The Danube - Ján Kollár

Duna! thou queen of many rivers,—thou
Of all Slavonia, venerable mother!
Why to a foreign ocean dost thou flow,
Why leave thy native home to seek another?
O, if thou love thy birthplace, if thou know
Pity for these thy sorrowing children, glide
Not to the Osmans, but these tears of woe
Bear to thy cradle on thy silver tide.
Dost thou seek wreaths of fame?—it is no fame
To bear a hundred ships upon thy face
While it is watered by a single tear,—
Yet this is glory, when Wletawa here
Joins to thy name its own fraternal name,
And thy bride Saale speeds to thine embrace.

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Ján Kollár (1793 - 1852) Slovakia

Translated by John Bowring

Source: Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes, ed. by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. James R. Osgood & Co., 1876–79