Classic Poem

Our country is flooded with sorrow and woe,
O, for our land woe!
Arise, and for coffin and cerements go!
O, for our land woe!
With the blood of our sons for the fatherland shed
The moon shines red;
Hill, plain and garden blood-red glow:
O, for our land woe!
Where are zeal and courage and strife,
A Nation's life?
The floods of trouble around us flow!
O, for our land woe!
Foreigners trample on every side
On Islam's pride;
Of our Freedom naught but the name they know:
O, for our land woe!
Not only our land is lost and misnamed;
Our faith's defamed:
E'en the flowers in the garden stunted grow:
O, for our land woe!
The nightingale dares not to sing of the rose:
Red the daffodil grows,
And red the lily-white flowrets blow,
O, for our land woe!
Some of our statesmen are brigands sheer;
No mystery here!
And the priests to follow them are not slow:
O, for our land woe!
For Khalkhal's sake are our hearts in gloom:
'tis the Day of Doom!
Not even a shirt hath the peasant to show:
O, for our land woe!
To Urmi the Turkish commander, we hear,
Swift draws near,
While at Astara Shahsevens strike a blow!
O, for our land woe!
Alas for our pearl-bearing, pearlraising land
Partition is planned,
Though its dust be more fragrant than musk, I trow;
O, for our land woe!