| |
| KINDLE the taper like the steadfast star | |
| Ablaze on evening’s forehead o’er the earth, | |
| And add each night a lustre till afar | |
| An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth. | |
| Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, | 5 |
| Blow the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn; | |
| Chant psalms of victory till the heart take fire, | |
| The Maccabean spirit leap new-born. | |
| |
| Remember how from wintry dawn till night, | |
| Such songs were sung in Zion, when again | 10 |
| On the high altar flamed the sacred light, | |
| And, purified from every Syrian stain, | |
| The foam-white walls with golden shields were hung, | |
| With crowns and silken spoils, and at the shrine, | |
| Stood, midst their conqueror-tribe, five chieftains sprung | 15 |
| From one heroic stock, one seed divine. | |
| |
| Five branches grown from Mattathias’ stem, | |
| The Blessed John, the Keen-Eyed Jonathan, | |
| Simon the fair, the Burst-of-Spring, the Gem, | |
| Eleazar, Help of God; o’er all his clan | 20 |
| Judas the Lion-Prince, the Avenging Rod, | |
| Towered in warrior-beauty, uncrowned king, | |
| Armed with the breastplate and the sword of God, | |
| Whose praise is: “He received the perishing.” | |
| |
| They who had camped within the mountain-pass, | 25 |
| Couched on the rock, and tented ’neath the sky, | |
| Who saw from Mizpah’s height the tangled grass | |
| Choke the wide Temple-courts, the altar lie | |
| Disfigured and polluted—who had flung | |
| Their faces on the stones, and mourned aloud | 30 |
| And rent their garments, wailing with one tongue, | |
| Crushed as a wind-swept bed of reeds is bowed, | |
| |
| Even they by one voice fired, one heart of flame, | |
| Though broken reeds, had risen, and were men, | |
| They rushed upon the spoiler and o’ercame, | 35 |
| Each arm for freedom had the strength of ten. | |
| Now is their mourning into dancing turned, | |
| Their sackcloth doffed for garments of delight, | |
| Week-long the festive torches shall be burned, | |
| Music and revelry wed day with night. | 40 |
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| Still ours the dance, the feast, the glorious Psalm, | |
| The mystic lights of emblem and the Word. | |
| Where is our Judas? Where are our five-branched palm? | |
| Where are the lion-warriors of the Lord? | |
| Clash, Israel, the cymbals, touch the lyre, | 45 |
| Sound the brass trumpet and the harsh-tongued horn, | |
| Chant hymns of victory till the heart take fire, | |
| The Maccabean spirit leap new-born! | |
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