“Nosegay,” of national tales, in which he takes advantage of the fact that, in Bohemian and several other Slavonic dialects, a pretty little wild flower is called the “Mother’s soul,” will probably be the most attractive means of exhibiting these patriotic feelings to the English eye.
A mother had died and was laid in the grave,
Her orphans still stayed here,
And every morning together they went
And sought for their mother dear.
The mother was woe for her children dear,
Back came the soul that was fled,
And embodied itself in a tiny flower,
Which soon the grave o’erspread.
The children their mother knew again
By the scent so sweet around,
And their mother’s soul they call’d the flower,
Wherein they comfort found.
O mother’s soul of my country dear—
Tales simple enough, I trow—
I gather’d thee on an ancient grave,
To whom shall I give thee now?
In a tiny nosegay thy flowers I’ll twine,
With a band I’ll fairly bind,
I’ll point thee the way to the lands so wide,
Where kindred thou wilt find.
Some daughter of her mother perhaps will be there,
To whom thy scent will be sweet,
Perhaps, too, some son of thy mother thou’lt find,
Whose heart thy flowers will greet.
In 1773 the dissolution of the order of the Jesuits took place, and in 1781, the first year of his reign, the Emperor Joseph II. issued the celebrated Patent of Toleration, allowing free liberty of conscience and worship to all non-Catholics. Relics of the old sects sprang up immediately, so that they numbered more than 100,000 souls in Bohemia
