PUBLISHER’S INTRODUCTION
to the edition of 1923
The Evening Songs of Halek, like the song of the nightingale,” says Richard Badger, the Boston publisher, “sweetest in the quietness of eventide, are songs of youth and love, glorifying the spring, the flowers, the birds, the heavens and the stars, speaking to the human heart whether wrapped in happiness or sorrow. As effusions of feelings from a heart laden with love’s sweet passion, they appeal, above all, to the erotic spring of life. They are a bouquet of charming lyrics, full of light, colour, and fragrance, breathing spring, love, and poesy.”
Halek was born in 1835 and died in 1874. He commenced his literary career in 1858 and was the leader of the romantic and lyric school of Czech poesy. The present translation of the Evening Songs was published by Sir Walter Strickland in 1886, at York. Another translation by Dr. Joseph Stybr was published at Boston in 1920. It is not too much to claim for Strickland’s translation epic superiority over the American version. Compare Strickland’s lines:—
Spring flutters home from far away,
And Nature’s children, touched with longing,
Woke from their long, long winter’s dream,
To meet the sun are thronging.
The chaffinch flutters from the nest
Fresh children from their cottage sally,
And varied flowerets on the lees,
Scent all the neighbouring valley.
Bursts forth the leaf upon the bough,
And from the young bird’s throat are ringing
The first shy notes, and in young hearts
The germs of love are springing.
with Stybr’s version of the same song:—
The spring came flying from afar;
And from the young bird’s throat are ringingWith fresh desires all’s teeming;
All things pressed forward to the sun—
So long all had been dreaming!
The finches flew out of their nest
And children from their bowers,
And on the meadows sweetest scents
Breathe countless little flowers.
Young leaves press their way from the twigs
And from birds’ throats their voices,
And in the heart with budding love
The youthful breast rejoices.
