Page:Bohemian legends and other poems.djvu/32

The clock struck ten, they were about
To drink the bride and bridegroom’s health;
They wished them joy and a long life—
They wished them happiness and wealth,
When suddenly a trumpet’s call,
From herald sent, fell like a pall,
"And changed their mirth to silence dread.
“The herald seeks my lord,” was said.

With strange misgiving went the lord,
To meet the stranger in the hall;
All joy from out his heart had fled,
He dreaded news that would appall.
But when he saw the herald’s face,
And heard the doom against his race,
He knew that all his fears were true,
The conqueror’s heart no mercy knew.

Pale like a corpse, he back returned—
Like one who from the grave comes back—
And slowly said, with choking voice:
“Our brothers died upon the rack!
The hour of Kryspek doom is near—
Our glory faded—life made drear.
Our mildest punishment, to roam,
Outcasts from country, and from home.”

Then bidding all the servants leave
The room, until the dawn of day,
That not a soul should enter in,
Nor rouse their slumber till the day.
“For if we want you, we will ring;
Yea, in the morning, we will ring.”
And when the servants left the hall,
He shut the door, and spake to all:

“What is to lose, when land is lost?
Who loses honor, loseth life.
What joy shall then my grandchild know,
In poverty and daily strife?
If such a desperate fate is ours,
To languish but a few more hours—
To see our country die, and then
To die, nay, let us now be men.