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| WE’VE read in legends of the books of old | |
| How deft Bezalel, wisest in his trade, | |
| At the command of veiled Moses made | |
| The seven-branched candlestick of beaten gold— | |
| The base, the shaft, the cups, the knobs, the flowers, | 5 |
| Like almond blossoms—and the lamps were seven. | |
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| We know at least that on the templed rock | |
| Of Zion hill, with earth’s revolving hours | |
| Under the changing centuries of heaven, | |
| It stood upon the solemn altar block, | 10 |
| By every Gentile who had heard abhorred— | |
| The holy light of Israel of the Lord; | |
| Until that Titus and the legions came | |
| And battered the walls with catapult and fire, | |
| And bore the priest and candlestick away, | 15 |
| And, as memorial of fulfilled desire, | |
| Bade carve upon the arch that bears his name | |
| The stone procession ye may see today | |
| Beyond the Forum on the Sacred Way, | |
| Lifting the golden candlestick of fame. | 20 |
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| The city fell, the temple was a heap; | |
| And little children, who had else grown strong | |
| And in their manhood venged the Roman wrong, | |
| Strewed step and chamber, in eternal sleep. | |
| But the great vision of the sevenfold flames | 25 |
| Outlasted the cups wherein at first it sprung. | |
| The Greeks might teach the arts, the Romans law; | |
| The heathen hordes might shout for bread and games; | |
| Still Israel, exalted in the realms of awe, | |
| Guarded the Light in many an alien air, | 30 |
| Along the borders of the midland sea | |
| In hostile cities, spending praise and prayer | |
| And pondering on the larger things that be— | |
| Down through the ages, when the Cross uprose | |
| Among the northern Gentiles to oppose: | 35 |
| Then huddled in the ghettos, barred at night, | |
| In lands of unknown trees, and fiercer snows, | |
| They watched for evermore the Light, the Light. | |
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| The main seas opened to the west. The Nations | |
| Covered new continents with generations | 40 |
| That had their work to do, their thought to say; | |
| And Israel’s hosts from bloody towns afar | |
| In the dominions of the ermined Czar, | |
| Seared with the iron, scarred with many a stroke, | |
| Crowded the hollow ships but yesterday. | 45 |
| And came to us who are to-morrow’s folk, | |
| And the pure Light, however some might doubt | |
| Who mocked their dirt and rags, had not gone out. | |
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| The holy Light of Israel hath unfurled | |
| Its tongues of mystic flame around the world. | 50 |
| Empires and Kings and Parliaments have passed; | |
| Rivers and mountain chains from age to age | |
| Become new boundaries for man’s politics. | |
| The navies run new ensigns up the mast, | |
| The temples try new creeds, new equipage; | 55 |
| The schools new sciences beyond the six. | |
| And through the lands where many a song hath rung | |
| The people speak no more their fathers’ tongue. | |
| Yet in the shifting energies of man | |
| The Light of Israel remains her Light. | 60 |
| And gathered to a splendid caravan | |
| From the four corners of the day and night, | |
| The chosen people—so the prophets hold— | |
| Shall yet return unto the homes of old | |
| Under the hills of Judah. Be it so. | 65 |
| Only the stars and moon and sun can show | |
| A permanence of light to hers akin. | |
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| What is that Light? Who is there that shall tell | |
| The purport of the tribe of Israel?— | |
| In the wild welter of races on that earth | 70 |
| Which spins in space where thousand others spin— | |
| The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth | |
| Perhaps—what is there any man can win, | |
| Of any nation? Ultimates aside, | |
| Men have their aims, and Israel her pride, | 75 |
| She stands among the rest, austere, aloof, | |
| Still the peculiar people, armed in proof | |
| Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die. | |
| She stands among the rest and answers: “I, | |
| Above ye all, must ever gauge success | 80 |
| By ideal types, and know the more and less | |
| Of things as being in the end defined, | |
| For this our human life by righteousness; | |
| And if I base this in Eternal Mind— | |
| Our fathers’ God in victory or distress— | 85 |
| I cannot argue for my hardihood, | |
| Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood, | |
| And made me what I was in olden time, | |
| And keeps me what I am today in every clime.” | |
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