Poetry Archives

Little candles glistening,
Telling those are listening
Legends manifold,
Many a little story,
Tales of blood and glory
Of the days of old.

As I watch you flicker,
As I list you bicker,
Speak the ancient dreams:
—You have battled, Jew, one time,
You have conquer’d too, one time.
(God, how strange it seems!)

In your midst was order once,
And within your border once
Strangers took no part.
Jew, you had a land one time,
And an armed hand, one time.
(How it moves the heart!)

Glisten, candles, glisten!
As I stand and listen
All the grief in me,
All the woe is stirred again,
And the question heard again:
What the end shall be?