The Soul Of A Century/Wasted youth

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3725778The Soul Of A Century — Wasted youth1943Otokar Březina

WASTED YOUTH

In one lone refrain melted our youth’s romance. At twilight’s gleam,
Our gazes met and kissed, in one embrace two forms nervously shook,
With rapture I breathed the scent of your being, and in the garden of dreams,
Like one seeking a lover, my soul sought you at the murmuring brook.

To us spoke yearning and passion, power and dread and sin
The veiled mysteries of stony nature spoke to us not in vain,
In the features of my thought and yours, set the same frigid grin,
The same contraction of muscles, the same cramping pain.

The splendor of the night I absorbed and inhaled with our two souls
The delicate fluid of music I gathered with dual nervous strands
And the miracle of beauty imprisoned with dual sight, mournfully stole
Over me, like rays of light passing through a prism to burn with fiery brands.

You fogs of smouldering days, who cast sadness over the souls of men!
Glowing, briny fumes of the unknown oceans of forgotten dead
Within whom wither the groves of blossoming moods as when
Corrosive ashes fall upon the billowy scent of crimson red.

Who melted two lights flown together? Who darkened my smile on your cheeks?
Who gave to our voice the strange sound that from our soul escapes?
Who stunned the gentle quiver of caress? Who threw in with a shriek
A ferment, disturbing the intoxicant flames of our grapes?

Why did the summer’s waste wither your lillies upon my garden embankment?
Like a floating Island cast off the shore, you are drifting, shattered and torn.
In the scent of my memories bitters the essence of your enchantment,
Wherein are submersed the stars of spent nights, and the lights of a risen morn.

And like a woman whose pleasures one has tasted, strange now your longing seems
My eyes no longer shed your tears in a brotherly unified beat.
And only above the graves of bygone Springs, in the graveyard of wasted dreams
Like a loved one’s lifeless phantom, our souls again will meet.

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1929, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 94 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse

Translation:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1929 and 1977 (inclusive) without a copyright notice.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1987, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 36 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works.

Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse