Light within the Shade: Eight Hundred Years of Hungarian Poetry

Declaration

26 | Light within the Shade m i h á ly vö r ö s m a r t y (18 0 0 – 1855) Declaration To your dear land unswervingly O Magyar, still be true; Your cradle once, your grave to come, That feeds and covers you. In that great world beyond our pales You find no place to lie; Blessed or beaten by fate’s hand, Here you must live and die. This is the soil on which so oft Your fathers’ blood has flowed, This, on which every sacred name A thousand years bestowed. Here Árpád’s hosts fought for our sake, The bravest of the free; Here Hunyadi’s strong arm broke the yoke Of bitter slavery. Freedom! your bloodied flag they bore, Never to bow or yield; And here our best ones gladly fell On the grim battlefield. And through such great calamity And after such great strife, Wounded but yet unbroken held The nation’s home and life. O greater world of human beings! To you we bravely cry: ”The suffering of a thousand years Calls us to live or die!” m i h á ly vörösm a rt y | 27 It cannot be, so many hearts Should shed their blood in pain, So many true and loyal breasts Break, for their land, in vain. It cannot be, that so much mind, Such store of holy will, In vain should wither, weighted down Under the curse of ill. It still must come, it still will come, A better age, wherefore Upon a hundred thousand tongues Their ardent prayers implore. Or it will come if it must come, A splendid death and good, Where round a solemn funeral stands A nation in its blood. And people gather by the grave Where a great nation fell, And in a million grieving eyes The tears of mourning swell. To your dear land unswervingly O Magyar, still be true; Your cradle once, your grave to come, That feeds and covers you. In that great world beyond our pales You find no place to lie; Blessed or beaten by fate’s hand, Here you must live and die. 1836 ...