The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/Number 7/Stefanik

Stefanik

By ANTONÍN KLÁŠTERSKÝ.

When to the stars a boy he lift
At home his dreaming eye,
It was as if he would there read
His own fate in the sky.

He left his mother and his home,
To journey far he dares—
I’m going to seek my star, he says,
And searches in the stars.

The Venus attracted him not
Nor Lyre nor the Cross—
“Where is the star of mine?’ he thinks
And prying on he goes.

The blazed up Mars with a great red flame,
The world in fire lies;
But through the gloom and doom he sees
A great new star arise.

“It is the star of Liberty,
This is my star,” he cried,
And with a strong voice he calls his boys:
“To arms on my side!”

The fortune wavered up and down
As the billows on the sea,
Yes, on his country shines at last
The Star of Liberty!

“To home—to mother!” now he shouts
And flew in a wingéd car—
From heights he embraced his country dear
And fell down as a star.

Antonín Klášterský is one of foremost of the younger Bohemian poets  He has made available John Hay, William Cullen Bryant, James Russell Lowell, Joaquin Miller, and many others to the Czechs and Slovaks. This poem “Štefanik”, Mr. Klášterský himself translated into the English.

This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published in 1920, before the cutoff of January 1, 1930.


The longest-living author of this work died in 1938, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 86 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.

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