Page:A Book of Czech Verse.pdf/81



I opened the window to the flowing darkness, To drenching stars with the nightingale’s song. Remember the darkness, the nightingale’s song, That night in the blackness, the thick-flowing dark?

I opened the window to the silvery darkness, As winding about me the weir’s murmur fell. Remember the lilac’s heavy smell, In the yielding depths of that silvery night?

I opened the window to the darkness that echoed The weir, the nightingale, rings on the moon, And steps on the road that were fading away.

I opened the window: steps died into silence. The steps of our sweet, shy, distant sins, In the flowing darkness, the silvery silence.