Poland can shew a pyramid would rise In culminating grandeur to the skies. Your's! your's! O nations, centred in one pile, Your sacrifices, your impartial toil, Would reach, perhaps,-nay, hear me, do not frown, Scarce to the knee of infant newly born. Then come not each of you and say to me, Her reck'ning freely she has given for you. To shine a Pole star 'mid the dusky night. Nothing can perish,-'tis an axiom That stands out prominently to the world. Nor loves the creature to annihilate, And personal identity in Him). If no soul perish, can those mighty things, In martyrs, with their vivid genius, Replete with glorious immortality, 'So great, so noble: tell us how can they Why this is Poland, this is Italy. Ask you me now what Poland has achieved, And why should nations mourn her state bereaved? Turn to those Austrian walls, and there espy A fiery rocket soaring to the sky; It speaks Vienna's swift-approaching doom, It tells her towers are hastening to the tomb. See on her walls the warders' wakeful bands,— "Ave Stella Maris" swift assistance lend. "Kyrie Eleison! Miserere nobis." Oh, whence shall help arise? Shall this our hour of peril ne'er be staid, And send an angel downward from the skies. Hail to the warrior, gallant and brave— Sobieski! Hero! where art thou now? He is not where swords are glancing, Like an infant on its mother's breast, No more, should Austrian eagles call, Rise, mighty spirit of the dead, arise! Awake, to lead in glorious enterprise! What Poland was when thou wert king before, Can Poland ever be without thee more? Oh, could the sounding lyre, With potent string And stirring numbers, New life inspire, Wide backward Death's enchantment fling, And end his slumbers; Could Sobieski breathe again The ether breathed by living men, Rise from her sad, sad, fallen state, Rise, till she rose above the great, And strike her starry crown against the skies. And is it then o'er Austria alone Poland a robe of covering has thrown? Ah, no! her mercy succoured Israel's race, Poor outcast Israel; weakest of the weak! What pen can paint,-what tongue thy sufferings speak! The curse on thee and on thy children lies, The curse of Him ye boasted to despise. No more within the Temple's courts ye bend, Nor sacrificial offerings attend; No more upon the golden cherubim shines, effulgence bright of Him, Who led thy tribes thro' the divided sea, D Nor is thy Urim and thy Thummim's sheen When wide dispersed among the nations round, By people, prince, and clergy, ye were sold, And bought and trafficked in, like slaves, for gold; Out on thy black, thy base ingratitude, To crush the friend that saved thee in thy need; |