Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/249

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And in my heart were the curses and hatred of seventy thousand. God knows, I am hideous! From me the stench of a corpse is wafted, Upon hand, upon foot, my flesh is bursting; Knowest thou the forges at Baška? So my eye blazes, A bloodstained gown flutters from my shoulders, In my right hand the pitman's hammer I bear, My left was struck off by a boulder of coal, My eye was scorched out by the blaze of a flame— Upon my back squat a hundred murderers from Modrá (Like savage rats they gnaw into my neck) Upon my hips squat a hundred Jews from Polská— Jeer ye, my God, jeer ye! Such my array, I, Petr Bezruč, Bezruč of Těšín, Bard of an enslaved nation. Why are the youth of Vltava becomes as a captive flittermouse? Did not the Romans upraise Spartacus as leader. So shall I stand,—long since have perished my nation,— A hundred years shall I stand with my brow upraised to the skyline, With my smitten neck shall I touch the azure, I, Petr Bezruč, Ahasuerus of the Czech conscience, Hideous phantom and bard of a bygone nation.