English

STRONG in thy steadfast purpose, be
Like some brave master of the sea,
Whose keel, by Titan pulses quickened, knows
His will where'er he goes.
Some isle, palm-roofed, in spiced Pacific air
He seeks—though solitary zones apart,
Its place long fixed on his deep-studied chart.
Fierce winds, your wild confusion make!
Waves, wroth with tide and tempest, shake
His iron-wrought hull aside!
However driven, to that far island fair
(His compass not more faithful than his heart)
He makes his path the ocean wide—

The women all tell me I'm false to my lass,
That I quit my poor Chloe and stick to my glass:
But to you men of Reason, my reasons I'll own,
And if you don't like them why let them alone.

Altho' I have left her, the truth I'll declare,
I believe she was good, and I'm sure she was fair;
But goodness and charms in a bumper I see,
That makes it as good and as charming as she.

My Chloe had dimples and smiles I must own,
But tho' she could smile, yet in truth she could frown;
But tell me, ye lovers of liquor divine,

The prophet's cloudy hand
Was not so small
As those grave-howes that stand
Along the skyline of the rig,
No, nor so big
Now as the shades of evening fall.

But what of those dead bones?
Not stiff and stark they lie,
But as a family,
Fathers, mothers and sons,
With indrawn knees
They lie or lean or sit at ease.

O my Slavonia! many are the blows
Which time and unkind destiny have laid
Upon thy helplessness—thy children, foes;
By sons—by strangers—by the world betray'd,
Tatars, and magyars, and that cruel nation,
Deceitful germans—who unpeopled thee;
Yet love, sweet love, hath found thee compensation,
And a rich recompence for injury—
Thy native tongue—and would they but have bann'd it,
The shame it had been ours e'en more than theirs:
It was no wonder that their cunning plann'd it,
Yet when pretence puts forth her foreign airs,

Like phantom ships
That haunt the dim horizon with white shrouds,
We come, emergent from the mistral gloom,
Love-voyagers seeking a world of dream.

There is a spirit-music in the air,
Weird as the wind-harp's song;
Ethereal as night's auroral fingers,
Felt and heard until, with lull of alien victories,
Our child hearts sleep, and we are deaf to dreams.

But God hath yet a few with joy-wist eyes
And wonder-hearts, questing for undiscovered shores,
Whose eager gaze is towards the Isles of Truth,

I hold your love up as a lantern. The blackness of night
hurts my eyes. The windows of the tower are locked
against my heart.
The lovers' caravans are leaving. My black tents
remain, though the well's dry, the valleys
never turned green this year,
and the desert was not a witness of our wedding.
At dawn, the cooing of pigeons is a torment,
the face of the wind dusty,
taking me by surprise, and snatching away
a memory that began to wake.
I carry her, my beloved, in my heart
where she moans, wounded …

Lord God of Hosts incline thine ear
To this, thy humble servant's prayer:
May war and strife and discord cease;
This century, Lord God, give us peace!
Henceforth, dear Lord, may we abhor
The thought of strife, the curse of war.
One blessing more, our store increase,
This is our prayer, Lord, give us peace!

May those who rule us rule with love,
As thou dost rule the courts above;
May man to man as brothers feel,
Lay down their arms and quit the field;
Change from our brows the angry looks,

Alone to the banks of the dark-rolling Danube
Fair Adelaide hied when the battle was o'er:
‘Oh, whither,’ she cried, ‘hast thou wandered, my lover?
Or here dost thou welter and bleed on the shore?

‘What voice did I hear? 'twas my Henry that sighed!’
All mournful she hastened; nor wandered she far,
When, bleeding and low, on the heath she descried
By the light of the moon her poor wounded Hussar!

From his bosom that heaved the last torrent was streaming,
And pale was his visage, deep marked with a scar!

For sixty days and upwards,
A storm of shell and shot
Rained round us in a flaming shower,
But still we faltered not.
“If the noble city perish,”
Our grand young leader said,
“Let the only walls the foe shall scale
Be ramparts of the dead!”

For sixty days and upwards,
The eye of heaven waxed dim;
And even throughout God's holy morn,
O'er Christian prayer and hymn,
Arose a hissing tumult,
As if the fiends in air
Strove to engulf the voice of faith
In the shrieks of their despair.

SLEEP! the spirits that attend
On thy waking hours are fled.
Heaven thou canst not now offend
Till thy slumber-plumes are shed;
Consciousness alone doth lend
Life its pain, and Death its dread;
Innocence and Peace befriend
All the sleeping and the dead.