Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse/Quaffing the Storm
2. QUAFFING THE STORM.
The enkindled storm swept ragingly into the great forest
And the forest stirred aquiver and sang
With gloomy voices
As when time in chaos began.
All trees clenched themselves in violence, in strife,
An eagle the forest became,
Beating its pinions before avenging wrath of the storm
Aloft to the richly-clad vault.
Drunken with wild joy
In a fluttering cloak I strained unto the gloom
And upraised a melody from my breast,
As the storm did the forest in enraptured shouting.
In wild fire my arms outstretched themselves,
Vehemently clutched the dancing turmoil
And snatched it close to my throbbing breast
So that my heart and the forest
Beat wild and dark in a single stormy pulsing.—
With my time-old abode in my arms
I slowly glided into all my dark life,
Deep, ever deeper, from abyss to abyss
And through all reeling abysses,
So that I saw myself swimming, creeping, and growling again,
As at the dark beginning of time.
As I sank down, my head was bowed
Heavily upon the rim of Being,
My mouth foamed,
And twitched with a crazed smile of weeping,—
For wormwood of life and power of the storm it had drunk.
And like a dying lover
Whose last thoughts gorge bleeding on his love,
So my thoughts clutched storm and forest
And were engulfed. . .
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 1961, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 62 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 |
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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 |
