Page:Poems (Eminescu).pdf/29

At a sign, like rivers flooding from the mountain, field and wood,
The whole West sent forth its nations, for the glory of the Rood.
And they came, the whole world shaking from its deepest quietness,
Darkening the far horizon with their shields, spears numberless.
On the land like moving forests they advanced in awful might,
By their daring galleons shaken, trembled e’en the sea with fright.
At Nicopolis thou sawest how they camped, assembling all,
To my power there opposing an unshaken bulwark wall;
When I saw them there as many as the sands are on the shore,
With an unquenched hate I muttered in my beard, an oath I swore,
Over them to tread, to crush them, ruthlessly my way to force,
And in Rome, on Peter’s alter, make a manger for my horse.
And my hurricane, that’s sweeping all away like dust and chaff,
Thinkest thou that thou canst stay it only with an old man’s staff?“
—„Yes, ’tis true, an old man, Sultan! but the man thou dost behold
Is a man not of the common, but Wallachia’s ruler bold.
I wish not that thou shouldst ever come our direful wrath to know,
That thy mighty hosts should perish in the Danube’s angry flow.
Yet in olden times full many, on their way all conquering,
First of all and the most famous, great Darius, Persian king,
Built a bridge on our old Danube, battling o’er with might and main.
Fright’ning all around and thinking the whole world was their domain:
Emperors, whom the vastest empires could within their bounds not hold,
Came here asking earth and water, as in olden tales is told,
And I do not wish to frighten, nor do I now wish to boast,
They were turned to earth and water, nought was left of all their host.
Thou dost boast that thou couldst conquer, all before thee crushing down,
Emperors’ proud, great hosts, well armoured, bravest knights of high renown,
Thou dost boast the Western powers all their armies ’gainst thee pressed,
But what urged them to the battle, what allured the glorious West?
They would fain have torn the laurels from thy iron brow so bright,
Victory for faith and glory — this was sought by every knight.
I do here defend my country, my poor nation in distress…
Therefore all that here is stirring, friends to me with help will press:
Men, all creatures, woods and rivers, everything will be thy foe,
And the meaning of our hatred to its fulness thou wilt know.
Armies have we not, but know it, love of country is a wall
That by fear is never shaken, nothing ever makes it fall!“