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Are you no longer the God of hosts?
Are you no longer the God of battles?
They perish, Lord, if you do not answer!
The shadow of the scimitar is already upon their steps!
By the livid gleams of the burning cities,
Do you see these unarmed bands,
These children, these old men, these alarmed virgins?
They drift at the mercy of outrage to death,
They look at the sea, they stretch their arms to you;
Are you no longer the God of hosts?
Are you no longer the God of battles?
Long ago you arose! your trembling tribes
Cried: Lord! Lord! either never, or tomorrow!
You came forth fully armed, you fought! suddenly
The Assyrian, struck, fell without seeing the hand,
With a breath of your terror you swept away his tents,
His whitened bones traced the way for us!
Where are they? where are they, those sublime spectacles
That the waters of Gad and the mountains of Seir saw?
What! the earth has martyrs,
And heaven no longer has miracles?
Yet a whole people has cried: Save me;
We fall in your name, we perish for you!
The mountains heard it! the echoes of Attica
From cave to cave repeated its cries,
Athens trembled beneath its ancient dust,
Sparta rolled them from ruin to ruin!
The seas heard it! the waves on their shores,
The ships that passed, the masts heard it!
The lion on Oeta, the eagle in the heart of the clouds;
And you alone, my God! you did not answer!
They prayed to you, Lord, from night to dawn,
Under all the divine names by which the universe adores you;
They broke for you their gods, those mortal gods,
They kneaded, Lord, with the water of the hills,
The dust of tombs, the ashes of ruins,
To fashion altars for you!
Altars at Delos! altars on Aegina!
Altars at Plataea, at Leuctra, at Marathon!
Altars on the shore where Salamis weeps!
Altars on the cape where Plato meditated!
The priests led along their shores
Women, old men who invoked you in choirs,
Children throwing flowers
Before the holy images,
And mourning widows who hid their faces
In their hands full of tears!
The wood of their ships, their rocks, their walls,
Delivered them alive to their persecutors,
Their heads rolled under the feet of the victors,
Like dead cannonballs on the fields of battle;
The executioners plunged their hands into their entrails;
But neither the burning iron, Lord, nor the pincers,
Could tear you from their hearts!
And what do they say, Lord, these nations armed
Against this sacred name that you do not avenge:
You are no longer the God of hosts!
You are no longer the God of battles!
Alphonse de Lamartine
Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.
Text published on Poésies 123: https://www.poesies123.com/en/poem-invocation-to-the-greeks-alphonse-de-lamartine/