“Our war was a war of self-defence. If anybody denies it, let him look at our frontiers north, south and east, if his tearful eyes can see so far. The war we lost was a war of self-defence. We lost it terribly, more terribly than fate had decreed. And now, the pain is so burning, our sufferings are so immeasurable, that the human brain has become benumbed and we are dropping from our hands that which we ought to hold on to. “Our people, with its thousand years of history, stands exhausted, incapable of acting while the moments of grace which fate has given us before closing the most awful chapter of our history pass by. “The sand is running out, and there is no hand to stay it. Where is he who will seize the moment and shout a message to our unarmed brethren perishing amid the bayonets of Czechs, Roumanians and Serbs? Who will raise his voice so that it will carry beyond the walls erected by war between the peoples of the world, and bring faith, hope and love to us once more? Where is he? And if his voice does not carry far enough, why in this hour of our trial have all the strings of our nation’s lute been slackened? Why did our war produce no Petöfi, why is the burning pain of our defeat without Arány? The strains of soft chords carry further than the declamations of loud-voiced orators. “Have even the songs of our fighting bards forsaken Hungary? Have the minstrels that remained at home all bled to death? The recital of our sorrows should be piercing the hearts of five continents; strength and faith should be sung to our sufferers at home, the bloodless nation should be stirred up with wild inspiring songs, so that it may not abandon hope. Poets are needed, poets whose voices can hold together the Hungarian soil, poets who will teach Hungarians to help each other. “Let them come, I beseech them, let the poets come who still feel Hungary’s pain as their own, for whom Hungary’s death is the death of themselves. For Pressburg weeps above the Danube, the people of our northern counties have lost their homes, faithful Zips calls broken-hearted to the Great Plain. Kassa is ready to grasp Rákoczi’s sword. Transylvania shows her martyr’s wounds while the proud Székler shakes off his shackles and the ancient land that Hunyádi held is breaking its heart over the disgrace of Belgrade. Who can give us a word of comfort, who can strengthen us with faith in a better future, in this hour of our agony, if not the poets of the nation? “And while I clamour in vain for them the immortals rise from their tombs, the great army of national spirits, planting a standard round which the millions of Hungarians should rally: a torch to guide them, a camp-fire to rest them, and the soft flames of the hearth to comfort them in the night of great deception. “While our contemporaries fail to find a voice for our sufferings, Petöfi wanders among the ragged mutilated heroes who have returned: