An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry/Women
WOMEN
What sings evening o'er the kingdoms, over towns and seed-strewn ground,
O'er the paths in mystery shrouded, o'er the dusk when dews abound?
Whose the hands in Western gardens, when 'neath heaven their glow they pour,
Pluck you roses as in welcome when a thousand years are o'er.
When ye come, from toiling weary, when love's day has reached its end,
Black earth's breath, like the foreboding of the future doth ascend,
And the mighty towns of brothers on the golden sky-line tower,
A dream of metals, gleaming gardens, living rhythms, marble power.
And in suns that far off vanish, and are quenched and once more beam,
White extended hands of women like a lustre are agleam,
And from age to age they lure you, from before your gaze disperse,
With their beauty's silent gesture, they like fate, unknown, converse.
Potent, lustrous hands, our longing whither do ye bear away?
Into what awakened gardens, that bewitched for ages lay?
Into what calm places, where, 'mid grief of mighty pomp awakes
Melody of polar birds above the melancholy lakes.
Clouds of thoughts like islands rise aloft within the sea of light,
All bedecked with phosphorescent vegetation lunar-bright,
And the tremor of our hearts is on the shores the wafted strains,
Ere the anchored vessels cast aside their silver mooring-chains.
Faces, steeped in love, o'er ocean to the silent country flow,
Where a range of spirit worlds like flaming fires tower up and glow,
And like branches that together are entwined, the boundless skies
Quiver in the morning beams that from the cosmic forest rise.
"The Hands."
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.
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| 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 |
