70
SONGS OF EXILE
HYMN
OF
REFUGE
The Hymn of Refuge is taken, like the last hymn, from the closing service of the Day of Atonement, and it consists of the first stanza of a Selichah by Isaac ben Samuel and the first of a Selichah by Solomon ben Samuel. The date of the first poet is unknown, though he was probably one of those composers of Selichoth living between the tenth and the twelfth century. Solomon lived early in the thirteenth century. These two verses are sung to a beautiful old melody to which the Kol Nidrei poem, כי הנה כחומר, is also set.
