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, 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 priests and candlestick away, 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. 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 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, Along the borders of the midland sea In hostile cities, spending praise and prayer And pondering on the larger things to be-- Down through the ages when the Cross uprose Among the northern Gentiles to oppose: Then huddled in the ghettos, barred at night, In lands of unknown trees and fiercer snows, They watched forevermore the Light, the Light. The main seas opened to the west. The Nations Covered new continents with generations 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 And came to us who are tomorrow's folk. And the pure Light, however some might doubt Who mocked their dirt and rags, had not gone out.