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,
Poland is pale,-her blood was shed for thee!
Poland is poor,-yes, nations, it is true,

Her reck'ning freely she has given for you.
Then learn this lesson, while poor Poland weeps,—
The more one gives away, the more one keeps;
And yet her vigour may arise in light

To shine a Pole star 'mid the dusky night.

Nothing can perish,-'tis an axiom

That stands out prominently to the world.
The mind of God is ever to create,

Nor loves the creature to annihilate,
(And His decree preserve us unimpaired
From losing individuality,

And personal identity in Him).

If no soul perish, can those mighty things,
The souls of nations, with their history rich

In martyrs, with their vivid genius,
Abounding in heroic sacrifice,

Replete with glorious immortality,

'So great, so noble: tell us how can they
Die, and be lost for ever and for aye?
Let one of them a moment be obscured,
The world in sickening languor is immured,
The heart will sicken in those fibrous bonds
Which thrill with nations; that which now responds
Within your heart, in suffering sympathy,

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,—
See black-robed priests extend their trembling hands.
From shrines and altars orisons ascend,

"Ave Stella Maris" swift assistance lend.
There to soft-pealing diapasons swell,
Sadly the slow-borne supplication fell,

"Kyrie Eleison! Miserere nobis."

Oh, whence shall help arise?

Shall this our hour of peril ne'er be staid,
Or heaven ordain a miracle to aid,

And send an angel downward from the skies.

Hail to the warrior, gallant and brave—
Mighty to save!

Sobieski! Hero! where art thou now?

He is not where swords are glancing,
He heeds no courser's prancing:

Like an infant on its mother's breast,
Or the stormy ocean sunk to rest,
He sleeps in his peaceful grave below.
Foe to the Turk, no more he shines
The terror of the Moslem lines.

No more, should Austrian eagles call,
Can he appear to disenthrall.

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,
Poland should rise,

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,
When Albion's sons must hide a blushing face.

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
The

shines, effulgence bright of Him,

Who led thy tribes thro' the divided sea,
And walked the silvery waves of Galilee;

D

Nor is thy Urim and thy Thummim's sheen
On holy Aaron's glittering breastplate seen.

When wide dispersed among the nations round,
Oppressed, and mocked, and trampled to the ground,
Ye thought to find, where Albion's white cliffs rose,
A tower of refuge from your barb'rous foes;
E'en there, where Freedom now asserts her seat,
Was then no refuge for your erring feet;

By people, prince, and clergy, ye were sold,

And bought and trafficked in, like slaves, for gold;
Falsely accused and tortured,—all for gain;
What good Samaritan assuaged your pain?
Butchered, imprisoned, banished at the last,
What hand could draw a curtain o'er the past?
Poland, now suffering and oppressed like you,
Into your cup of sadness solace threw.
'Twas Lithuania's realms received ye then,
And wooed ye back to life and peace again.

Out on thy black, thy base ingratitude,
Thou Austrian race, requiting ill for good;
Oh! 'twas a dark, a foul, atrocious deed,

To crush the friend that saved thee in thy need;