The Soul Of A Century/Greetings to my native land
GREETINGS TO MY NATIVE LAND
The day is full of scent and piercing light
I am blinded by the beauty of the morn,
Upon the fields now restless waves alight
Of grains that from this fertile land were born.
My native land! I wish my soul could swell
With a tourist’s joy and nothing else beside.
To think is loathsome . . . Perhaps it is as well
That to this land my heart strings are not tied.
I greet it not with love but with a sneer!
A local townsman burdened with his own weight
Approaches slowly in his Sunday gear,
With his heavy breathing, overfattened mate . . .
It is quite likely they were born and reared
Here, where they spent their blunt-edged joys and strife.
Peopled few homes with a progeny they steered
Until they too were capable of life . . .
And when in years will end their earthly toil
In peace, contentment they will close their eyes
And gratefully, this bit of native soil
Their elements in death will fertilize . . .
This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.
| Original: |
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse |
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was legally published within the United States (or the United Nations Headquarters in New York subject to Section 7 of the United States Headquarters Agreement) between 1929 and 1977 (inclusive) without a copyright notice. The longest-living author of this work died in 1987, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 36 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 |
