A longing awakes us at daybreak,
A longing is continually hidden in our heart,
A longing is burning at night in our breast;
What of my wife?
A fear awakes us early like a funeral mass,
A fear persecutes us and darkens our eyes,
A fear fills at night our breast with hatred:
Our sisters are threatened with shame.
A pain awakens us in the morning like a trumpet,
With pain is filled every glass we drink
With pain is secretly weeping our breast:
Where are our children?
…Only one way will give an answer:
Through a river of blood and over a bridge of dead!
Woe! you will reach your home where the mother, who died of sorrow,
Does not wait for her son any more.
M. Boich
Note: M. Boich is a young Serbian poet, now about twenty-six years old, who already has a recognized place in modern Serbian Literature. The poem "Without a Country" was written after the well-known Serbian tragedy of 1915, and was published last year (March 28) in the official Serbian journal "Srpske Novine," which now appears at Corfu.
Indian Prayer to the Mountain Spirit
Lord of the Mountain,
Reared within the Mountain
Young Man, Chieftain,
Hear a young man's prayer!
Hear a prayer for cleanness.
Keeper of the strong rain,
Drumming on the mountain;
Lord of the small rain
That restores the earth in newness;
Keeper of the clean rain,
Hear a prayer for wholeness.
Young Man, Chieftain.
Hear a prayer for fleetness.
Keeper of the deer's way,
Reared among the eagles,
Clear my feet of slothness.
Keeper of the paths of men,
Hear a prayer for straightness.