Not with deserters from the battle
That tears my land do I belong.
To their coarse praise I do not listen,
They shall not have from me one song.Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me
Or one upon a bed of sickness
Dark your road, O wanderer
Of wormwood smacks your alien breadHere into smoke and fires that blacken,
Our lives, the last of youth, we throw
Who, in the years behind us, never
Sought to evade a single blow.Poor exile, you are like a prisoner to me
Or one upon a bed of sickness
Dark your road, O wanderer
Of wormwood smacks your alien breadWe know that in the final reckoning
No hour will need apology
No people in the world are prouder
More tearless, simpler, than are wePoor exile, you are like a prisoner to me
Or one upon a bed of sickness
Dark your road, O wanderer
Of wormwood smacks your alien bread