Kossuth

It can scarcely be necessary to say that there are elements in the character and passages in the history of the great Hungarian statesman and orator, which necessarily command the admiration of those, even, who believe that no political revolution was ever worth the price of human blood.

TYPE of two mighty continents!—combining

The strength of Europe with the warmth and glow

Of Asian song and prophecy,—the shining

Of Orient splendors over Northern snow!

Who shall receive him? Who, unblushing, speak

Welcome to him, who, while he strove to break

The Austrian yoke from Magyar necks, smote off

At the same blow the fetters of the serf,

Rearing the altar of his Fatherland

On the firm base of freedom, and thereby

Lifting to Heaven a patriot’s stainless hand,

Mocked not the God of Justice with a lie!

Who shall be Freedom’s mouthpiece? Who shall give

Her welcoming cheer to the great fugitive?

Not he who, all her sacred trusts betraying,

Is scourging back to slavery’s hell of pain

The swarthy Kossuths of our land again!

Not he whose utterance now from lips designed

The bugle-march of Liberty to wind,

And call her hosts beneath the breaking light,

The keen reveille of her morn of fight,

Is but the hoarse note of the blood-hound’s baying,

The wolf’s long howl behind the bondman’s flight!

Oh for the tongue of him who lies at rest

In Quincy’s shade of patrimonial trees,

Last of the Puritan tribunes and the best,

To lend a voice to Freedom’s sympathies,

And hail the coming of the noblest guest

The Old World’s wrong has given the New World of the West!

1851.

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