Josef Svatopluk Machar2625329Songs of the Slav — A Sonnet of Life1919Otto Kotouč

A SONNET OF LIFE

How strange and feverish the haste appears,
With which our modern living flies.
Gaze back adown the row of bygone years
And you begin to feel a longing rise.

As if you rode a train that could not stop
Or knew not whither it was rushing thee.
As regions pass thee by, perchance you'd stop,
But then a stop impossible would be.

A few friends now ride in the car with you,
A few fleet girlish glances you behold,
They leave as others then in turn will do.

At length thou'rt weary,—all a sameness takes,
You feel the heart is quickly growing old
And fills with longing when remembrance wakes.

 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 1942, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 81 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 published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1973, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 50 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