ARMENIA.
“ARMENIA, O Armenia!
Will nations heed thy cry,
Or must thou feel the Moslem's steel
Till all thy people die?
Thy land that once held Eden,
Where Adam went to dwell,
The savage Turk by fearful work
Hath made it now a hell.
Where Noah's mighty mountain
Uplifts its ancient head,
And views a plain piled high with slain,
Armenia's martyred dead!
Where maidens, Christian maidens,
Knelt down to fiendish Kurds,
And on the air they breathed a prayer
We dare not frame in words.
A prayer that even a savage
Might listen to with pain,
As daughters fair with bosoms bare
Begged simply to be slain.
To woman's prayer was answered
A demon's mocking laugh,
And then the knife that ended life
Seemed kinder far by half.
O chivalry of England!
Of Europe! Of the earth!
Your swords should flash, your cannons crash.
For human right and worth.
Ought Turkish tigers shepherd
This primal Christian fold,
And boast of crimes unnumbered times,
Too awful to be told?
Wake, lion-hearted Richard!
Shake off the clinging sod!
And once again lead Christian men
Against these foes of God.”
