Albert Henry Wratislaw

“ My pulse was calm, my heart was still,
⁠At clasping of our hands,
Not such the eager wayward thrill,
⁠That earthly love demands.
Perchance a different feeling sways
⁠The fibres of the heart
Towards those, who from the wistful gaze
⁠Are fated soon to part. ”

“ And bitter tears steal down amain,
⁠And sighs half choke the breath,
And then a man would gladly feel
⁠The welcome hand of Death.
But evil is the wind that blows
⁠With nought of good below,
And worthless is the heart, whose good
⁠Affliction cannot shew. ”

“ That pilgrim way, that I have travell’d o’er!—
O why should grief thy onward footsteps stay
Towards the same home, where I have gone before?
Weep not for me! ’tis calm and stillness here,
And quiet is repose and slumber sweet,
But Life is full of noise and doubt and fear,
And hearts that ache, and sore and weary feet. ”

“ That sleeps on Zion’s hill.
The wish is good, the flesh is weak,
The spirit sick within,—
Confess, poor Heart, with sorrow meek
Thy bondage and thy sin:
That thou art all unfit to see,
What dwelleth there on high ”

“ There is abundance in the Bohemian literature which is well worthy of attention, but the duties and avocations of my position prevent me for the present from increasing my selection from it; and indeed my translations may more fitly be called a selection from my own reading, than from the productions of the Bohemian Muse. ”

“ I have added at the end of the volume a few original pieces of my own, partly to give it a more portly appearance, than the reasons above explained allow me to do from Slavonic sources, partly from what I hope will not be construed into any thing worse than a harmless and pardonable vanity. ”

“ And by Morava’s crystal urn
⁠Will blossom fair and bright.
O then, Morava, let thy stream
⁠No more despairing go!
The sun on thee doth brightly beam,
⁠And thou must brightly flow.
⁂ The Morava is marked on ordinary English maps as the river March in Moravia.
↑ See note to p. xxiv of the Introductory Essay. ↑ The Countess Ludmilla Berchtold of Buchlow and Buchlowic, is descended lineally from St Ludmilla, and from the brother of St Vaclaw. ”