Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse/Syrmia
1. SYRMIA.
Beauteous Syrmia, thou my majestic,
Thou knowest naught of craggy immensities:
Thou dost not thrust thee in pride to the heavens,
Nor proffer thy love unto them,
Extending to them thy hands, naked, stone-wrought,
In vehement. ecstasy;
Thou smilest, thou only smilest.
When God created this earth,
This buxom damsel,
A creature whose heart is of fire,
Whose body is of stone and of water,
Upon thee, Frushka, he carved this comeliness,
Magical lips;
Thou smilest, thou only smilest.
This peerless smiling,
When for the first time heaven beheld it,
Downright I perceive how in enchantment
He opens his breast in its glory,
And showers upon thee rapturous blessing,
Lordliest lineage of his paradise,
Offspring of love, angel of passion,
Wine;
Downright I perceive, how he vaunts to thee his paradise,
How he proffers it thee,
This bounty withheld by godly caprice,
That of itself but moulders,
Unbeheld, unenjoyed and unglorified,
How he proffers it thee,
And thou smilest, thou only smilest;
And when thou art perceived from the midst of paradise
By that ancient tree,
Of every apple the forebear,
Earliest saint and earliest sinner,
Its wound was opened
Beneath that single dissevered offshoot,
And it quivered.
Apples are shaken over thee
And in every dimple
Singly is scattered
The forbidden fruit.
In every valley of thine singly is scattered
A cloister glistening.
Unto thy lips the fruits are clinging;
Is haply the fruit forbidden eke to thee?
Ha, scion of Tantalus, Frushka the Tantalide!—
Worms devour it, spectral worms,—and thou?
Thou smilest, thou only smilest!
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
|---|---|
| Translation: |
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 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 53 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 |
