Bar Kochba

Weep,

Israel! your tardy meed

Of grateful homage on his fallen head,

That never coronal of triumph wore,

Untombed, dishonored, and unchapleted.

If Victory makes the hero, raw

The stamp of virtue,

Be then the desperate strife, the storm and

Of the last Warrior Jew.

But if the

Who dies for freedom, loving all things less,

Against world-legions, mustering his poor clan;

The weak, the wronged, the miserable, to

Their death-cry's protest through the ages' span—If such an one be worthy, ye shall

Eternal thanks to him, eternal praise.

Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end!