Modern History Sourcebook:
Alexander Petofi:
The National Song of Hungary, 1848
[Tappan Introduction] Much of the Magyar poetry is thrilled with a
burning love of country. Even the poems that have nothing to do with patriotism are marked
by a certain intensity of feeling. No matter how light the subject or how graceful the
touch of the author, it seems impossible for him to lay down his pen without adding some
line that changes a pleasant little rhyme into an expression of earnest thought.
RISE, Magyar! is the country's call!
The time has come, say one and all:
Shall we be slaves, shall we be free?
This is the question, now agree!
For by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
Alas! till now we were but slaves;
Our fathers resting in their graves
Sleep not in freedom's soil. In vain
They fought and died free homes to gain.
But by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
A miserable wretch is he
Who fears to die, my land, for thee!
His worthless life who thinks to be
Worth more than thou, sweet liberty!
Now by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
The sword is brighter than the chain,
Men cannot nobler gems attain;
And yet the chain we wore, oh, shame!
Unsheath the sword of ancient fame!
For by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
The Magyar's name will soon once more
Be honored as it was before!
The shame and dust of ages past
Our valor shall wipe out at last.
For by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
And where our graves in verdure rise,
Our children's children to the skies
Shall speak the grateful joy they feel,
And bless our names the while they kneel.
For by the Magyar's God above
We truly swear,
We truly swear the tyrant's yoke
No more to bear!
Source:
From: Eva March Tappan, ed., The World's Story: A History of the World in Story,
Song and Art, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1914), Vol. VI: Russia, Austria-Hungary,
The Balkan States, and Turkey, pp. 408-410.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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halsall@fordham.edu
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