BETA

Montenegro.

They rose to where their sovran eagle sails,1
They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height,2
Chaste, frugal, savage, arm’d by day and night3
Against the Turk ; whose inroad nowhere scales4
Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails,5
And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight6
Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight7
By thousands down the crags and thro’ the vales.8
O smallest among peoples ! rough rock-throne9
Of freedom ! warriors beating back the swarm10
Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years,11
Great Tsernogora ! never since thine own12
Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm13
Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers.14