Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/132

108 strance above the whole nation and the whole globe, but only for an instant,—once more a pall of deadly anguish heaves across the whole sky, the air thrills with shrieks of the slain and the murdered, and above the city pillars of fire blaze high up in a tornado, burst in the middle, writhe along the ground, and with greedy tongues of flame lick up pools of blood.

But yet one more, yet the last hope has clutched the nation's heart:

Like a blast of wind the noblest troop of heroes rages across the field of the dead, that sparks are set aflash beneath the hoofs, that the earth quivers, and the whole atmosphere re-echoes with a wild trumpet-blare of victory, but a prophetical chant of ill-omen forebodes no victory. Through the sorrowful psalmody of the scherzo the approaching trample of horses can be heard afar off,—and somewhere afar off a final, a bloody contest is panting, an indistinct echo from the heroic troop's dance of death resounds softly across,—the troop which had wedged itself into the superior numbers of the enemy and at the cross-roads of the nation, which has wandered from the track, which has fallen a prey to destruction, which is doomed to ruin, its soul sobs and laments.

And now the boom of heavy bells, but not those which in Beethoven, with impressive, majestical solemnity, hail the victorious hero