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Holy Virgin, who protectest bright Czenstochowa and shinest above

the Ostra Gate in Wilno!2 Thou who dost shelter the castle of

Nowogrodek with its faithful folk! As by miracle thou didst

restore me to health in my childhood-when, offered by my weeping

mother to thy protection, I raised my dead eyelids, and could

straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine to thank God for

the life returned me-so by miracle thou wilt return us to the

bosom of our country. Meanwhile bear my grief-stricken soul to

those wooded hills, to those green meadows stretched far and wide

along the blue Niemen; to those fields painted with various

grain, gilded with wheat, silvered with rye; where grows the

amber mustard, the buckwheat white as snow, where the clover

glows with a maiden's blush, where all is girdled as with a

ribbon by a strip of green turf on which here and there rest

quiet pear-trees.