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Whence come those shrieks so wild and shrill,
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That cut, like blades of steel, the air,
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Causing the creeping blood to chill
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With the sharp cadence of despair?
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|
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Again they come, as if a heart
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Were cleft in twain by one quick blow,
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And every string had voice apart
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To utter its peculiar woe.
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Whence came they? From yon temple, where
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An altar, raised for private prayer,
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Now forms the warrior's marble bed
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Who Warsaw's gallant armies led.
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The dim funereal tapers throw
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A holy luster o'er his brow,
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And burnish with their rays of light
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The mass of curls that gather bright
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|
Above the haughty brow and eye
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|
Of a young boy that's kneeling by.
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What hand is that, whose icy press
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Clings to the dead with death's own grasp,
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|
But meets no answering caress?
|
|
No thrilling fingers seek its clasp.
|
|
It is the hand of her whose cry
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|
Rang wildly, late, upon the air,
|
|
When the dead warrior met her eye
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Outstretched upon the altar there.
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|
|
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With pallid lip and stony brow
|
|
She murmurs forth her anguish now.
|
|
But hark! the tramp of heavy feet
|
|
Is heard along the bloody street;
|
|
Nearer and nearer yet they come,
|
|
With clanking arms and noiseless drum.
|
|
Now whispered curses, low and deep,
|
|
Around the holy temple creep;
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|
The gate is burst; a ruffian band
|
|
Rush in, and savagely demand,
|
|
With brutal voice and oath profane,
|
|
The startled boy for exile's chain.
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|
|
|
The mother sprang with gesture wild,
|
|
And to her bosom clasped her child;
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|
Then, with pale cheek and flashing eye,
|
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Shouted with fearful energy,
|
|
"Back, ruffians, back! nor dare to tread
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Too near the body of my dead;
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|
Nor touch the living boy; I stand
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|
Between him and your lawless band.
|
|
Take me, and bind these arms—these hands—
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|
With Russia's heaviest iron bands,
|
|
And drag me to Siberia's wild
|
|
To perish, if 'twill save my child!"
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|
|
|
"Peace, woman, peace!" the leader cried,
|
|
Tearing the pale boy from her side,
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|
And in his ruffian grasp he bore
|
|
His victim to the temple door.
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|
"One moment!" shrieked the mother; "one!
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