,
And all that would conceal him from Thee
Thou beholdest from within and without.