HaLevi's work covers common subjects in Spanish-Jewish poetry and draws on the forms and artistic patterns of both secular and religious poetry. Some formats include the
zajal, the , and poems utilizing
internal rhyme, classical
monorhyme patterns, and the then-recently invented
strophic form. About 800 of his poems are known today. Independent haLevi scholar Jose de la Fuente Salvat elevated him to the "most important poet in Judaism of all time". HaLevi composed in Hebrew with
kharjas containing
Andalusi Arabic and
Romance.
Diwan Shortly after his death, his poetry was collected into a
dīwān, apparently in Egypt and based on smaller collections of his poetry already in circulation. • Poems about friendship and laudatory poems (): 138 poems • Pieces of correspondence in rhymed prose (): 7 pieces • Love poems (): 66 poems • Elegies () and lamentations and eulogies (): 43 pieces • "Elevation" of the soul to Zion () and traveling poems (): 23 poems • Riddle poems (): 49 poems • On the
remnant of Judah () and other songs (): 120 poems
Secular poetry HaLevi's secular poetry comprises poems of friendship, love, humor, and eulogy.
Drinking songs by haLevi have also been preserved, Halfon Ha-Levi of Damietta, and an unknown man in Tyre. HaLevi sympathetically shared their sorrow and joy, as shown in a short poem: "My heart belongs to you, ye noble souls, who draw me to you with bonds of love".
Elegy Especially tender and plaintive is haLevi's tone in his elegies. He often utilized the
qasida form and meditated on death and fate. Many of them are dedicated to friends such as the brothers Judah (Nos. 19, 20), Isaac (No. 21), and Moses ibn Ezra (No. 16), R. Baruch (Nos. 23, 28), Meïr ibn Migas (No. 27),
Isaac Alfasi, head of the yeshiva in
Lucena, Cordoba (No. 14), and others. In the case of Solomon ibn Farissol, who was murdered on May 3, 1108, Judah suddenly changed his poem of eulogy (Nos. 11, 22) into one of lamentation (Nos. 12, 13, 93 et seq.). Child mortality due to plague was high in Judah's time, and the historical record contains five elegies that mourn the death of a child. Biographer Hillel Halkin hypothesizes that at least one of these honors was given to one of Judah's children who did not reach adulthood and is lost to history. "Wondrous is this land to see, With perfume its meadows laden, But more fair than all to me Is yon slender, gentle maiden. Ah, Time's swift flight I fain would stay, Forgetting that my locks are gray." Many of his poems are addressed to a gazelle or deer according to the custom in al-Andalus,
Religious poetry Shirei Zion (Songs of Zion) Halevi's attachment to the Jewish people is a significant theme in his religious poetry; he identifies his sufferings and hopes with those of the broader group. Like the authors of the
Psalms, he sinks his own identity in the wider one of the people of Israel, so that it is not always easy to distinguish the personality of the speaker. Though his impassioned call to his contemporaries to return to
Zion might have been received with indifference, or even with mockery, his own decision to go to Jerusalem never wavered. "Can we hope for any other refuge either in the East or in the West where we may dwell in safety?" he exclaims to one of his opponents. His
Zionides gave voice both to the Jewish people as a whole and to each Jew, and he never lost faith in the eventual deliverance and redemption of Israel and his people: "Lo! Sun and moon, these minister for aye; The laws of day and night cease nevermore: Given for signs to Jacob's seed that they Shall ever be a nation — till these be o'er. If with His left hand He should thrust away, Lo! with His right hand He shall draw them nigh." One of his Zionides,
Tziyyon ha-lo tishali (), laments the destruction of the temple and puts forth the dream of redemption. It is also one of the most famous
kinnot Jews recite on
Tisha B'Av:
Shirei Galut (Songs of the Diaspora) Judah combined descriptions from
Scripture with personal and historical Jewish experiences to create a distinct form of religiously themed poetry. He used devices such as sound patterns and vivid imagery to evoke the suffering of exile and the fear of the destruction of his people due to a delayed redemption. and they influenced the rituals of the most distant countries. Even the
Karaites incorporated some of them into their prayer-book, so that there is scarcely a synagogue in which Judah's songs are not sung in the course of the service. Zunz makes the following observation on Judah's synagogal poems: "As the perfume and beauty of a rose are within it, and do not come from without, so with Judah word and Bible passage, meter and rime, are one with the soul of the poem; as in true works of
art, and always in nature, one is never disturbed by anything external, arbitrary, or extraneous." His
piyyut Mi Khamokha (), was translated by
Samuel di Castelnuovo and published in Venice in 1609. Much of his work that expresses his personal relationship with God later became liturgical poetry. Judah also wrote several
Shabbat hymns. One ends with the words:"On Friday doth my cup o'erflow / What blissful rest the night shall know / When, in thine arms, my toil and woe / Are all forgot, Sabbath my love! 'Tis dusk, with sudden light, distilled / From one sweet face, the world is filled; / The tumult of my heart is stilled / For thou art come, Sabbath my love! Bring fruits and wine and sing a gladsome lay, / Cry, 'Come in peace, O restful Seventh day!'Judah used complicated
Arabic meters in his poems. However, his pupil Solomon Parḥon, who wrote at
Salerno in 1160, relates that Judah repented having used the new metrical methods, and had declared he would not again employ them. A later critic, applying a
Talmudic
witticism to Judah, has said: "It is hard for the dough when the baker himself calls it bad." == Philosophy ==