Explore "Bar Kochba" by Emma Lazarus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
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 him, eternal praise. / Nobler the conquered than the conqueror's end!