Václav Jaromír Picek

“ Seems fast asleep to be,
Left eye beneath the coverlet
Laughs at him merrily.
He calls again; not so the stag
Thirsts for the cooling tide,
Not so the bee that longing seeks
For honey far and wide. ”

“ Would the service small requite,
Silver leaves of hawthorn free
Golden from the old oak-tree.
Quiet can she not attain,
Till the leaves she seeks again,
But the leaves alas! are gone,
And the maiden weeps alone. ”

“ In which the youth dream’d pleasantly,
The garden-lands of Slawa’s race,
All which my feelings warm embrace.
To ev’ry pleasure of my fate
One of these flowers is consecrate,
And all forget-me-nots of mine
Around a linden [2] spray I twine.
↑ Vesna, the Slavonic goddess of Spring. ↑ The linden was the sacred tree of the Slavonic Mythology, and is now regarded as the symbol of patriotism. ”

“ To praise Perun on high;
For prosperous times he prays and fair,
For fame—the people gather’d there
Doth “Long live Czechia!” cry.
↑ Visla, the Vistula. ↑ Šumawa, the mountain range to the west of Bohemia. ↑ Labe, the Elbe. ↑ Radihost, the Slavonic goddess of trade. Swantowit, the god of war. Rzip, the sacred mountain, where Perun the god of thunder, the supreme deity, was adored. ”