Renowned musician, freeman of the world,
and yet our kinsman everywhere you go,
have you a cadence for the ailing land
to set to strings that play in the marrow?
Have you a cadence, shaker of great hearts?
Have you a cadence that no grief defeats?
Centuries old, life-loads of fate and sin
have paralyzed and overborne us;
dispirited, the race lived on the chain,
saving itself by acting spineless.
And if sometimes it boiled to a release
it was the struggle of a fever case.
Then came a finer age and the return
of hope, a dawn lit by our longing,
recovery, sweet torments in the brain,
new life for dead desires, sick yearning.
We are aflame again to claim the land;
we are once more prepared to shed our blood.
Each pulse-beat we can feel within our hearts;
at its sacred name our blood surges;
we suffer all its torments, all its smarts;
at each disgrace a new flame urges;
upon its throne we bid it to be great,
happy and strong within its simple hut.
Great scholar of the land where grievance grows,
where the heart of a world is beating,
where now at last the sun dares to arise
with the purple and red blood mingling,
where, as the people's ocean reached full tide,
the domineering furies disappeared;
and in their stead, walking in whitest robes
of purity, step peace and diligence,
and in resplendent mansions art unfolds
new-found and sacred immanence;
and as a thousand brains are sanctified
the nation toils with one tremendous hand;
Great Universal Master, make for us
another song about days gone by,
destiny in the keyboard of our voice
through battle's thunder forcing its cry,
and on the flood of the earth-shattering sound
let trumpet-blasts triumphantly resound.
Sing out a song so in their deepest graves
our ancestors are compelled to stir,
so each immortal soul awaking proves
new life to descendants, made aware
of blessings in their Magyar fatherland.
They know that traitor sons are shamed and banned.
And if grim times and twilight overtake,
let a faint murmur on muted strings
be by your utmost art made to invoke
soughing breezes over autumn leaves,
suggesting to our hearts with lulling sound
those ancient sites where sorrow packs the ground.
Reflected on the manly arms we take
shall rise that pale lady, pensive Grief,
and the full tragedy of Mohács make
its repetition for our belief,
and when the internecine scourge has drawn our tears
that sorrow shall do much for present fears.
And if you waken love of Fatherland,
which holds the present in its embrace,
and at the same time takes the time at hand
and in the past a fine remembrance,
sing to us with your full concerted strings
so that into our hearts your fine sound sings;
and in awakened passion's purity
trials of daring should be meted,
and our great sons should diligently see
that weak and strong must move united,
and like one man the enduring nation stand
with arms of bronze to hold the strife-torn land.
And if they were our bones, even the stones
should shake into a sacred gladness;
and as the fretting wave on Danube runs
our blood shall make its heated progress;
and where both great and sorry days have passed
this soil shall throb, irascible at last;
and if you hear through your resounding strain
the Fatherland awaken to your theme,
which all the people with their teeming tongues
sing with you when their courage grows extreme,
join with us all and let us say: Thank God
this nation keeps the soul of great Árpád.
