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OUR FATHERLAND.
- WHY pour the ruby wine,
- For glad carousal, brothers mine,
- In the sparkling glass that flashes
- In your hand,
- When, mourning, sits in dust and ashes
- Our Fatherland?
I.
- What means the joyous song
- Of the festive bridal throng?
- Oh! let music no more waken
- The echoes of our strand,
- For the bridegroom hath forsaken
- Our Fatherland!
II.
- No more your masses falter,
- Trembling priests, before the altar.
- Can prayer avail the dead or dying?
- Oh! vain demand!
- Prostrate, trodden on the ground, is lying
- Our Fatherland!
III.
- Ye princes, fling ye down
- Your blood‐bought jewelled crown—
- Bear the circlet on your brow no more,
- Nor signet on your hand;
- For, shivering, stands before your door
- Our Fatherland!
IV.
- Woe to ye rich; in gloom
- Hath toll’d your hour of doom—
- There, reck’ning up your gold, ye sit in state
- In palace grand,
- While Lazarus is dying at your gate,
- Our Fatherland!
V.
- And woe to you, ye poor—
- Want and scorn ye must endure;
- Yet before ye many noble jewels shine
- In the sand.
- Ah! they are patriots’ tears—even mine—
- For Fatherland!
VI.
- But the Poet’s mission
- Is but prophetic vision;
- To him the daring heart is granted—
- Not the hand.
- He may cease—the death‐song has been chanted
- For Fatherland!
VII.
