Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/268

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244
J. KARÁSEK ZE LVOVIC

J. KARÁSEK ZE LVOVIC

1. THE DREAM.

Was it yesterday? Was it a hundred years since?
I know not, but very weary and infirm I was,
And my steps were the steps of a man who walks in a dream.
And I went through darksome causeways
And vacant and empty they were, and in them the wind moaned.
So grievously moaned . . .
And from a turret the hour chimed. . . And meseemed,
That this voice summoned me into the vault of a temple,
Where beneath heavy slabs with knightly ecutcheons
Slumber my ancestors . . .
Am I living or dead? I know not, but meseems,
That although these causeways are strange and unknown to me,
I have wandered therein of old,—
Was it yesterday or a hundred years since?
In this or in that life?
I know not, but my gait is firm and unwavering
As the gait of a man who wanders a wonted path.