Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/249

 

And in my heart were the curses and hatred of seventy thousand.
God knows, I am hideous!
From me the stench of a corpse is wafted,
Upon hand, upon foot, my flesh is bursting;
Knowest thou the forges at Baška? So my eye blazes,
A bloodstained gown flutters from my shoulders,
In my right hand the pitman's hammer I bear,
My left was struck off by a boulder of coal,
My eye was scorched out by the blaze of a flame—
Upon my back squat a hundred murderers from Modrá
(Like savage rats they gnaw into my neck)
Upon my hips squat a hundred Jews from Polská—^[1]
Jeer ye, my God, jeer ye! Such my array,
I, Petr Bezruč, Bezruč of Těšín,
Bard of an enslaved nation.
Why are the youth of Vltava^[2] becomes as a captive flittermouse?
Did not the Romans upraise Spartacus as leader.
So shall I stand,—long since have perished my nation,—
A hundred years shall I stand with my brow upraised to the skyline,
With my smitten neck shall I touch the azure,
I, Petr Bezruč, Ahasuerus of the Czech conscience,
Hideous phantom and bard of a bygone nation.

 

1. Galicia.
2. The Moldau, on which Prague is situated.