Jaroslav Vrchlický

“ The first man of his sister thinks no more.
And when the battle cry is heard at last,
The second horseman’s forehead brightens fast.
The hostile camp at length is set ablaze,
And still the third man sobs as through a haze. ”

“ Lightly touched upon her forehead,
From his lips escaped a question
As the scent escapes from flowers:
⁠“Pretty child, what do they call you?”
“Sir, they call me Satanella!”
⁠“Satanella? . . . What a strange name.” ”

“ A golden fly he rescues from a trap
Straightens a bluebell in the verdant moss
That bent perhaps beneath the nimble feet
Of a fleeing deer, that sped across the green.
Yon silver threads of a sheer spun spider web
He weaves with nimble fingers in a net
That spreads from branch to branch its gossamer.
But suddenly when with the evening fogs,
The sun’s bright diadem no longer crowns his head,
Then first begins his many-sided work. ”

“ But the weeping of the third man’s tortured soul.
“I dare say, sister, wife, ’tis hard to bear,
But I was forced to leave my mother there.
Poor aged mother, she is so weak and bent,
Like the willows that along the brook lament. ”

“ Strangely humming, flock of buzzards
Flying low above the ground.
Do you hear their wings aflapping,
Fighting for the lifeless form?
Suddenly as if touched by magic
Something cuts the hellish storm. ”

“ Are firmly clasped by the moonbeams changing light,
He flies across the slum’bring Universe,
Then Nature shudders when his cloak’s dark hem
Touches the sleeping dale and sloping mountainside . . .
What is mere man and all the Earth to HIM? ”

“ For the dogs and whips are sleeping,
Play a dance tune until morn.
And he plays . . . a piercing torrent
He pours out in the tones keen darts
Every tone a spark of fire
Every spark burns in the heart. ”