Page:Cheskian Anthology.pdf/217



Slavonia! many are the blows

Which time and unkind destiny have laid

Upon thy helplessness—thy children, foes;

By sons—by strangers—by the world betray'd,

Tatars, and magyars, and that cruel nation,

Deceitful germans—who unpeopled thee;

Yet love, sweet love, hath found thee compensation,

And a rich recompence for injury—

Thy native tongue—and would they but have bann'd it,

The shame it had been ours e'en more than theirs:

It was no wonder that their cunning plann'd it,

Yet when pretence puts forth her foreign airs,

In silence, O Slavonia! understand it,

For idle noise no fruit of wisdom bears.