Bohemian Poems, Ancient and Modern/The three Ages
ELEGIAC POEMS.
THE THREE AGES.
THERE was a time, when in each nation’s ear
The name of Czechs right gloriously sounded;
By heroes borne, by dukes unknown to fear,
Its fame and praise all Europe thro’ redounded.
There was a time Bohemians proudly bore
The splendid, glorious, mighty Czeskish name;
When ev’ry muse and science to adore
To all Bohemia’s sons was pride and fame.
There was a time, when from a throne on high
The ‘sweet Bohemian tongue’[1] was heard to sound;
Entrancing music, heav’nly harmony,
In princely palaces it spread around.
O then the Czech was proud a Czech to be!
Proud to maintain the honour of his race!
Bloom’d in the Lions land prosperity[2],
Such as but patriot nations e’er can grace!
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!’
Thus speaks the patriot Angel gloriously,
And lo! what thousands from their graves upstart!
Each joying that his life again is free,
All utťring thanks to God with grateful heart!
Th’ ancestral spirit in its wondrous might
Inspireth all the corners of the land;
The words ‘He is arisen’ glad recite
The priests who in their country’s temple stand.
Then rise up all! ye sleepers till to-day!
The day-star is aris’n—the dawn doth glow!—
The nightingales are singing—why delay?—
Shame on the man who is tha laggard now!
O brethren, for your nation live again!
Be lifeless members of its corpse no more!
It and your mother-land confess again!
Be faithful sons and brethren as of yore!
Your language, customs, rights, ye Czechs, revere!
And prove indeed ye are Bohemians born!
So shall th’ ancestral glories re-appear,
Your own lov’d land in splendour to adorn!
- ↑ The expression of the Emperor Charles IV.
- ↑ The Lion with two tails is the emblem of Bohemia.
⁂ Cz in Czech (which is the Polish, not the Bohemian orthography, it being impossible for want of types to employ the marked letters, as the Bohemians do) should be pronounced like our ch in church. The ch at the end of the word is the only guttural sound in the Bohemian language.