An old Poem

An old poem is humming in my ears for days, Mihály Tompa, The birds to his sons*:

Silent upon a barren bough how long
Will ye remain, sad choristers and mute ?
Have ye forgotten the sweet lay and song
I taught you ? Though blithe music ill would suit
Our present lot, though wit and mirth be gone
And at the notes no merry echoes ring.
Although the song should be a mournful one
Sing, sons, I prithee sing!

A tempest has our forest refuge torn,
No leafy shelter doth receive us now.
Still silent ? Will ye vanish with the morn,
Will ye desert us when we are brought low?
Ah, in an alien grove your song would be
Strange and uncomprehended – curb your wing
And still abide with us, for sad are we :
Sing, sons, I prithee sing!

Sing of our country and her past sublime,
The golden harvest of the days of yore ;
Sing of her future, of that glorious time
When the bare earth shall laugh with flowers once more.
The music shall awake the folded seed
And o'er the quickened fields fair morning bring,
Helping with growing hope our present need:
Sing, sons, I prithee sing !

Here in this bush your ancient home behold.
Where first ye spread your wings ; will ye not rest
After a vagrant flight through cloud aisles cold
At last, and gladly, in your former nest?
Although the wind hath rent it, will ye be
Like callous men, the wreck abandoning?
Fly not to alien shores beyond the sea.
But sing, I prithee sing!

*An allegorical poem addressed by Tompa to the younger generation of poets, after the disastrous Revolution of 1848.
(Nora de Vallyi and Stuart, Dorothy)

(Source: https://www.babelmatrix.org/works/hu/Tompa_Mih%C3%A1ly/A_mad%C3%A1r_fiaihoz )