| |
| DOWN-TRODDEN ’neath the Syrian heel | |
| Did Zion’s sceptre lie; | |
| Her shrine, where once God’s glory flung | |
| Its radiance, now wildly rung | |
| With pagan revelry. | 5 |
| |
| And in the Temple’s secret place, | |
| Where once the High Priest bowed | |
| In homage to the King of kings, | |
| The vilest of all earthly things | |
| Was worshipped by the crowd. | 10 |
| |
| And still the flaming altar smoked, | |
| The priest was at his post, | |
| Commanding Israel’s sons to pray | |
| To images of stone and clay, | |
| Or swell the holocaust. | 15 |
| |
| Seven glorious brethren there had stood, | |
| Unflinching, side by side, | |
| And, sooner than yield up their faith, | |
| Had dared the faggot’s burning breath, | |
| And willing martyrs died. | 20 |
| |
| Not unavenged and not in vain | |
| Fell that undaunted race; | |
| For Judas, with his patriot band, | |
| Drove the oppressors from the land, | |
| And cleansed the holy place. | 25 |
| |
| Then the Menorah once again | |
| Illumed the holy shrine, | |
| One little flask of sacred oil, | |
| Saved unpolluted from the spoil | |
| Supplied the light divine. | 30 |
| |
| Full twenty centuries have rolled | |
| The gulf of Time adown, | |
| Since those heroic Maccabees, | |
| The victims of Epiphanes, | |
| Assumed the martyr’s crown. | 35 |
| |
| And still the Festival of Lights | |
| Recalls those deeds of yore | |
| That make our history’s page sublime | |
| And live for evermore. | |
| |
