Page:Bohemian legends and other poems.djvu/33

“Here, where my childhood’s days were spent;
Here, where my father’s bones were laid;
Where I in manhood’s strength have lived,
And wed your mother, beauteous maid;
Where you were born, my children dear;
And loved, and honored, far and near,
We must forsake, and wander far
In banishment, oh evil star!

“Our mildest punishment to roam—
Made beggars in an evil time,
Banished from everything we love—
Made butts for every idle rhyme.”
Then dropping poison in his glass,
He smiling drank, and said, “Alas,
That I should ask, ‘Who goes to death?’”
“We all,” they answered with one breath.

“We all,” they answered with one breath.
And merrily the goblet went:
From hand to hand they passed it on,
And thirteen drank as on it went.
Father and mother, child and youth,
The bride, and bridegroom, all, forsooth,
Drank gladly of the deadly wine.
They praised the cup, they praised the wine.

Twelve o’clock struck; they heard the bell
Call out to prayer in the night;
They prayed to God in prayers low,
To help them in the deadly fight.
One whispered, then his voice was still.
Another fell, against his will,
But seven lived the light burnt low,
Then out it went they all lay low.

So Kryspek and his family died,
United in a common death;
The bride and bridegroom, hand in hand,
Sat by each other cold in death.
Hand clasped in hand, around the board,
They found them, but their souls had soared
Beyond their tyrant’s little might,
Into the everlasting light.