[2] He married the Russian-born Christian, Melania Karlova,[3] and resisted all demands from fellow Jews in Palestine that she convert to Judaism.

He was a friend of the Klausner family of Jerusalem, including the child who would grow up to become the novelist Amos Oz, to whom he was "Uncle Shaul."

In contrast, in the poem "Before a Statue of Apollo", the poet proves his affinity for Greek culture, identifying with the beauty it represents, even bowing down to it.

In response to the Holocaust he wrote the poems "The Slain of Tirmonye" and "Ballads of Worms" that brought into expression his heart's murmurings concerning the tragic fate of the Jewish people.

Many of his poems have been set to music by the best Hebrew popular composers, such as Yoel Angel and Nahum Nardi.

Oh My Land My Birthplace (hoy artzi moladeti, Hebrew: הו ארצי מולדתי) is better known in the setting by Naomi Shemer, as arranged by Gil Aldema.

He also translated Sophocles, Horace, Shakespeare, Molière, Pushkin, Goethe, Heine, Byron, Shelley, the Kalevala, the Gilgamesh Cycle, the Icelandic Edda, etc.

A school in Tel Aviv is named after him, as is the center for the Hebrew Writers Association in Israel.

[9] There are streets named after him in several Israeli cities, such as Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Ra'anana, and Kfar Saba.