The Soul Of A Century/An autumn evening

by Otokar Březina

AN AUTUMN EVENING

 

Into the heated atmosphere, hungrily is seeping
The twilight’s greying onrush, while the fire throws
A bloody reflex on the walls . . . My soul is weeping
With the subdued music of a dream whose melancholy grows.

The fog casts its darkened shadows across the lonely graves
Where crosses, as if faintly sketched, pierce through the somber scene
The light of eternal lamps radiates in crimson waves
Over the frescoed walls and carved-out alter screens.

The forest ranges dip into a sea of silver foams,
And the streams of darkened waters thicken with fogs overhead.
The song of saintly nuns escapes from their cloister homes,
And heavy painless sleep descends upon each sick-room bed.

Upon the marble steps, dew’s sparkling tears delay,
The skeletons of trees are huddled in a greyish gear,
The heavens above the earth, like a chiseled arch of grey
Fashioned of vaulted rocks, span across the darkened sphere.

Time flows into the void; night’s shadows quake with dearth,
The dikes of the black sea of space crumble beneath the night’s wrath,
The heavy foam of darkness sputters forth, and the earth
Swallowed by the gaping depths, swerves from its beaten path.

From these gigantic dimensions, I sense the hum and breath
As of a thousand wings that fluttered through the night,
I hear the exultant notes of souls redeemed by death,
I hear the mournful plaint of a newborn’s helpless plight.