At last, the wondrous lights are eight,
To six the little lamps have grown;
In happy company they shed

Their brightness. None need stand alone
Who by the light of God are led.

Thus shall God's purpose reach its goal.

Anon, the lights have grown to seven,
Behold, the night is as the day!
So can this earth grow like to Heaven,
If men will walk in Heaven's way.
He lifts man from his low estate

And breathes new hope into his soul.

M. M.

Chanukah Lights

γου see these slender tapers standing there

Like Lilliputians wrestling with the air, In yellow garb, that strange suggestive hue Of tragic reminiscence to the Jew?

These tiny lights have struggled thus for years; Though often bathed in blood and drenched in tears, They flicker still-It seems no mortal might

Can crush God's great miracle of light.

This little group of torches came to show
The hiding place of Heaven here below;
By lighting every corner of the earth,

They see and preach life's meaning and its worth.

Though weak and few they caused the very heart
Of all humanity to stir, and gave the start
To God's most sacred truths; Indeed proclaim
His Fatherhood, His purpose and His name.

Yea, Israel, it is Thy fate to fight

In darkened corners and to shed the light
Till all the world at last has learned to see
Its way to God and immortality.

HAROLD DEBREST.

I

Chanukah Lights

KINDLED my eight little candles,
My Chanukah-candles-and lo!

Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten
To me came of years long ago.

I musingly gazed at my candles;
Meseemed in their quivering flames
In golden, in fiery letters.

I read the old glorious names,

The names of our heroes immortal,

The noble, the brave, and the true,

A battle-field saw I in vision

Where many were conquered by few.

Where trampled in dust lay the mighty,
Judea's proud Syrian foe;

And Judas, the brave Maccabæus,

In front of his army I saw.'

His eyes shone like bright stars of heaven,
Like music rang out his strong voice:
"Brave comrades, we fought and we conquered,
Now let us, in God's name, rejoice!

"We conquered-but know, O brave comrades,
No triumph is due to the sword!
Remember our glorious watchword,

'For People and Towns of the Lord!'"

He spoke, and from all the four corners
An echo repeated each word;
The woods and the mountains re-echoed :
"For People and Towns of the Lord!"

And swiftly the message spread, saying:
"Judea, Judea is free,

Re-kindled the lamp in the Temple,
Re-kindled each bosom with glee!"

My Chanukah-candles soon flickered,
Around me was darkness of night;
But deep in my soul I felt shining
A heavenly-glorious light.

P. M. RASKIN.

Legendary Lights

THE legendary light,

Gleaming goldenly in night
Like the stars above,

Beautiful, like lights in dream,
Eight, the taper-flames that stream
All one glory and one love.

In our Temple, magical-
Memories, now tragical-
Holy hero-hearts aflame.
With a glory more than fame;
There where a shrine is every sod,
Every grave, God's golden ore,
With a pæan whose rhyme. to God,
Lit these lamps of yore.

Lights, you are a living dream,
Faith and bravery you beam,

Youth and dawn and May.

Would your beam were more than dream,
Would the light and love you stream,
Stirred us, spurred us, aye!

Fabled memories of flame,
Till the beast in man we tame,
Tyrants bow to truth, amain,
Brands and bullets yield to brain,
Guns to God, and shells to soul,
Hounds to heart resign the rôle,
Pillared lights of liberty,

In your fairy flames, we'll see

Faith's and freedom's Phoenix-might,

The Omnipotence of Right.

ALTER ABELson.

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,

MARION HARTOG.

Chanukah in Russia, 1905

ET high the light where all may see

SET

The flame that since two thousand years

Has burned-now dim with misery.

A light of mourning it appears;

Stand firm! still flows the cruse divine,
Our star with dazzling ray shall shine.

Raise up the flag! Our doubting hearts

Too long have kept it closely furled; Meekness and fear have played their parts, Valour alone can tame the world

And show, in might of unity,

That like our sires we shall be free.

E. L. LEVETUS.