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.

The holy Light of Israel hath unfurled
Its tongues of mystic flame around the world.
Empires and Kings and Parliaments have passed;
Rivers and mountain chains from age to age
Become new boundaries for man's politics.
The navies run new ensigns up the mast,
The temples try new creeds, new equipage;
The schools new sciences beyond the six.
And through the lands where many a song hath rung
The people speak no more their fathers' tongue.
Yet in the shifting energies of man
The Light of Israel remains her Light.
And gathered to a splendid caravan
From the four corners of the day and night,
The chosen people--so the prophets hold--
Shall yet return unto the homes of old
Under the hills of Judah. Be it so.
Only the stars and moon and sun can show
A permanence of light to hers akin.

What is that Light? Who is there that shall tell
The purport of the tribe of Israel?--
In the wild welter of races on that earth
Which spins in space where thousand other spin--
The casual offspring of the Cosmic Mirth
Perhaps--what is there any man can win,
Or any nation? Ultimates aside,
Men have their aims, and Israel her pride.
She stands among the rest, austere, aloof,
Still the peculiar people, armed in proof
Of Selfhood, whilst the others merge or die.
She stands among the rest and answers: "I,
Above ye all, must ever gauge success
By ideal types, and know the more and less
Of things as being in the end defined,
For this our human life by righteousness.
And if I base this in Eternal Mind--
Our fathers' God in victory or distress--
I cannot argue for my hardihood,
Save that the thought is in my flesh and blood,
And made me what I was in olden time,
And