Our strife is coming; but in freedom’s van
The Polish Eagle’s fall is big with fate to man.
Proud bird of old! Mohammed’s moon recoiled
Before thy swoop: had we been timely bold,
That swoop, still free, had stunned the Russ, and foiled
Earth’s new oppressors, as it foiled her old.
Now thy majestic eyes are shut and cold:
And colder still Polonia’s children find
The sympathetic hands, that we outhold.
But, Poles, when we are gone, the world will mind,