Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/492
“I see a cottage—yet ’tis all dusty—
Like where Jim lives—but nothing more—
’Tis getting brighter—there’s a man husky,
He’s standing right there, in the door!
“He wears a green coat, his cheeks are rosy,
His hat to one side—I know him!
O my dear God! ’Tis himself, Jim!”
She springs up quickly, her heart is throbbing,
The other bends down on her knee.
“Good luck, dear Mary, now to your probing!
What kind of vision can you see?”
“Ah, I see; I see—everything gloomy,
Haze like clouds from some smoking torch—
Now red lights flicker in a space roomy—
It seems to me like in a church.
“A dark thing seems a white space to enter
Ah, I see now as fades the cloud:
Those are white maidens, and in their centre—
Oh God! a coffin!—a black shroud!”
IV.
A warm zephyr flits and flies
O’er green spring crops, waving;
Blossoms cover all trees’ crowns,
Fields in them are laving:
One day the church fills with sweet tones and flowers,
And soon a wedding passes from its bowers
O’er the beflowered paving.
The young sprightly groom rides home
With his guests, delighted;
Dark green coat, hat to one side,
Thus he now alighted;
As she had seen him in that fateful hour
He brings home his Hana in a blossom shower
With their hands united.
The bright summer’s gone. Cold winds
O’er the fields flit by.
Death-knells peal, upon a bier
A cold corpse does lie:
White maidens gather with bright candles glowing:
On all sides mourning, sad music and woeing
In a profound sigh:
Miserere mei!
Whom the coffin with green wreath
To his grave does carry?
Ah, a maiden lily died—
How the times do vary!
As by dew watered, she grew to a blossom,
Then, fading, she fell into earth’s dark bosom,
The poor maiden, Mary!
V.
The winter came, with frost the windows tapping,
But the large stove heats the whole room;
The hearth is lighted, the old dame is napping,
The girls spin flax and work the loom.
“Turn and burr and reel, my dear spinning wheel,
For again the Advent makes us feel
How ‘near we are to Christmas Eve!
“Ah, thou blessed Christmas Eve!
O night, full of wonder!
Every time I think of thee,
Sadly must I ponder!
“Last year we sat just as now,
Solving each her riddle,
And before a year rolled by
Two have left our middle.
“One is sewing little gowns
For a coming fairy,
The other, the third month lies
In the cemetery,
The poor maiden, Mary!
“Last year we sat just as now
And we sang and chattered;
And before a year rolls by—
Where may we be scattered?
“Turn and burr and reel, my dear spinning wheel,
The whole world, too, turns like on the heel,
And like a dream the life we leave!”
Yet, it is better in darkness to grope
And guess in dreams the coming date
Than lift the future’s veil in a vain hope
And learn too soon a dreadful fate.
*) The Hearth, as known in England and America, has long been abandoned in Bohemia where the question of saving fuel had led early to the adopting of the stove for heating purposes. However, up to the middle of the last century, a small hearth, about two square feet in size on the average, was usually built in the wall above and at the side of the stove and connected by a flue with the chimney. In this small hearth firwood was burned at night to illuminate the room.—The translator.