Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/264

 

Flares up enkindled, in feverish tempest of sweetness and death,
Grains of glowing coal, uprooted by implement of iron;—
In frowning silences of hollows, in grievous forebodings of summer,
When torrents of spring-tide powers, quenched in the blossom, petrify as lava motionless,
Days, like toilers im secret foundries, creep onward in weariness,
And in drops of sweat sparkle man and beast, a brotherly coupling in the yoke
Under a single invisible lash, that scourges from sunrise to sunset;
On waves of oceans and souls, where anguished behests of sailors, clutched by the whirlwind,
Rotate around the masts, outdinned by triumph of lightnings, when skies and waters
Are welded into a single element of horror and death;—
At all forges, looms and presses, in quarries and subterranean shafts,
Upon building-sites of the Pharaohs, where nations lament in bondage
And raise up gigantic tombs above uncounted lords;—
In the demoniac movement of wheels, pistons and levers and overhead whirring hammers;—
On battle-fields, in observatories, academies, lazarets, laboratories;—