After last night's excursion into an ancient burial mound, I successfully recovered a missing page to the poem book: "Poetry from Distant Lands". Here is an excerpt I have translated from elvish:
The elf-keeps are
smoking, the orc bands are raiding,
Oh Wesnoth, your
soldiers: they’re idle and waiting,
Give ear! Give ear!
Come swift to our aid,
For Lintanir and
Wesmere are dark and afraid.
The beacons are
burning, our riders have called,
Our scouts you are
spurning; you remain in your halls,
The orcs, they are
killing and cutting and felling,
Elf children are dying,
while your general stalls.
Our soldiers are
failing, our arrows are spent,
Our spears they have
shattered, our armor is rent,
Our heroes have fallen,
our captains have fled,
The green of the Kalian
is burnt black and stained red.
Our homes they are
torching, the tree-folk are dying,
Our soldiers are
weeping, our children are crying,
The orc-hosts are
chanting, and cheering and jeering,
They know now your
horsemen won’t north come a-riding.
Our soldiers are
fighting, and falling and fleeing,
Your swordsmen are
missing, your spears we aren’t seeing,
Oh Haldric! Oh
Haldric! Your men we are needing,
Your treaties and
oaths, they are empty and bleeding.
Kalenz is marching, his
battle song singing,
He’s routing the
orcs, his bright sword is swinging,
The orcs they are
quarrelling, and cursing and trembling,
They fear his bright
eyes, and the troops he is bringing.
Our battle is won, the
foemen are scattered,
Their chieftains are
vanquished, their armies are shattered,
Our woods have been
emptied, but the orcs are no more,
And all without
Wesnoth, who did not march to war.
Oh Haldric, your
treaties proved fragile as glass,
Your words soon
forgotten like wind on the grass,
Therefore no elf bows
will sing at your wars,
Nor swords will we
send, when orcs lay siege to your doors.
