An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature/Jehovah
Jehovah
Who hast destroyed the seed in the dry desert
Tainted by savour of foreign wont:
I plead to Thee for Thine avenging hand,
Thy vengeance I call down on my own stock!
Let their mouths foam with long-continued wailing;
Let unto task-masters be their greetings borne
By prayers wrung from their sickly, puny breasts;
Let foreign fields be moistened with their sweat;
Their backs lashed by the scourger, shall
Carry an irksome yoke throughout their lives;
For ever let their craven hands
Implore for bread of their own toil;
Their streams grow brackish to a searing gall,—
And let their loaves harden to granite blocks;
Let their old men ne’er know what reverence is,
And let their offspring with a curse be laden;
May’st thou drag love from out their women’s hearts,
And in its place fill them with rancorous hatred;
Let not the mothers bring forth poets among them
To cleanse their faces from the tears of blood;
Let them perish deserted by the wayside,
And fetters be their music to the tomb;
Let gibbets and no crosses deck their graveyards
And memory of them be ever shame:
If they will know not, that the hour is late,
That from a gloomy tower the tocsin rings———
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Cruel Jehovah! Who art pitiless,
I plead to Thee for thine avenging hand,
Thy vengeance I call down on my own stock!
Nox et Solitudo (1909)
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, 1930. The longest-living author of this work died in 1958, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 66 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 |
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| Translation: |
This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published before January 1, 1930. The longest-living author of this work died in 1970, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 54 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 |
