Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/250

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226
PETR BEZRUČ

3. VRBICE.

Beneath Bohumín, where the speech of my grandsires has ceased to resound,
And amid Hrušov, where smoke issues from a red factory,
My lord's factory, where we breathe hard and hardly,
Thou liest, my hamlet, with the wooden chapel.
Decayed are the huts, upon whose roofs the moss grows rankly;
Four poplars show Christ on the cross.
Thus
They thrust a crown of thorns on my brow at Bohumín,
Nailed my hands at Ostrava, at Těšín they pierced through my heart,
At Lipiny they gave me vinegar to drink,
By Lysá they pierced my feet with a nail.
One day, ah, one day, thou wilt come unto me,
Thou maiden with dusky and Iustreless eyes,
Who hearest a poppy in thy hands.
Still shall the whip resound, still shall they hound us down
Beneath Bohumín and at Hrušov, at Lutyň, at Baška,
No more do I hear, what shall befall me thereafter,
What shall befall me when all has an end.