Page:The Bohemian Review, vol1, 1917.djvu/105

 Letting a runnel of uncomely slime Taint our life’s fountain, grown already turbid, Thou rangest the wide world like a mighty Amos, Thou bearest in thy heart our whole distress. Thy gaze is tired with peering forth afar, But thy strong spirit, still unscathed by fear, Urges thee on, that thou may split the rock, Wherein fresh fountains of a fairer life Gurgle and seethe

Thy mighty faith, gushing from out thy soul, Wan with the blazing of the direst forges, Thy mighty faith enters my heart as well. And this I know, belovèd Master, Full well I know this my belovèd Teacher, That this, my parrallel is incomplete; One point there is, wherein shall be a change, A joyous change, like to the spring-tide sun, Like to the blackbird’s first exulting song Within our gardens when the spring draws near:

For surely thou shalt find salvation’s rock, From which a fresh and boisterous fountain bursts, To quicken once again the half-dead flock, With strength to brace it for a new-born life.

Thou surely shalt return, belovèd Master, That thou mayst rest thy head amid thy flock, And gently e’en as only thou canst speak, Say in thy heart: “This toil of mine was good”.

On every front to which Czech soldiers are sent the Austrian generals fully understand what it means when a nation desires to break down the walls of its jail. From the very first day of the war it was clear that the Czech soldiers would not fight for the cause of the Germans and the Magyars against their friends—the nations of the Entente. They were therefore put at once under careful "observation" at the front as well as behind the lines. The watch increased in severity with every month of the war. “This is not a war secret”, said Prince Ludwig Windischgratz in the Hungarian Parliament on August 28th, 1916, “and the whole world sees it, how the service battalions are composed—that in every Czech service battalion at least 40 per cent of Magyar and German troops are included.”

Yet all these measures could not prevent the Czech soldiers from carrying out their purpose. Though carefully watched by their German and Magyar hangmen they continued individually and in groups, and even in regiments, to pass over to the side which, in the Austrian terminology, is that of the enemy, but to the Czechs is that of their liberators. In September, 1914, the 8th Regiment of the Czech Landwehr when ordered to march to the Russian front, refused obedience, and attacked its German officers. Thereupon the 75th German Regiment was sent against it, and the Czechs had to pay the penalty of their revolt. The 36th Regiment, recruited from the district of Mlada Boleslav, also mutinied whilst still in Bohemia, and was decimated by the Germans and Magyars. More effective was, however, the action of the Czechs at the front. The fact that several Czech