Page:A history of Hungarian literature.djvu/257

 JOHN ARANY Save one poor loiterer, who dot/1 dwell­ A captive left, Of freedom rejt, bnmtred wilhin a narrow cell. The cranes have not yet made their start. But even they wil l soon depart. He sees them not : he only hear. Too weil above The notes thereof- The birds of passage in his ears. Once and again he even tries Upon his crippled wings to rise. Ah l they would raise hím up on high, Nor hold hím low Were it not so That they were clipped so cruelly. Poor orphan stork, poor stork, 'tis Vtlin ; Thy pinions ne'er will grow tgain, Even thoug/1 winter shot4ld be o'er, For if they grew False men anew Would clip them even as before. 243 Arany and Petőfi stood side by side in life, and together they stand in the history of H ungarian poetry as the most striking incarnations of the Hungarian spirit. The world of H ungarian sentiment and character is revealed in their works, but purified in the sacred fire of poetry. The sun of the nation's literature, which dawned so brightly in 1825, when Vörösmarty's Zalán's Fligh t appeared, a ttai ned its zenitb in them. This was the case with the public estimation of Tompa. Tompa began to write at the same time as Arany and Petőfi, the latter of whom was his fri end. His writings were of a similar tendency and his talent was of the same