The Ruins of the Inn

Oh, beauteous, boundless strength of lowland plain,
My glad heart's pleasure ground dost still remain,
With hills and vales, the broken highland seems
A volume that with pictured pages teems;
But thou, where hill succeeds not hill, my plain
Art like an open page, whereof I gain
The knowledge at a glance, and over thee
The loftiest thoughts are written legibly.
'Tis sad; I cannot pass by happy chance
My life upon the puszta's wide expanse.
Here would I dwell amid these valleylands,
As the free Bedouin on Arabian sands.
Puszta, thou art the type of liberty;
And, liberty, thou art as God to me!
For thee, my Deity, alone I live,
That once for thee my life-blood I may give;
And, by my grave, when I for thee have died,
My cursed life shall then be sanctified.
But what is this, — grave, death, what do I write?
But marvel not, for ruins meet my sight;
Not ruins of a fort, but of an inn;
Time asks not to what end the house hath been;
A fortress, or a tavern, 'tis the same;
He treads o'er both alike, and when he came,
Walls tottered, crumbling, iron e'en as stone,

And nothing, high or low, he leaves alone.

Of stone how came they this old inn to rear,
When all the lowland shows no quarry near?
A town or hamlet, nestled here at first,
Long ere the Turkish rule our land had cursed.
Poor Hungary, my wretched land; ah me;
How many yokes have been endured by thee!
This ancient town was sacked by Osman's hordes,

Who razed each house therein, except the Lord's.
The church remained, a ruin, it is true,
Still of our loss a mourner left to view.
For centuries it stood thus; stood to mourn;
Until at last, by sorrow overborne,
It fell, and, lest its stones should scattered be,
They built the wayside inn which here you see, —
From God's house build an inn! and wherefore nay?
One serves the body, one the soul, I say!
Each in our being has an equal share;
On each we must attend with dutious care.
From God's house build an inn, and wherefore nay?
Our life can please our God in either way,
And purer hearts within an inn I've known,
Than some who daily kneel before God's throne.
Inn, fallen inn, when yet within thy door
The travellers rested and enjoyed thy store,
My phantasy builds up thy wall anew,
And one by one thy transient guests I view;
The wandering journeyman with staff is here;
The puszta's son in greasy cloack stands near,
There, with his long beard, is a peddling Jew,
The roving Slovak tinker, with a few
Who drink; the smiling hostess, young and fair,
Flirts with a merry student debonair;
The wine has made his head a little light,
His heart more loving to the hostess bright,
The aged host! in rage why starts he not?
He calmly sleeps beside the stack, I wot!
Then, 'neath the haystack's shade, now, in the tomb,
Where, too, his fair young wife had long found room
All have returned, long years since, dust to dust;
The inn hath fallen a prey to age's rust.
The wind the covering from its head did- tear;
The roof, whereof dismantled, it stands bare,
As though its master, time, it stood before,
And prayed for better usage than of yore.
In vain the suppliant prays, day after day;
Crumbling, it falls, until one cannot say
Where was the doorway, or the window where;
It was the dead's last hope before it fell:
The cellar is a ruin: there is the well.
Whose hoist, one day, some passing vagrant stole,
Leaving behind the crossbeam and the pole,
On which a royal eagle came to light,
Because the puszta yields no loftier height;
Behold his look and mien, so full of pride;
His memories seem with ages gone to bide.
The sun, that heavenly lover, flames above:
He burns, because his heart is filled with iove
For "Délibáb" the puszta's fairy child.
Whose fond eves gaze at him in yearnings wild.