As is usually the case with a nation held in subjugation, so with the Czecho-Slovaks, their poets kept alive the national spirit until their liberation. The purpose of this little volume is not only to present a few specimens of Czecho-Slovak poetry, but also to show how Czecho-Slovak poets kept the “fires of Liberty” burning, while awaiting “dawn’s redemptory glow.” For, in the words of Jablonský,—
“Ask thou what’s more beautiful,—
Hither lay thy right hand:
’Tis the heart, beloved son,
Beating for native land.”
Of the poets herein represented, Jan Kollár, the Slovak poet, is known as the poet of Pan-Slavism. Vítězslav Hálek was the forerunner of the modern school of poets, instilling idealism and enthusiasm into the then newly resurrected national life. Svatopluk Čech has the distinction of being the most popular of all the Czech poets. Petr Bezruč, “first bard of Bezkyd, and the last,” is the Mountain Poet of (Lower) Silesia. Blowing into a “dying flame,” he has kept alive the Czech national spirit of that region against the combined efforts of the Germans and the Poles. J. S. Machar is the leading poet of Czecho-Slovakia in the present day.
CONTENTS
| JAN KOLLÁR | |
|---|---|
| PAGE | |
| The Daughter of Sláva | [ 7] |
| VÍTĚZSLAV HÁLEK | |
| Evening Songs | [ 9] |
| SVATOPLUK ČECH | |
| Songs of the Slave | [ 12] |
| PETR BEZRUČ | |
| One Melody | [ 27] |
| Silesian Forests | [ 28] |
| A Red Blossom | [ 29] |
| You and I | [ 30] |
| 70,000 | [ 31] |
| J. S. MACHAR | |
| On Golgotha | [ 32] |
| A Fantastic Ballad | [ 38] |
| A Sonnet of the Past | [ 40] |
| A Sonnet of Life | [ 41] |
| To My Mother | [ 42] |
| The Spiral, or On the Decline of a Century | [ 43] |
SONGS OF THE SLAV