REVOLUTION

Maoriland Worker, Volume 4, Issue 147, 26 November 1913, Page 1

REVOLUTION

And tho' ye caught your noble prey within your hangman's soulid thrall, And tho' your capt've was led forth beneath your city's rampant wall; And tho' the grass lies o'er her green, where at the morning's early red The peasant girl brings funeral wreaths —1 tell you ftill, she is not dead! And tho' from off the lofty brow ye Cut the ringlete flowing long, And' tho ye've mated her amid the thieves' and murderers' hideous throng; Acad tho' ye gave her felon fare —bade felon garb her livery be; And tho , ye set the oakum task—l tell you all, she still is free! And tho' compelled to banishment, ye hunt her down thro , endless lands,; And tho' 6ho seeks a foreign hearth, and silent 'mid its ashes stands; And tho' she bathes her wounded feet where foreign streams Beck foreign seas, Yet, yet—she never more will hang her harp on Babel's willow trees! Ah, no 1 she strikes it hard and strong, and bids their loud defiance; And. as she mocked your scaffold erst, she mocks jour banishment as well; Slie sings a song that starts you up astounded from your slumbrous seats, Until your heart—your craven heart, your traitor heart —with terror beats! No song of plaint, no song of sighs, for those who perished unsubdued; Nor yet a song of irony at wrong's fantastic interlude — The beggar's opera that ye try to drag out through its lingering scenes, Tho' moth-eaten tho purple be that • decks your tinsel kings and queens. Oh, no! the song thoso waters hear is not of sorrow, nor dismay; 'Tis triumph song, victorious song, the peans of the future's day— . Tho future distant now no more—her prophet voice is sounding free, As well as once your Godhead spake: I was, I am, and I will be 1 ' \ Will be —and lead the nation on the last of nail your hosts to meet; And on your neck, your hands, your crowns, I'll plant my strong resistless feet! * Avenger, Liberator, Judge—red battles on my pathway ; hurled; I stretch forth my almighty arm, till its revivifies the world. You see mo only in your cells; ye ccc mc only in the grave; You see mc only wandering lone beside the exile's sullen wave. Ye fools! Do I not live where ye hate tried to pierce in vaifl.? < Rest not a nook for "mc to dwell in every heart and evfcry brain? In every brow that "boldly thinks erect with manhood's honest pride, Does not each bosom shelter mc that beats with honor's generous tide? Not every workshop, brooding woe? not every hut that harbors grief? Ha! am I not the breath of Life, that pants and struggles for relief? 'Tis therefore I will be, and lead the people yet your hosts to meet, And on your neck, your heads, your crowns, will plant my strong resistless feet!* . It is no boast, it is no threat, thus history's iron law decrees. The day grows hot, 0, Babylon! 'Tis cool beneath, thy willow trees! —Ferdinand Freiligrath.