Celebrate Hanukkah with Poetry
To celebrate the first night of Hanukkah, enjoy these poems that reflect on the traditions, history, and meaning of the Festival of Lights. (Click on the name of the poem to read it in its entirety.)
"The smell of oil is in the air./ We drift off to childhood/ where we spent our gelt/ on baseball cards and matinees,/ cream sodas and potato knishes."
"Chanukah I think most dear/ Of the feasts of all the year./ I could sit and watch all night/ Every twinkling baby light."
"Blest art Thou, the whole world's King,/ Who did so wonderful a thing/ For our own fathers true and bold/ At this same time in days of old!"
"Kindle the taper like the steadfast star/ Ablaze on evening's forehead o'er the earth,/ And add each night a lustre till afar/ An eightfold splendor shine above thy hearth."
"I kindled my eight little candles,/ My Hanukkah candles, and lo!/ Fair visions and dreams half-forgotten/ were rising of years long ago"
"Light the first of eight tonight--/ the farthest candle to the right.// Light the first and second, too,/ when tomorrow's day is through."
