Otakar Březina

“ Apples from a single tree, which cleft, are aflush with blood they share with ours,
Kisses of a single night, wherein souls sing of death and coming lives,
In a single melting of lips, age-long infirm with bliss of a single flash. ”

“ Lay in stillness and delusion like unto a stone oppressed,
Smitten with toil.
But their spirit-hands to reach unto the stars were braced,
Myriad souls upon the earth and in all worlds they enlaced
And a long sigh of joyous awakenings,
A deathless town's solemn throes,
Rustling of spirit-wings, winds at play in mystical seedling-ground
Unseen orchestras' intoning sound,
Moving in tune with their secret gesture arose.
“The Hands” (1901) . ”

“ OTAKAR BŘEZINA.
1. A MOOD.
Faint with the heat, a murmur on the calm branches falls,
Motionless hanging, while in grievous intervals
The forest breathed, oppressed; sap in a bitter tide
From the burst herbage let crude-savoured fragrance glide.
'Neath the unmoving trees pale faintness sought a place,
Sat by my side and breathed forebodings in my face,
Grief of the ceaseless question in my eyea immersed,
And with my soul in speech of lifeless words conversed. ”

“ Stretching forth with the whole universe into the endless!—
And our hands, enfolded amid a magical chain of countless hands,
Sway in the current of brotherly strength, which laps upon them from afar,
Ever more potent from pressure of ages. ”

“ V záhyby mizících tvarů mlhami ze zraků tvých,
jak z květu mystického stromu střásal se přívalem sníh,
a houštl a temněl, zář do sebe vpíjel a šlehal a vál,
na ranách mé myšlenky jak v narudlých plamenech tál. ”

“ And in unknown quivering nearness of blood chimed to us with riddling music.
Sny naše se spojily v jediné snění a šuměly tisíci stromů jednoho hvozdu,
když třesením větší podávají si poselství jednoho větru z neznámých moří. ”

“ Days, like toilers im secret foundries, creep onward in weariness,
And in drops of sweat sparkle man and beast, a brotherly coupling in the yoke
Under a single invisible lash, that scourges from sunrise to sunset ”

“ Dead arise therein from slumber, living in slumber therein are dead;
Lovers spake: Blinded are eyes by an over-great lustre
And all are slain there by time, as by fragrance that unknown blossoms have shed ”

“ 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 52 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. ”