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Songs and poems

by Charles Mackay

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65

ON THE CAPITULATION OF WARSAW,

SEPTEMBER 1831.

Soldier of Poland! wherefore sigh?
Freedom, though crushed, shall never die;
Though for awhile her noble head
Be trampled by the Cossack's tread,
Though the proud Russian lay her low,
And laugh to scorn a nation's woe;
Though those whom free-born hearts deplore,
Be banished from their native shore,
And forced in foreign climes to roam,
To seek a shelter and a home;
Though thousand wrongs obscure her yet,
The sun of Freedom shall not set!
From Warsaw's ruins shall arise
A fire to blind the Tartars' eyes;

71

A voice shall sound from Praga's plain,
To rouse the nations up again!
A flag of wrath shall be unfurled,
And Justice once more light the world!