An Anthology of Czechoslovak Literature/The Sentimental Carousers

For other English-language translations of this work, see The Sentimental Carousers.

KAREL TOMAN

(b. 1877)

The Sentimental Carousers

COMRADE thou of melancholy,
Thou, my vagrant spirit’s friend,
Underneath what sky hereafter
Will our lives of beggary end?

Our annals, silvery and drab,
Within what land, when will they wane?
When will the music that we cherished
Be wafted in a last refrain?

O, bygone love an echo rouses
In the heart’s chords again. No more!
Hail to ourselves, to earth, to dreaming!
A requiem to the days of yore.

In golden wine the tyrant mood
Of memory we shall immerse.
And we shall sing, and shall forget
Our love, our fury and our curse.
Torso of Life (1901)

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 1946, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 78 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 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