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The Soul Of A Century/Look up above!

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Poem no. XXVI from the collection Cosmic Songs (Písně kosmické)

Jan Neruda3723059The Soul Of A Century — Look up above!1943Roderick Aldrich Ginsburg

LOOK UP ABOVE!
(Cosmic Songs)

My People, raise your head on high
Toward the heavens direct your glance
Behold that there are little stars
Around which, the large ones dance.

Here’s the reason why: The little ones
Are made of solid knotty stuff,
While those great, big, obedient stars
Are made of flimsy gaseous fluff.

I trust that as you grasp this thought
Your heart will leap and yearn.
Yes . . . let us be the little star
Around which, the big ones turn.

It can be done, if each of us,
Sees to his own sound stock.
If each of us be hard as flint,
Our nation will be hard as a rock.

 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

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