Fraternity-Testvériség, 1942 (20. évfolyam, 1-5. szám)

1942-01-01 / 1. szám

12

TESTVÉRISÉG

And strike the chord that fires the sword And the valour of the brave,

Peal forth the song that girds the strong —

The song that shakes the grave.

And Scotland’s “rough burr thistle”

Gives verve to Hungary’s vine,

And the squares (6) of awful Carron To Hungary’s marshalled line,

And the pibroch and the slogan,

’Neath Albyn's stormy sky,

Peals through red Swechat’s (7) riven lines The wathchward, Do or Die.

Hurrah for Coila’s patriot bard And the anthems of the free!

Hurrah for Monok’s (8) liero-son And the knight of Elderslie!

Hurrah for history’s mighty Past And the unborn To-be!

And Genius links Dumfries and Perth,

The helmed and sworded strong,

Through him, in his undreaming rest,

The Charlemagne of song,

Who, ’neath the marble, kingly lies By Nith’s pellucid river,

While rings the fire-lilt of his songs Far down the dim Forever.

Bend slowly o’er that tomb, Kossuth,

The priceless, peerless brave;

Our pens in rust, our voices dumb,

Shall the long future’s pilgrims come O’er mountain, plain, and wave,

To wake the harp’s Tyrtaean chords,

To ban oppression’s tyrant hordes,

To fire their souls, to whet their swords,

At BURN’S hallowed grave.

W. Stewart Ross

(4) HONVÉDS — Defenders of the Home, of whom there were ten battalions organized by the Hungarian insurgents.

(5) Zegrad, where, at the head of 40,000 troops, Jellachich, ban of Crotia, crossed the Drave in 1848. He was met by the Hungarians and defeated.

(6) At Falkirk, on the Carron, the Scottish infantry was disposed into schiltrons, or hollow squares, with the spears pointing obliquetly outward against the charging cavalry, adumbrating Wellington’s squares at Waterloo.

(7) Swechat near Vienna, where the Hungarian patriots were defeated by the Austrians under Jellachich in 1848.

(8) Monok, or Monck, where Kossuth was born on April 27th, 1806.

From: Round Burn’s Grave By J. D. Ross, Paisley, 1892