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Emma Lazarus - To Carmen SylvaEmma Lazarus - To Carmen Sylva
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Oh, that the golden lyre divine Whence David smote flame-tones were mine! Oh, that the silent harp which hung Untuned, unstrung, Upon the willows by the river, Would throb beneath my touch and quiver With the old song-enchanted spell Of Israel! Oh, that the large prophetic Voice Would make my reed-piped throat its choice! All ears should prick, all hearts should spring, To hear me sing The burden of the isles, the word Assyria knew, Damascus heard, When, like the wind, while cedars shake, Isaiah spake. For I would frame a song to-day Winged like a bird to cleave its way O`er land and sea that spread between, To where a Queen Sits with a triple coronet. Genius and Sorrow both have set Their diadems above the gold— A Queen three-fold! To her the forest lent its lyre, Hers are the sylvan dews, the fire Of Orient suns, the mist-wreathed gleams ?????? Of mountain streams. She, the imperial Rhine`s own child, Takes to her heart the wood-nymph wild, The gypsy Pelech, and the wide, White Danube`s tide. She who beside an infant`s bier Long since resigned all hope to hear The sacred name of "Mother" bless Her childlessness, Now from a people`s sole acclaim Receives the heart-vibrating name, And "Mother, Mother, Mother!" fills The echoing hills. Yet who is he who pines apart, Estranged from that maternal heart, Ungraced, unfriended, and forlorn, The butt of scorn? An alien in his land of birth, An outcast from his brethren`s earth, Albeit with theirs his blood mixed well When Plevna fell? When all Roumania`s chains were riven, When unto all his sons was given The hero`s glorious reward, Reaped by the sword,— Wherefore was this poor thrall, whose chains Hung heaviest, within whose veins The oldest blood of freedom streamed, Still unredeemed? O Mother, Poet, Queen in one! Pity and save—he is thy son. For poet David`s sake, the king Of all who sing; For thine own people`s sake who share His law, his truth, his praise, his prayer; For his sake who was sacrificed— His brother—Christ!
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