Lays of the Scottish cavaliers and other poems By William Edmondstoune Aytoun ... Fourteenth edition |
DANUBE AND THE EUXINE
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Lays of the Scottish cavaliers and other poems | ||
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DANUBE AND THE EUXINE
1848
“Danube, Danube! wherefore com'st thouRed and raging to my caves?
Wherefore leap thy swollen waters
Madly through the broken waves?
Wherefore is thy tide so sullied
With a hue unknown to me;
Wherefore dost thou bring pollution
To the old and sacred sea?”
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I am brimming full and red;
Glorious tokens do I bring thee
From my distant channel-bed.
I have been a Christian river
Dull and slow this many a year,
Rolling down my torpid waters
Through a silence morne and drear;
Have not felt the tread of armies
Trampling on my reedy shore;
Have not heard the trumpet calling,
Or the cannon's echoing roar;
Only listened to the laughter
From the village and the town,
And the church-bells, ever jangling,
As the weary day went down.
So I lay and sorely pondered
On the days long since gone by,
When my old primæval forests
Echoed to the war-man's cry;
When the race of Thor and Odin
Held their battles by my side,
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Warmly with my chilly tide.
Father Euxine! thou rememb'rest
How I brought thee tribute then—
Swollen corpses, gashed and gory,
Heads and limbs of slaughtered men?
Father Euxine! be thou joyful!
I am running red once more—
Not with heathen blood, as early,
But with gallant Christian gore!
For the old times are returning,
And the Cross is broken down,
And I hear the tocsin sounding
In the village and the town:
And the glare of burning cities
Soon shall light me on my way—
Ha! my heart is big and jocund
With the draught I drank to-day.
Ha! I feel my strength awakened,
And my brethren shout to me;
Each is leaping red and joyous
To his own awaiting sea.
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Through their wild anarchic land,
Everywhere are Christians falling
By their brother Christians' hand!
Yea, the old times are returning,
And the olden gods are here!
Take my tribute, Father Euxine,
To thy waters dark and drear!
Therefore come I with my torrents,
Shaking castle, crag, and town;
Therefore, with my arms uplifted,
Sweep I herd and herdsman down;
Therefore leap I to thy bosom
With a loud triumphal roar—
Greet me, greet me, Father Euxine—
I am Christian stream no more!”
Lays of the Scottish cavaliers and other poems | ||