Tears For My Beloved. Country Poem by John Chizoba Vincent

TEARS FOR MY BELOVED COUNTRY

How she now sits all alone
The city that was full of people
How she has become like a widow;
She who was populous among the nations!
How she who was a princess among the province
Has been put to a force labour!

She weeps profusely during the night
And her tears covers her cheeks
Not one of all her lovers is there
To hold and comfort her.
All her own companion have betrayed her;
They have become her enemies

Is it nothing to all of you who pass along the road?
Look and see! Is there any pain like the pains that
Was dealt out of me?
From on high he has set fire into my bone
And he subdues each one
He has spread out a net my feet;
He has forced me to turn backward
He has made me a desolate woman
All day long I am ill

The tongue of the nursery infant sticks
To its palate because of thirst
My Children beg for bread but no one goes to them
Those who used to eat delicacies lie famished
In the street.those who were brought up wearing scarlet have embrace ash heaps

The punishment of daughter of my people
Is greater than the punishment of sodom
Which was outthrown in a moment
With no hand to help her
Their appearance has become darker than soot
They are not recognised in the streets
Their skin has shriveled over their bones;
It has become like dry wood in the forest

Those slain with sword are better off than
Those slain by famine, those who waste away,
Who are pierced through for lack of food from the field.
The hands of compassionate women
Have boiled their children, they have
Become their food of mourning during
The break down of the daughter of my people

Go away! Unclean! ' They call out to them
'Go away! Go away! Do not touch us'
For they have gone homeless and wander about
People have said among the nations
'They cannot stay here with us'

Man up! Man up country men
Let it be told that we choose to die
On our feet rather than live on our kneel.