Masada Never Again!
Rome hailed it as a monument
to death,
a sullen token of futility,
That subject peoples all might
stare and say,
“Rome is our master;
Empire is supreme.”
E’en the name of that foreboding
place,
standing stark hard by
the sterile sea,
Masada conjures darkened memories
of those who stood to fight,
then stayed to die.
“Jews must learn,” a laurel-crowned
Caesar said,
“to bow the knee beneath
their sovereign’s hand.
They have no power to stay the
legions’ might.
Pitiful people,
Kneel or feed the sword.”
But tyrants often do more
than they know,
For from their follies
symbols tend to rise,
Then stand like specters over
future days, and whisper,
as they pass their fitful nights,
a people’s firm resolve:
Masada—Never again!
