ong.

But why invoke the ages long gone by,
And for the present's glory find no voice?
For in your midst a great man liveth nigh--
I sing of him. Ye, Litwini, rejoice!

Silent the old man was, and hearkened round,
If still the Germans will permit his song.
Around the hall there reigned a silence deep;
This warms all poets to a newer zeal.
Once more he raised his song, but other theme;
O'er freer cadences his voice did range.
More rarely he, and lighter, touched the strings,
Descending from the hymn to simple story.

THE WAJDELOTE'S TALE.

Whence come the Litwins? From a nightly sally;
From church and castle they have won rich spoils,
And crowds of German slaves with fettered hands,
Ropes on their necks, follow the victors' steeds.
They look towards Prussia and dissolve in tears,
On Kowno look, commend their souls to God.
In midst of Kowno stretches Perun's plain;
The Litwin princes, there returned from conquest,
Do burn the German knights in sacrifice.12
Two captive knights untroubled ride to Kowno,
One fair and young, the other bowed with years.
They in the battle left the German troops,
Fled to the Litwins. Kiejstut did receive them,
But led them to the castle under guard.
He asks their race, with what intent they come.
"I know not," said the youth, "my race or name;
In childhood was I made the Germans' captive.
I recollect alone, somewhere in Litwa,
Amid a great town stood my father's house.
It was a wooden town on lofty hills,
The house was of red brick. Around the hills
Murmured a wood of fir-trees on the plains;
Among the woods a white lake gleamed afar.
One night a shout aroused us from our sleep;
A fiery day dawned in the window, shook
The window-panes, and whirling wreaths of smoke
Burst forth within the house. We to the door.
Flames curled through all the streets, sparks fell like hail.
A horrid cry arose, 'To arms! the Germans
Are in the town! to arms!' My father rushed
Forth with his sword,--rushed forth--returned no more!
The Germans poured into the house. One seized me
And caught me to his saddle. What came further
I know not; but long, long my mother's shrieks
I heard 'mid clash of swords, 'mid fall of houses.
This cry long followed me, stayed in my ear;
Even now when I view flames and falling houses,
This cry wakes in my soul as echo wakes
In caverns after thunder's voice. Behold
My memories all of Litwa and my parents.
Sometimes in dreams I view the honoure