Page:Halek's Stories and Evensongs.pdf/19

 The Evening Songs of Halek, like the song of the nightingale,” says Richard Badger, the Boston publisher, “sweetest in the quietness of eventide, are songs of youth and love, glorifying the spring, the flowers, the birds, the heavens and the stars, speaking to the human heart whether wrapped in happiness or sorrow. As effusions of feelings from a heart laden with love’s sweet passion, they appeal, above all, to the erotic spring of life. They are a bouquet of charming lyrics, full of light, colour, and fragrance, breathing spring, love, and poesy.”

Halek was born in 1835 and died in 1874. He commenced his literary career in 1858 and was the leader of the romantic and lyric school of Czech poesy. The present translation of the Evening Songs was published by Sir Walter Strickland in 1886, at York. Another translation by Dr. Joseph Stybr was published at Boston in 1920. It is not too much to claim for Strickland’s translation epic superiority over the American version. Compare Strickland’s lines:—

with Stybr’s version of the same song:—