Poems (Truesdell)/Welcome to Kossuth

by Helen Truesdell

WELCOME TO KOSSUTH.

"Go, ring the bells, and fire the guns,
 And fling the starry banner out;
Shout, 'Freedom!' till your lisping ones
 Give back their cradle shout."—Whittier.

Welcome, thou noble chief!
 Welcome, thy peril's o'er!
A million freemen greet thee now,
 On fair Columbia's shore.

Welcome to Freedom's land!
 Our stars and stripes, unfurled,
Invite thee to a peaceful home,
 Within our Western World.

Cut light the billows, thou fair ship—
 A precious freight is thine;
Thou bearest an exiled Patriot
 To Freedom's holy shrine;

Thou bearest a warrior from afar,
 Freed from a galling chain,
And withered be the arm that seeks
 To bind the brave again.

Children of Hungary! thy wrongs
 Awake our pitying care;
At morn, at night, at noon, at eve,
 We breathe for thee a prayer,—

That thou mayst yet be free indeed,
 Free as the mountain breeze
That plays upon our own broad streams,
 And murmurs 'mid our trees.

May Freedom's watchword yet ring out
 Amid thy hills so blue;
And thine be yet the happiest home
 That freemen ever knew.

Austria! thy dark, despotic power
 Is resting over all;
But false ambition's round thee thrown,
 And sure will be thy fall.

A nation's tears are on thee now,
 Widows and orphans weep,
And stern men in their souls have vowed
 Their high resolves to keep.