O the glorious purple line
Of the mountains lifted along the west!
Bright, in the sun, their summits shine;
Dark, in the shade, their valleys rest.
Cossack and Tartar may hold the plains,
And the rivers that creep to a tideless sea;—
Mine be the heights where the eagle reigns,
And cataracts thunder, and winds blow free!
Not for the steppe, with its desert sheen,
From Austria's border to China's wall,
Would I give the upland pasture's green,
The beech-tree's shadow, the brooklet's fall.
Vanish, O weary, mournful Level!
Welcome, O Wind my brow that fans!
In the splendor of earth again I revel,
Greeting the purple Carpathians!