Page:Modern Czech Poetry, 1920.djvu/63

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45

OTAKAR THEER.

1. WATER.

Sweet and enticing
As women's souls,
Lace-foamed. O billow,
Thy surging rolls.
Bluster and dart,
Tangle my heart
In swiftness and lure of thy singing.

Fierce in the mountains,
Soft as a sigh,
Drab shores of the city
Thou ripplest by.
Bear thou away
The mire and the clay,
With burden and plague of their clinging.

I kneel and thou givest
Baptism's dower;
Grief now I master,
Strong with thy power.
Yonder I fare
To solitude's lair,
To the land of my phantasy's bringing.

“Anguish and Hope” (1913).


2. SPAKE MY HEART . . .

Spake my heart unto my will:
Why rackest thou me, that I ne'er am still?
Why snappest my growth? And my leafage wrest?
Why marrest the song in each topmost nest?