Wrapt in still thought, with sad and mournful mien,
Pyking his axe with oft a troubled sigh,

He dreamed of glory which the House had seen
In days gone by;

Mused of the time when in the Holy Place
God's Presence dwelt between the Cherubim,
And of the day He turned away His face,
And light grew dim;

When the Shechinah from that erring throng,
Alas, withdrew, yet tarried in the track,
As one who lingereth on the threshold long
And looketh back;

Then step by step in that reluctant flight
Approached the shadow of the city wall,
And lingered yet upon the mountain height
For hoped recall.

The Temple standing, pride of Israel's race,
Hath resting there no sacred Ark of Gold;
God's Glory filleth not the Holy Place
As once of old.

Surely the glory of the House is o'er;

Gone is the Presence, silent is the Voice;They who remember that which is no more, Can they rejoice?

To him, so musing, sudden rapture came;
The axe fell from his trembling hand's control;
A fire leapt upward, and a burning flame
Woke in his soul.

His eyes had seen; his soul spoke; he had gazed Upon one stone of that smooth marble plain :Lo! from its place it surely had been raised,

And set again.

Into his heart there flashed prophetic light;

With sudden force the secret was revealed; What but one treasure, sacred in his sight, Lay there concealed?

As one of Heaven bid who dare not wait,

With step grown firm as with the strength of youth, He hastened to his comrade to relate

The wondrous truth.

With hand uplifted, and a light sublime

In eyes that full of some new wonder shone, He seemed a holy seer of olden time

To look upon.

Yet from his parted lips no message came;

In silence reached he his immortal goal; And from its dwelling in the earthly frame Went forth his soul.

Soon o'er the house flew, murmuring, strange reports,
And men and women trembled at the sound,
And priests came swiftly from the sacred courts,
And thronged around.

And all these came from all their paths away,
In hurried gathering which none gainsaid,
And stood in utter silence where he lay,
The priestly dead.

Lo! in the hush the spirit, as it passed

Beyond the still form and the peaceful brow,
Seemed to speak audibly: "O Lord, at last!
I see Thee now.

"Mine eyes have seen this day my life's fair dream,

In this my death have seen that dream fulfilledThe longing of my heart, the wish supreme

That grief instilled.

"I said, God's Ark is captive far away, So wept I, Ichabod, for glory fled,

And mourned because the brightness of the day Was quenched and dead.

"Yet, verily, if in a far-off land

The Ark of God in exile dwelleth still, Yea, even so 'tis with the pure of hand Who do His will.

"Know then, ye priests and Levites, Israel' all,
Hid in its place the Ark of God doth lie,
His presence hath not gone beyond recall,
But bideth nigh.

"Haste, brethren, let the gates asunder burst;
Regain the Ark, the Covenant hold fast;
And by the glorious Second House, the First
Shall be surpassed!

"Behold, thou comest as the dawn of day!
Shechinah! changeless, to illume the night!
O Thou, Who art a lamp upon the way,
Who art the light!"

So sang his soul, with. life's full radiance crowned;
So dawned again the shining of God's face;
For each heart knew the Ark could yet be found
Within its place.

NINA DAVIS.

Before the Ark

WHEN Solomon, great King of Israel,

Builded the Temple of old,

He fashioned the "Ark of the Cov'nant"
Within and without of gold.

He moulded two Cherubim splendid
(At God, the Eternal's command)
Whose pinions the Holy of Holies
Like a luminous symbol spanned.

The wings of these wonderful angels
He welded together where

The Lord from His high seat of Mercy
Re-echoed the voice divine.

And thus when the people lay prostrate
Before the shimmering shrine,
From betwixt the horns of the Altar
Re-echoed the voice divine.

We, also, dear children of Israel,
Are bending before the Ark,
And our spirits' gold wings are shining
Bright in the mystical dark.

As they touch, we whisper devoutly
The great ineffable name,

And His voice, like music celestial,

Chimes from the Ner Tamid's * flame.

The words we can clearly distinguish-
Their meaning is solemn and grand;
"O, Children of Israel, remember!
Know ye before Whom you stand!"

GEORGE ALEXANDER KOHUT.

* The "Perpetual Lamp," burning at the Altar.

Menorah

'E'VE read in legends of the books of old

WE'VE

How deft Bezalel, wisest in his trade, At the command of veiled Moses made

The seven-branched candlestick of beaten goldThe base, the shaft, the cups, the knobs, the flowers, Like almond blossoms and the lamps were seven.

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 priest 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 that be-
Down through the ages, when the Cross uprose