Chanukah

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then the Menorah once again

Illumed the holy shrine,

One little flask of sacred oil,

Saved unpolluted from the spoil

Supplied the light divine.

Full twenty centuries have rolled

The gulf of Time adown,

Since those heroic Maccabees,

The victims of Epiphanes,

Assumed the martyr’s crown.

And still the Festival of Lights

Recalls those deeds of yore

That make our history’s page sublime

And live for evermore.