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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TO IGNACE PADEREWSKI by THOMAS AUGUSTINE DALY

First Line: NOT YOURS? THE SOFTLY SPOKEN WORD
Last Line: THE COUNTRY OF THE HEART?
Subject(s): LANGUAGE; NATIONS; POLAND; WORDS; VOCABULARY;

NOT yours? The softly spoken word
Whose simple native pathos stirred --
As surely as the melodies
You drew divinely from the keys --
The deeps of every soul that heard?
The faltering tongue, the practiced hand,
Whiche'er you use, great-hearted Pole!
You speak what all can understand --
The Language of the Soul.

Not ours? This land of which you tell,
Where Kosciusko fought and fell,
And now a tortured nation stands,
With streaming eyes and empty hands,
Heroic in the face of hell?
Not yours alone this holy ground;
Of one great whole it is a part --
What hills, what sundering seas shall bound
The Country of the Heart?



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