4.I.
I am the seer of the folk by the Bezkyds;
God gave me not to them. He heeds but the country
Where gold of the corn stretches up to the skyline,
Where pansies are fragrant, forget-me-nots blossom,
Where cymbal and fiddle make music for dances,
Where cities are broad and castles majestic,
Treasure-filled churches and skiffs on the river,
Trusting in heaven, and gladness and glee.
He whom God had condemned to a sulphury chasm,
He whose lips in their starkness no prayer ever uttered,
Sat on a crag with a time-old defiance.
He stared with an eye that was murky as nightfall,
'Neath the hush of the Bezkyds and 'neath Lysá Hora.
A century's grip, the yoke that has humbled
The collier's neck as a bough in the bending,
Turbulent grasp of the foreigner, dragging
