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The Soul Of A Century/White glow of light...

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The Soul Of A Century (1943)
White glow of light ...
by Otokar Březina, translated by Roderick Aldrich Ginsburg
Otokar Březina3725774The Soul Of A Century — White glow of light ...1943Roderick Aldrich Ginsburg

WHITE GLOW OF LIGHT . . .

A white glow of light you poured into my soul’s lamp
’Til in an agony of red it bled into the dark.
I walked in thought, beneath the day’s ceiling cold and damp
As in the dreaded melancholies of a darkened park,

Where on the frescoed walls, the twilight’s billows fall
And long forgotten legends gaze through the darkened frames
Like windows that open onto the centuries’ mystic hall
And gaze on the darkened horizon of Mysteries without names . . .

Yon in the smoking distance, where roll the fogs of grey
Above the rooftops of palaces and over the boulevards’ flight,
Victorious life tosses and bubbles o’er with a maddening play
In the bizzare foams of Passions and longing and might . . .

As women’s fiery looks rain with sparks into the bodily desires
The burned out strengths of nerves beneath the skull decay,
And the joys and fears and sorrows in countless illusory fires,
Upon the taut stretched strings of The Secret, quiver away.

A white glow of light you poured into my soul’s lamp,
’Til in an agony of red it bled into the dark.
I walked in thought beneath the day’s ceiling, cold and damp
As in the dreaded melancholies of a darkened park.

And I list to the Clocks of The Night, as through the dark they toll
’Til on the tower of the City Eternal the metallic tears will awake
An angelic Rhapsody, falling upon my waiting soul;
Striking my final hour, the Secret’s Angelus will quake . . . .

 This work is a translation and has a separate copyright status to the applicable copyright protections of the original content.

Original:

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1929.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1929, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 94 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

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