Vulture in a cage, Solomon Ibn Gabirols own selfdescription, is an apt image for a poet who was obsessed with the impediments posed by the body and the material world to the realization of his spiritual ambition of elevating his soul to the empyrean. Ibn Gabirols poetry is enormously influential, laying the groundwork for generations of Hebrew poets who follow himrocky and harsh, full of original imagery and barbed wit, and yet no one surpassed him for the limpid beauty of his devotional verse. His poetry is at once a record of the inner life of a tormented poet and a monument to the JudeoArabic culture that produced him. This book contains the most extensive collection of Ibn Gabirols poetry ever published in English.