Page:Bohemian legends and other poems.djvu/37

 ’Tis said, he played with wondrous skill;
 * From far and wide the people came;

They used to stand by Hradčan’s walls,
 * And speak of Dalibor and fame.

They listened, and they wept aloud;
 * They listened, and their blood would boil;

For in that simple song they heard
 * The anthem of their native soil.

The mountains caught it wailing back,
 * A song so strange, they shuddering heard;

The river took it, bore it back,
 * With a strange murmur that allured.

Each day the crowd became more dense,
 * To listen to that music wild;

They spake of country, and of God
 * They said the man was good and mild.

One day King Ladislav rode by;
 * He eyed them with a cruel look,

And when at length the cause he knew,
 * With rage and wrath he fairly shook.

He ordered that the violin
 * Should broken be on dungeon wall,

And laughingly he went next day,
 * And sneering said, “What can befall?”

But lo! beneath dark Hradčan’s wall
 * The people stand, and listening hear

The anthem of their native land,
 * Played by a hand that knows no fear.

Then, white with rage, the king said, “Kill
 * The man that dares to play that lay.”

And soon the bloody head was seen
 * But still the hand unseen did play.

The people, with a shuddering dread,
 * Knocked down the guards, and onward rushed;

They only found the broken wood—
 * The body, from which the blood gushed.