Page:Modern Czech Poetry, 1920.djvu/85

Rh And on their rigid face thy peaceful glea Quivers like to a tear, That merges every brawl in mighty concord.

All sleeps: the hill-side's blackness Like a bear's fur is bristling in the void. Upon the leaves and thickets The moon's white streaks are scattered here and there, As at a bear's rough fur Were clutching the white fingers of a hunter. God is this hunter: by its mighty jaw-bone He seized the monster night-gloom, whence dismay And dread were scattered; then he took his spear, The moonray golden-clad, And thrust it in the beast's grim fangs, till, when His blood gushed forth as redness of the dawn, His hundred hounds, the freshening eastern winds, Lap at it there; and earth begins to smile, Aquiver for the morning.

Haply sole waking creature, I probe sad musings of the cloudy heaven. Upon my rocky cavern The moon-light tapped, and I was roused from slumber To greet the earth and speak soft words to her, That her long boundless journey may not tire her, To let her know, that o'er her Is borne an angel with a spreading wing To hold her in her fall, Yea, e'en that God himself would clasp her round, Like to a white and sorely smitten dove, And in his garment's border Would lay her to the rest for which she yearns.

Often meseems that I At times can hear the heavy gates of heaven Opening wide and closing once again,