THAT nook of earth wherein I grew and livedThrough childhood, boyhood, and my years of youthWith all sweet folly of first love, with allFirst pangs, deceit and misery of it; That one white township in the vale of ElbeWith dusky forests on the far horizon,With its old castle, with its wild-grown park,Its placid market-square, its church, that shapedOutlandishly, peers forth with huddled towerAcross the country-side; billowy fields;Avenued paths, the agony of GodWhere crossroads meet; the meadow-lands that flankCalm streams; our cherished hamlets round about;—That nook of earth is all for which I craveIn the shrill streets of this afflicting city.Yet rather is it craving for the yearsOf youth I lived there. . . . Since the soul portraysFondly unto itself those places, cravesPiningly for them, while,—fond thing—it harboursA trembling hope that by returning thitherIt may bring back its years of youth . . . I knowThat I would likewise love another placeIf I had passed elsewhere my years of youth. . . .This is my native land. Naught else, I lackAptness to worship that terrestrialConcept, which diplomats have glibly framed.In their bureaus; which pedagogues to usImparted out of atlases; the whichMust needs, as each and all terrestrialConcepts, to-morrow, maybe, shrivel or expand,According as upon some battle-field,In dreadful strife which is not our affair,More striplings fall on that side or on this!
I have not found my pride in history,That temple of idolaters, whereinDreamers devoutly cast themselves to earth, And in a frenzy beat their breasts becauseThey too are Czechs nay, even as elsewhere.Our annals are a file of dreadful deeds(By us accomplished and by us endured)Of recreant men, of surging passion-throes,Betrayals, dominations and enslavements;And men of light there were, who then becameClear-ringing currency of daily catchwordsFor tricksters of to-day, here as elsewhere.Nor do I vaunt me of our own days. WeThan others are no whit the better . . .We are but palterers and caitiffs; wherePower is, there do we bend our necks to itIn slavish wise; wherefore are we abasedBy evil lords. Time-serving braggarts we,Testy and witless, laughing-stocks amidOur pride, and palsied in vain peevishness.Felons we have, dotards and pillagersAnd hucksters dealing in pure love of country,And a mere handful of the men who areEver untainted and downright,—but theseAll nations have elsewhere,,—ye gods, is thisTo be, perchance, our fountain-head of pride?
I am no patriot, nor do I loveMy country, for I have none, know none, norSee cause for loving one. . . .
I am a Czech, even as I might beA German, Turk, Gypsy, or negro, ifI had been born elsewhere. My Czechdom isThe portion of my life which I do feelNot as delight and bliss, but as a solemnAnd inborn fealty. My native land Is within me alone; and this will ITrim round at no man’s beck, nor give it tingeTo match with fashion’s daily whim; nor shallThey rob me of it; when above my tombThe grass has grown, it shall go living onIn other souls,—and if, some day to be,In them it wither, then and only thenShall it be lifeless, as old Kollár sang.
And if I toil for it, then that is toilFor Czechdom as I feel it in myself.And if I ever pride me on it, thenI pride me only on my life. . . .Golgotha (1902)
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