ails me? Shall I peaceful sleep till Germans
Shall give me sleeping, bound, to hangman's hands?"
"O husband! Heaven forbid! The sentries guard
Full well the trenches." "True the sentries guard them.
I watch and grasp the sabre in my hand.
But when the sentries die the sword is broken.
List, if I live to old age, wretched age----"
"But Heaven will give us comfort in our children."
"The Germans will fall on us, slay the wife,
The children tear away, and lead them far,
Teach them to loose the arrow on their father.
Myself my father, brothers, might have slain,
Unless the Wajdelote----" "Dear Walter! go we
Farther in Litwa; hide we from the Germans
In mountains and in forests." "Aye, we go,
And other mothers, children leave behind.
Thus fled the Prussians; Germans overtook them
In Litwa. If they trace us in the mountains----"
"Let us again go farther." "Farther? farther?
Unhappy one! shall we go far from Litwa,
Into the Tartar's or the Rusin's hands?"
Hushed was Aldona, troubled at this answer,
For hitherto it had to her appeared
Her Fatherland were long as is the world,
Wide without end; and now for the first time
She heard there was no refuge in all Litwa.
Wringing her hands she asked, "What may be done?"

"One way, Aldona, one remains to Litwa
To break the Order's power: that way I know;
But ask it not for God's sake. Hundred times
Be cursed that hour in which, constrained by foes,
I seize these means." No farther would he say,
Heard not Aldona's prayers, but only heard
And saw before him Litwa's misery.
At last the flame of vengeance, nursed in silence,
By sight of suffering and defeat, increased,
And did surround his heart, consumed all feelings--
One feeling even, hitherto life-sweetening,--
Feeling of love. So when the hunters light
A hidden fire 'neath oaks of Bialowiez,
It burns away the inner pith; the monarch
Of the forest loses all his waving leaves,
His branches fly off, even that green crown
That once adorned his brow, the mistletoe,
Dries up and withers.
Long the Litwini
Wandered through castles, mountains, and through woods,
The Germans harrying or by them attacked,
Till fought the dreadful fight on Rudaw's plains,
Where many thousand Litwin youth lay slaughtered,
Beside as many of the Teuton host
Soon reinforcements from beyond the sea
Came to the Germans. Kiejstut then and Walter
Ascended with a handful to the mountains.
With broken sabres and with dinted shields,
Covered with dust and