An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature/Labour

by Josef Hora

JOSEF HORA

(b. 1891)

Labour

CITIZENS, ye whom we have never known,
For you, for you have we smithed and written and sown.

Whither hast thou gone, O labour of our brains?
Labour of our hands, thou coursest in whose veins?

In the garb which we shaped, through the town the idler parades.
In the footgear we wrought, through streams the huntsman wades.

Upon the bridges which across rivers we sent,
Trains thunder, dreams of self-slayers lament.

For embraces of others we have hewn the bed;
We wove the soft shawl that o’er beauty’s bosom is spread.

Amid radiance of candelabra which our hands have moulded
Dancers, two by two, the wings of their passions unfolded,

And in the red wine which from the grape we pressed,
Afar, some stranger pledges the health of his guest.

Throughout the world, like November’s brooding, teem
Our stubborn woe, the gloom of irk and beauty’s dream;

At our table unknown men find a seat,
Our blood is their drink and our bodies their meat,

While we from sunshine to sunshine in drudgery unending
With eager teeth the spoil of life from the rock are rending;

Sullen and unyielding it is, no pity it possesses,
And we are day-labourers whom Poverty into her service presses.

And our hands are empty. Where has our toil found a place?
The hard hearts of strangers it soothes with sisterly grace.

Like pure mountain waters which from the well-head flow,
Bring balm to radiant cities of the blest in the valley below.
The Working Day (1922)