| Joseph Friedlander, comp. The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. 1917. | | | | Ode to the Sacred Lamps | | By M. L. R. Breslar |
| | | O FUGITIVES from black Oppression’s bread, | |
| Scourged of your God, through flames and furies led | |
| To Babel’s streams, to Persia’s milder shore, | |
| To Afric’s marge, and isles of pensive Greece;— | |
| ’Twas not with magic, not with priestly lore, | 5 |
| But with high wisdom, folded in a fleece, | |
| You spread, broadcast, the seeds of Hebrew power! | |
| Oppression’s head was bruised in Israel’s bower, | |
| By you, who steeped your souls’ high-centered pride | |
| In day dreams of old Zion’s new built State; | 10 |
| With cunning hands, you raised unto your bride, | |
| Temples and schools, defying death and fate; | |
| In Yavneh and in Pumbadissa, Egypt, Spain and Rome,— | |
| You toasted deep the Torah’s health and dreamed of your “Old Home.” | |
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| The Western surge keeps ringing in mine ears, | 15 |
| Music too sweet, to stir my breast with fears. | |
| Out there, fine vistas shaping life, I view, | |
| To mart and farm, and mansions by the sea, | |
| On soils superb, divine as Hermon’s dew;— | |
| Visions ecstatic, splendours new to me, | 20 |
| Wind round my heart, a fragrant benison:— | |
| “Israel ne’er shall orphaned be again”; | |
| Her Talmud schools, her Temples’ gilded shrines, | |
| Imaged by men of high magnetic zeal, | |
| Floating the Stars and Stripes’ triumphant signs, | 25 |
| Shall build a race strong for the Commonweal; | |
| Apt for affairs, keen in debate; with scholar stratagem, | |
| Enkindled by the sacred lamps of Old Jerusalem. | | | | |
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