An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry/Nature

For works with similar titles, see Nature.

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My Mother

An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry (1912)

Nature by Otakar Březina, translated by Paul Selver

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2608471An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry — Nature1912Otakar Březina, translated by Paul Selver

NATURE

Hidden springs were playing music and my day its song thereto was chanting,
On the melancholy shores.
The grief of bygone life, from whence I came was wafted to me from the fragrance,
And from the converse of the trees and from the heavy drone of insects o'er the waters,
And there lay whole centuries, betwixt my hands, that blossoms plucked, and them
Betwixt my countenance and a mystic world,
That in a thousand questioning glances in my spirit mutely gazed.

The clouds grew dim as sank the sun, and of the winds my spirit asked,
Are the clouds approaching hither, or are they departing hence?
The winds were mute, in a submissive mirror on themselves the waters looked,
And the stars, like waning fires in frigid waves of gleaming oceans,
Seethed and murmured over me, invisible:

Their light is dying only at the advent of a light still greater,
Of a light still greater, greater.

"The Winds from the Poles"

(1897).

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 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