MÁCHA, Karel Hynek


Máj
…..
'T was late at eve . . . the first of May,

A night in May . . . 'twas time for love.

A love lure sang the turtle-dove,

Where scented pine groves stretched away.

The tranquil moss sighed love's lament;

Love's sorrow shammed the blooming tree.

A nightingale sang love's melody,

While a rose replied with love's sweet scent.

The lake, hid where the thicket reared.

Expressed its grief in a muffled sound,

Where banks entwined it all around;

The suns of other worlds appeared

And strayed across the azure spheres,

Gleaming above like love's bright tears.

Whole worlds of them appeared at length

Upon the skies—love's timeless seat.

Then, changed to fading stars—whose strength

Was spent by love's o'er sweet extent—

They met, as roaming lovers meet.

The full moon's softly glowing cheeks

So brightly faint, so faintly bright,

Flared to a rosy, blushing light

As when a lover his loved one seeks:

Seeing its image from above,

The moon dies slowly with self-love.

Shadows and lights gleam through a gap,

Cautiously creeping, nigh and nigh,

Embracing self, till by and by

They huddle close in twilight's lap,

And then in one with darkness merge.

With them the trees embrace and surge—

Where dusk and mountain tops entwine,

Sways pine with birch and birch with pine,

The speeding waves new waves submerge

Within the brook—All feel the urge

When love time comes, to seek love's shrine.

Within this rosy evening light,

A maiden rests beneath a tree,

Gazing where the lake and banks match might

And past them, far as the eye can see.

Beneath the hill, the lake shows blue,

Further streaked with a patch of green,

And further still, more green between,

Until all blends into a blue-green hue.

Across the restful evening lake

The maiden casts her tired gaze;

Across the restful evening lake

Now glitters the heaven's starry maze.

Like a fallen angel appears the maid,

Spring's amaranth, drooping in the shade.

Beauty still lingers in her cheeks.

The hour that took her dearest treasure

Wrote in her features much that speaks

About her sorrow's brimful measure.

…..

A star fell from the heaven's heights.

A lifeless star that faintly glowed;

It falls to realms of endless nights,

Falls to its timeless, last abode.

Its plaint sounds from the tomb of all

Like shrieks of an unhappy soul.

"When will she end her ceaseless fall?"

Never—nowhere—an aimless goal.

About the white tower winds frolic at will.

While 'neath it the whispering ripples spill;

Upon the white wall, the moonlight bright

Pours out a flood of silvery light.

But deep 'neath the tower, 'tis dark and drear,

For there the moon-beams shining might

Flits through the casement bars in fear

To change into a part-lit night.

Into the dark, the columns stretch stark and bare.

While the maddened wind that howls and moans

Sounds through the jail like dead men's groans

And ruffles the captive's unkempt hair.

There, where the bleak stone table stands,

The prisoner rests a weary head,

He kneels, half leaning on his hands,

His mind each happy thought defies.

And in the clouds that span the moonlit waste,

The captive wraps his soul in furtive haste:

Each thought awakes new thought—and dies.

"Deep, silent night! With your black scorn

You hide the huts where I was born,

And where, I know she mourns for me!

She mourns? For me?—'tis but a dream!

For her, I long have ceased to be.

Soon as tomorrow's rays will gleam

Above our woods, I shall atone

Upon the gallows for my crime.

And she'll rejoice as that first time

We met where smiling sunbeams shone."

…..

Upon the spreading plains now sleeps the pale moon light,

The mountain tops are dark, the star-lit lake gleams bright,

Above the lake, rears a grassy mound.

High o'er this mound the gallows rise,

Topped by a skull with lifeless eyes,

And 'neath the gallows, on the ground

Swarm ghosts, deprived of mortal ties.

…..

And in my saddened eyes, two burning tears delayed,

As the sparks upon the lake, upon my checks they played.

For my own fleeting years, years of my childhood age,

My youth was swept away by time's relentless rage,

Far away fled its dream, dead as a lifeless shade,

Reflections of cities white that in the lake now bathe.

Just as a final thought of men who died before,

Just as their very names, as battles of ancient hordes,

Just as the northern light, whose dead flame shines no more,

Tones of an age-warped harp, sounds of its shattered chords,

Events of by-gone days, the light of a lifeless star,

Feelings of one you loved, a wanderer's path so far,

A grave long since forgot, eternities old scar,

A smould'ring fire's smoke, sounds of metallic chimes,

A dying swan's last song, paradise gone away,

Thus fled my childhood days.

But in these changing times

Days of my vanished youth—are like this song of May . . .

Just like a night in May, where the barren mountains part;

A smile upon my lips, a sorrow in my heart.

See yonder wanderer upon tha grassy lane,

Hastening toward his goal, ere the sunset dies again?

This wanderer in life you shall see never more,

Once he had passed the hill, you'll search for him in vain,

Oh never—never again! That holds my life in store.

To my grief-aching heart, who can some solace give?

Without an end is love . . . A blighted love I live!