When came thy fathers from the wild Carpathian homeland,
There came with thy Princes two Sisters—so runneth the story—
Tuga and Buga their names, one dark and the other as sunshine,
Calamity and Prosperity, in the track of their footsteps,
When came thy fathers.

By the side of thy hearth short time stayed the sunny-eyed Sister,
In and out, like a gleam of Spring sunshine, she faltered and flickered;
Then, when triumphed the Moslem at Kossovo, ‘Field of the Blackbirds,’
She fled, and for ages her dark-faced Sister sits brooding
By the side of thy hearth.

In thy long struggle, in the life-and-death throes of thine anguish,
Ah, was it a marvel thou struckest wild blows in the darkness?
And who dares to call thee in scorn a State of Assassins?
Who but she—the would-be Assassin of thee, and of nations.
In thy long struggle?

What, then, is thy crime? Well one of thy sons gives the answer:
Thou would'st live, and refused to be led as an ox to the slaughter!
To the Ottoman Islam thou barred'st the way to the Westward;
Now to the Eastward thou barrest the way to the Islam of Europe:
This, this is thy crime!

Yea, then, let them scorn! Thou canst hold up thy forehead to Europe:
Three waves of war in three years, from the east and the northward;
Three waves of war, and each gainst a foe that was stronger:
Twice victor thou camest, and by the third art unvanquished:
Yea, now let them scorn!

In Kossovo's Temple, lo, one of thy sons will ensculpture
The soul of thy hopes and thy fears, and the ancient tale of thy sorrows,
And there wilt thou sit alone, and sing thy wild ballads of heroes.
Till she come, the Sister bright-eyed, and illumine the Temple,
In the Field of the Blackbirds!