SONGS OF THE SLAV

TRANSLATIONS FROM
THE CZECHO-SLOVAK

OTTO KOTOUČ

BOSTON
THE POET LORE COMPANY
THE GORHAM PRESS

Copyright, 1919, by Otto Kotouč
All Rights Reserved
Made in the United States of America
The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.

PREFACE

Although the Czecho-Slovaks have a great literature, particularly rich in poetry, but very little has been introduced to the American public. This has perhaps been due mainly to the fact that the Czechs did not possess their independence and consequently were considered an insignificant nation submerged within the shadows of the former Austro-Hungarian empire. Since the World War has resulted in liberating oppressed nationalities, and Czecho-Slovakia has again regained her ancient independence, undoubtedly a greater opportunity will be offered to learn more about the language and literature of that liberty loving people.

As is usually the case with a nation held in subjugation, so with the Czecho-Slovaks, their poets kept alive the national spirit until their liberation. The purpose of this little volume is not only to present a few specimens of Czecho-Slovak poetry, but also to show how Czecho-Slovak poets kept the “fires of Liberty” burning, while awaiting “dawn’s redemptory glow.” For, in the words of Jablonský,—

“Ask thou what’s more beautiful,—

Hither lay thy right hand:

’Tis the heart, beloved son,

Beating for native land.”

Of the poets herein represented, Jan Kollár, the Slovak poet, is known as the poet of Pan-Slavism. Vítězslav Hálek was the forerunner of the modern school of poets, instilling idealism and enthusiasm into the then newly resurrected national life. Svatopluk Čech has the distinction of being the most popular of all the Czech poets. Petr Bezruč, “first bard of Bezkyd, and the last,” is the Mountain Poet of (Lower) Silesia. Blowing into a “dying flame,” he has kept alive the Czech national spirit of that region against the combined efforts of the Germans and the Poles. J. S. Machar is the leading poet of Czecho-Slovakia in the present day.

CONTENTS

SONGS OF THE SLAV

THE DAUGHTER OF SLÁVA

Jan Kollár

Canto III. Sonnet 62

A hundred times I spoke, but now I call

To you divided, O Slavonians!

Let’s be a whole and not a part in clans;

Be one in harmony or naught at all.

A dove-like nation we in scorn are styled.

But doves you know are come of such a stock

That loves to live within a common flock,

And so may you apply this trait reviled.

O Slavs, thou race of many fragments!

United forces e’er results will show,

But waste and dry the circling currents.

O Slavs, who are of many heads a race!

The wise indeed a death no worse can know

Than life that sloth, void, darkness doth embrace.

Canto III. Sonnet 110

What will become of Slavs in hundred years?

What will the whole of Europe come to be?

Slav life, just as a mighty flow appears,

Shall everywhere extend its boundary.

That tongue, which German henchmen falsely low

Proclaimed a tongue of slaves to all around,

Shall ’neath our rival’s palace ceilings sound

And even spoken be by lips of foe.

Sciences shall likewise Slav channels see;

Our people’s customs, dress and music will

On both the Seine and Danube modish be.

O would that I had rather been born when

The Slavs shall rulers be! Or better still,

I shall then rise up from my grave again.

EVENING SONGS

Vítězslav Hálek

I

“Unmeet it is for man to lack

In song,” once God in judgment spake,

Created man a poet then,

And bade him this allotment take:

“So long as thou liv’st know no peace,

But only learn of pain instead;

And disappointed too in hope,

In tears eat thou thy daily bread.

“Torn be thy heart and bled from wounds,

But thyself only see thy bleeding;

Though hounded over every bound,

Love thou but all the more and sing.”

It is us singers’ common lot,

The world may only know our songs,

To know what prompted us to sing,

To none within this world belongs.

II

O Lord, of every claim to gift

I have, my soul here now I free;

But leave to me the gift of song,

That only do I beg of thee.

If thou shouldst take my gift to sing,

Naught longer then is life to me;

And gav’st me Fortune for my song,

I care not fortunate to be.

III

Whoever plays with golden strings,

Him honor more than thyself even;

For know that God did love thee so,

He needs must send him thee from heaven.

’Tis terrible when plague and want

To God’s chastisement must belong;

Of punishments the greatest though,

Is when a nation lacks in song.

That race indeed has yet to die,

That had its prophets still to sing;

And every song that’s born in heaven

In even death new life doth bring.

IV

Cast ye not stones at your prophets,

For like the birds bards are alone:

They never will return to him

Who casts but once at them a stone.

A nation seeks God’s punishment

When unrevered its bards it wrongs;

And direst is the curse of God,

Whenever he withdraws his songs.

A poet’s heart is truly pure,

And likewise from all wrath apart,

And from his heart whate’er he sings,

That carry thou within thy heart.

V

A hundred years passed ’ere I came

Upon the grave that once was mine;

The sexton sang my song and piled

My bones with others in that shrine.

“O sexton, find for me that heart

From which you snatched the song you sing!”

The sexton wondered long and sought,

Save bones he could not find a thing.

Then from his grave he rose and spake:

“That, sir, with us no difference makes,

Ten hearts can’st thou perchance possess,

The grave wastes all of them it takes.”

He finished digging, and I sighed:

“O heart of mine, there thou didst end.”

The sexton as consoling adds,

“When hearts stop song, so all doth tend.”

SONGS OF THE SLAVE

Svatopluk Čech

I

Slaves.—Good it is to rest the weary body in the light of the moon

’Neath the palms here. Feasting over, our custodian sleeps now;

Sit down ’mongst us, tuneful comrade, and thy sweetly sounding strings tune;

Let thy song reveal the golden thoughts spun in your dreamy brow.

A Slave Girl.—Sing of flowers and stars!

A Young Slave.—Praise sing thou to a maid’s fair form and eye.

Another.—Ring the bells of jest.

An Old Man.—Disclose the deeds of ages long gone by.

The Bard.—Other themes by far to-day resound through my unhappy soul,

Like the roar and rumble of the storms that o’er the heavens roll.

Far from these are flowery adornment, girlish grace, and heroes’ pride:

Sighs, groans, gnash of teeth and clash of chains now in my themes abide.

Slaves.—Clash of chains is but a common strain to us, yet play and sing;

Subdue thy voice, lest our sleeping lords and guard the whip to you bring.

II

Well then, burst through lips obstructing,

Storms, that through my bosom roll,

Thoughts, that flash like rays of lightning

Through the darkness of my soul,

Fire of Shame and Wrathful Teeming,

Rouse my string from idle dreaming

And its heavy swoon control!

Hatched my songs not in a nest weighed

With scented tresses softly pressed,

Warmed them not the heart of maid

Dreaming sweetly on my breast.

Flashed were they through weary head

When ’neath haughty blows of fists, red

Flushed the cheek with blood compressed.

Yea of blood and tears and gall,

When times were bad, they were born;

When I saw the tyrant install

Tortures on my brothers forlorn;

When I gnashed my teeth in vain

As the brutal beadle in disdain

Laughed at us suffering and worn.

I know there’ll be no gratitude,

I know many of you will say,

In the tortured croaking rude

There’s no art or beauty’s lay,

Above troubled turmoil’s time

Should the singer strive to climb,

To the sunny height’s clear way.

’Tis the truth perhaps, but freely

How may soar one to the sky,

When on breast he feels painfully

Heavy night’s hobgoblin lie?

No other strain with me abides

Until storm in soul subsides;

Sing no other strain can I.

III

Of a slave begot, gave

Me birth likewise a slave;

Childhood’s lullaby song

Was but clash of chain,—

Through my life extended

Rusted shackles sounded

Morn till nightfall along

Life’s deserted main.

Scarce felt my nape at length

Youthful power and strength,

Yoke of steel was firmly

Bound about my neck:

Taught to bow my head low,

Kisses did I bestow

On the lash that smote me:

Brow beat earth at beck.

I, a weakly slave, grew

’Mongst my brother serfs true;

Chains for jewels clinked just

At each sister’s side;

And where’er my gaze dwelt

Anger, shame, pain I felt,

As with heads bowed to dust

Slaves dwelt nation wide.

Ill did I bear my fate—

My bond’s music grate,

Chasing from my cabin

All the charm of life.

When with stormy feeling

I sought my lyre’s healing,

In my song accursed, din

Of my chains was rife.

Still my eye would often beam

With a flickering gleam:

I would strain my ear past

Woods and streams along:

I deemed that yon somewhere

Triumphs ’neath the heav’ns there,

Flies our hollow at last,

Freedom’s sunny song.

When my head I would lift,

Low again would it drift;

On in shame and sorrow

Years succession gave.

Clings the yoke still to me

And the eye waits vainly

Dawn’s redemptory glow:

I will die a slave.

My head e’en now bends low,

White locks my temples show;

Hopes no longer attain

Autumn’s riper hue,—

Shackled my hands I know

Curséd the yoke I’ll never o’erthrow,—

In my grave shall that chain

Rest beside me too.

XVI

Oft here and there freedom is an empty name,

And liberty a hollow, idle sound;

Yet day by day ’mongst us feels this watchword same

Each heart with stormy throb anew rebound;

Where’er one’s gaze doth fall, ’tis writ in fire there,

And round about eternally it peals;

Each morn we breathe a sigh for this our first care,

At night our final prayer with it deals.

Whene’er the boundless sea draws us from afar,

And free the wind doth toss our locks apart;

Whene’er the steeds that roam the plain, know no bar,

With flowing mane on the horizon start;

Whene’er before our gaze proud soars the eagle

And flaps his wings in bluey heights above:

The fettered hand the while then shakes its shackle,

And quivering the lips with “Freedom” move.

O Freedom, like a wondrous myth art thou borne

Enchantingly to us from times now wan:

Dim as an echo of paradise forlorn

That sleeps concealed within the heart of man.

Our spirit grown with chains in one scarce trusts too

That more than rumors could these tidings be,

That what in yonder distance dawns was true,

That we were once a nation of the free.

Thou didst appear within the tales of childlore

A shining fairy with a star above

Whene’er the grandsire read chronicles of yore;

Wast thou and thou alone youth’s own true love,

Thy sunny gaze did ever before him beam,

And dreams of thee his martial moments filled;

For thee his shining sword he drew in dream,

In dream his warmest blood for thee he spilled.

In slav’ry’s night wast thou a star to man,

Though far, though unattainable, alas!

’Twas thou that through his thoughts forever ran,

The goal of all his hopes to thee did pass;

And as a promised land beckst thou afar

The head that’s gray, when wrapped o’er chains in dream;

And e’en on dying eyes earth’s last rays are

United with thee in a twinkling gleam.

O Freedom, let be that with lapse of time came

Thy name to lose its tone, once pure a part;

Let greedy egoists desecrate thy name

Who must suspend thy emblem in their mart;

Let be that slanderers of true liberty

Weave thee upon their flag in false acclaim;

And those who at length escape the yoke, wildly

Then throttle other nations in thy name:

To hold thee ever pure in our hearts we seek,

Taught constantly thy fuller worth to know

Through rain of blows, the sting on the sunken cheek,

And rapacious hands that grasp all from us so.

The blows that day by day are dealt with lash,

The thorns that daily pierce our brow,—all see

Each after each through the soul thy image flash,

And from the depths the sigh wells, “Liberty.”

O Freedom, daily, thy opposite beneath,

We learn thy full and lustrous charm to admire,

In that hollow moan, in the gnash of teeth

With which we gnaw our bit our life entire.

When foreign heel can trample our nape in dust

And every comer scorn and torture deals,

The lips are closed ’neath hangman’s lash unjust,

Though through the heart storm’s longing, “Freedom,” peals!

XVII

When dark above the earth the piling clouds clash

Like raging hosts of Satan in array,