BAR KOCHBA.
Weep, Israel! your tardy meed outpour
Of grateful homage on his fallen head,
That never coronal of triumph wore,
Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.
If Victory makes the hero, raw Success
The stamp of virtue, unremembered
Be then the desperate strife, the storm and stress
Of the last Warrior Jew. But if the man
Who dies for freedom, loving all things less,
Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan;
The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to send
Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span—
If such an one be worthy, ye shall lend
Eternal thanks to liim, eternal praise.
Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end !
1492.
Thou two-faced year, Mother of Change and Fate,
Didst weep when Spain cast forth with flaming sword.
The children of the prophets of the Lord,
Prince, priest, and people, spurned by zealot hate.
Hounded from sea to sea, from state to state.
The West refused them, and the East abhorred.
No anchorage the known world could afford.
Close-locked was every port, barred every gate.
