The Soul Of A Century/The spirit of solitude

by Jaroslav Vrchlický

THE SPIRIT OF SOLITUDE

 

Hid in the mountains, in the dark still woods
Where from the cloudy heights, the eagle’s screech,
But barely reaches to the human ear,
There leaning gainst an aged stately fir
HE stands alone in meditation deep . . .

When in the noonday heat the forest sleeps,
Then o’er the flowered carpet of green moss
He loves to steep his quickly roaming gaze
As if within the moss and sparse grown grass
He seeks to find the agelong, constant laws,
That gave to Nature too, its life and form.
He showers pearls here upon a bloom,
And here upon a gay-tinged butterfly
That slumbers in the full-bloomed fernery,
Struck by the arrow of the noonday sun,
He paints the semblance of a gruesome skull.
A golden fly he rescues from a trap
Straightens a bluebell in the verdant moss
That bent perhaps beneath the nimble feet
Of a fleeing deer, that sped across the green.
Yon silver threads of a sheer spun spider web
He weaves with nimble fingers in a net
That spreads from branch to branch its gossamer.
But suddenly when with the evening fogs,
The sun’s bright diadem no longer crowns his head,
Then first begins his many-sided work.
For he either lights upon the crimson skies
The blazing faggots of eternal stars,
Or else he locks within the flower-cups,
Their scented amber, that with the break of day,
They’d sweeten with their breath the morning air.
And often too within the fogs grey veil
He leans above the mounts, and spreads thereon
The cool, dark colored spreading ivy leaves,
Or else he plants into the barren rocks
Evergreen flowers of the houseleek plant.
And when the star bespeckled cloak of night
Falls finally upon his mighty back
And on his forehead the shadows of the night
Are firmly clasped by the moonbeams changing light,
He flies across the slum’bring Universe,
Then Nature shudders when his cloak’s dark hem
Touches the sleeping dale and sloping mountainside . . .

What is mere man and all the Earth to HIM?
What all our petty grievances and pains?
What is the starry realm, the oceans’ depths?
What all the thoughts within whose dizzy whirl
Man’s reason quivers like a dying spark?
All this he sees through with a keen clear eye,
All mysteries, all secrets are to him,
An open book, outspread before his gaze.
And when He turns the pages of this book
Then thunder’s mighty voice rolls o’er the sky,
And when a lightning crashes through the trees,
Into the rocky covers of a book
He chisels letters of an eternal script.
World’s hungry haste is poison to his soul
And only rarely he keeps company
With mortal men . . . More often when disturbed
By nearing footsteps, all his musing stops,
And to the cloudy heights he flies on colored wings.
Only at times he breaks a poet’s dream
To scatter rainbow-colored beauty there
Or takes the sparkle of the eye divine
That slumbers in some bosom young and fair,
And kindles it into a mighty flame.
O blessed is he, who trusted to HIS hand
His fantasie’s unbridled eagle flight.
He guides it ever to abysmal heights
And with a key of feelings that are true
He opes the land of eternal ideals.
Again at other times he reaches to the depths
Where the fresh current of humanity
Scatters its waves in a crystalline flight.
Or else he pauses in oblivion,
And with the torch of timeless changeless truth
He casts true light upon the aims of man
Or else seeks paths to aid man in his quest.
And the bitter cup of cold ingratitude,
That a poet often to the bottom drains
He wreathes with garlands of unfading blooms,
And sweetens with a nectar of world’s fame.
Thus I beheld him in the darkened woods
And in the lightning over a whispering stream
He showed me his sublimely molded face.

O Master Spirit that with the breath of winds
And with the scent of flowers speaks to me,

You raised me from the dust of commonplace
And set for me a far-reached, daring goal
Before whose scope I shudder with mere thought.
You have revived my faded, drooping will
And in the long-stilled strings within my heart
You struck again a mighty sounding chord,
And often when I madly would rejoice
And pause mid tears, ’tis you instead of I
That strikes against the strings with starry wings.
You taught me my lone journey’s final goal
You roused me when through inactivity
In futile grief I wasted treasured days.
’twas you who showed me that the very song
That quivers in a nightingale’s young throat
Is as a sister to my wandering chant,
And that my soul, that radiant bright spark,
Is but a part of Nature and its plans,
Nature that in an ever changing form
Is a reflection of God’s eternal cheeks!
You taught me that the waters, virgin woods,
The hillsides in their jeweled autumn garb
The heavens shield ablaze with gleaming stars
Though clear or stormy with tempestuous wrath,
That all these are my souls most cherished share,
That with their weird, majestic symphony,
I am allowed to blend my grief and joy.
You stirred my being; whether boundless joys
Are woven in between the throes of life
With yearning winding ivy or roses of love,
Or whether sorrow with wide open arms
Embrace me with a wreath of bitter herbs,
And pours its bitter droplets into my wounded heart,
To you my song keeps turning o’er and o’er,
You stand by me in life’s disturbances,
You press for me my feeble dying eyes,
And when some day upon my grave will stand
A stone, lone witness to my memory
And its inscription will have disappeared,
Then scatter roses over the crumbling wall
And intertwine green ivy about the sinking stone,
And in the graveyard’s darkened silent nook,
Let a nightingale nest with his noisy brood,
That in his sweet impassioned melody
He may stir my soul in timeless ecstasy.