Page:Bohemian poems, ancient and modern (Lyra czecho-slovanska).djvu/78

That time passed by; an age of ill came on,
An age Bohemia’s people doom’d to quell;
Its moral forces faintness seiz’d upon,
Itself in intellectual bondage fell.

The Czech his mother-country ceased to love,
He ceased himself to treasure as before;
No more his sires’ remember’d exploits move,
Their glories to deserve he strives no more.

The Czech denied his country blood and tongue;
All that his fathers priz’d from home was thrown;
Speech, customs, loses foreigners among,
And doth the brethren of his blood disown.

Then sank Bohemia’s sun in cheerlessness,
Her Genius ’gan weep with drooping head,
Fled from the land the nation’s happiness,
And all the fam’d Bohemian Muses fled.

O then what pangs the patriot’s bosom rend,
Thus past the golden ages of his home!
O then how mourn’d the people’s reäl friend,
The nation sinking in so foul a tomb!

But lo! God’s Angel calls, ‘Arise again!’
‘Up from your graves,’ his trumpet sounds ‘arise!’
Spires of the patriot’s temple, gleam again!
‘Nation, thy resurrection solemnize!’