Sol 5.6

  1. The first year of war and bloodshed has passed;

    another dawns, while war’s death-dealing doom complains of thirst.

  2. Its dust-laden gales blow fiercer, and its fire

    blazes higher; its torrent covered the earth when it overflowed.

  3. It remained confined neither to land nor sea, but reached the—

    air: its ogre rose aloft, gaping a mouth.

  4. It terrified the swimmers of the air with aircraft

    that climbed a ladder between earth and sky.

  5. It penetrated deep beneath the water, spreading its terror

    over the shoals of fish like a looming shadow.

  6. In the heavens its aircraft rain down death,

    sweeping over mankind and cutting them down.

  7. And in the sea its submarines conduct the—

    ships and their passengers to certain death.

  8. Yet against Austria, to this day, there still

    charges the proud champion of the Serbian host, ever at the fore,

  9. with his Montenegrin ally, whose

    device and blazon of valor are white and emblazoned.

  10. Time and again the two assailed her,

    making her taste bitter colocynth from oppression’s bowl.

  11. Then Bulgaria adopted a position

    strange, clouded with ambiguity and fraught with what—

  12. the true Allies found difficult to unravel,

    so tangled and obscure had this affair become.

  13. They trusted her when she declared her neutrality to them,

    all supposing sincerity on her part.

  14. But Ferdinand had already made her alignment

    with the German side firm and final.

  15. He spent the first year maneuvering: now

    showing the Allies pliancy, now resentment.

  16. Yet against the Russians—who had shed their blood

    as a sacrifice for the Bulgarians—he burned with consuming rage.

  17. In his eyes they had committed no offense except

    that they shunned him when he stood a criminal:

  18. they refused him aid while he was the aggressor against Serbia,

    and would not sanction what they deemed forbidden.

  19. His hatred of them therefore grew—no wonder, for he was

    enamored of nothing but breaking covenants.

  20. Before this he had betrayed the Serbs, honoring no pact

    with them, and had kindled war against them into flame.

  21. He reaped from it nothing but defeat, because of which

    he was compelled to call upon the Russian Tsar for rescue.

  22. The Tsar cried to Serbia’s army, “Halt!” and it obeyed him;

    the attacking force turned back from Sofia and withdrew.

  23. Yet this did not satisfy Ferdinand, who deemed what

    the Allies said about it mere conjectural talk.

  24. Within his breast, against Serbia and Russia, seethed—

    rancors that never ceased blazing like fire.

  25. He sought to cure his spite through treachery, and sprang forth

    upon Serbia unawares, seeking spoils.

  26. He caught her off guard, springing upon her from behind—

    the habitual way of a vile coward when he strikes.

  27. He aided the Austrians against her, bent on blood vengeance,

    seeking vengeance unjustly while pretending himself wronged.

  28. And over and above those two, the Germans and Turks advanced;

    from all of them there formed a mighty host.

  29. All these armies surrounded her,

    as though I see her—a bracelet encircling a wrist.

  30. They tightened oppression’s tread upon her until

    her Indian-forged sword bent, nicked within her hand.

  31. The peoples of East and West immortalized for her people,

    and for the Montenegrins, a glorious remembrance.

  32. They yielded not a finger’s breadth of their land

    to their enemies without drenching it in blood.

  33. Yes, they lost—but the fame of their valor

    compensated them with a nobler, more honorable gain.

  34. The tongues of mankind will remember them with gratitude;

    and if those tongues fell silent about them, inanimate matter would speak.

  35. Whoever among them lived, lived nobly; and whoever died

    died most worthy of mourning and mercy.

Sol 5.6