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'I see, I see,' the mother said,
'My children will die for lack of bread!
What more has the merciless tyrant said?'
The monk sat him down on her stony bed.
His eye was dry, no tear could flow,
A hollow groan bespoke his woe;
He trembled and shuddered upon the bed;
At length with a feeble cry he said:—
'When God commanded this hand to write
In the shadowy hours of deep midnight.
He told me that all I wrote should prove
The bane of all that on earth I love.
'My brother starved between two walls,
Thy children's crying my soul appals;
I mocked at the rack and the griding chain,—
My bent body mocks at their torturing pain.
'Thy father drew his sword in the north,
With his thousands strong he is marched forth;
Thy brother hath armed himself in steel,
To revenge the wrongs thy children feel.
'But vain the sword, and vain the bow,—
They never can work war's overthrow;
The hermit's prayer and the widow's tear
Alone can free the world from fear.
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