Miloš Crnjanski

LAMENT FOR BELGRADE

My friend Yan Mayen, and my land of Srem,
Paris, my dead comrades, Chinese cherry trees,
Appear to me as visions, while I lie here silent, watching, dying,
And cold, like a log upon the aches of a fire.
Only, we are no longer as we were, living, not stars,
But like monsters, polyps, dolphins,
That tumble past, swimming, and vanish,
Shouting: “All is ashes, dust, and death” –
And cry in Russian: “Nichevo” –
And in Spanish: “Nada.”

But you arise, beneath the shining star of dawn,
With Avala’s blue distant mountain far below.
You glitter, when the stars have faded with the morn,
Then, sun-like, melt the ice of tears and last year’s snow.
In you there is no empty vanity or death.
You glisten like an unearthed sword from bygone years.
In you is all revived, set dancing, given breath,
Renewed, refreshed, like bright day and like children’s tears.
And when my voice, and eyes, and breath are stilled at last,
About me you will fold your arms and hold me fast.

Spain, our isle of Hvar,
Poor dead Dobrovich and, white in the Sahara, a sheikh,
Appear to me as visions still, like phantoms, flames, illusions.
Sibe, my friend, gone mad, and gaping like a fish.
Only, we are no longer as we were, in youth and strength,
But like parrots, chimpanzees, wretched things,
That laugh and scream at me in all my loneliness.
One cries: “Leiche! Leiche! Leiche!”
The second calls: “Cadavere!”
The third: “Corpse! Corpse! Corpse!”

But you spread sweet oblivion, as spreads a swan
Its wings, on Danube’s and on Sava’s sleeping streams.
You re-awaken happiness that seemed long gone,
And laughter, here, amidst my crying and my screams.
In you no worm corrupts, not even from the tombs.
As gleams a human laugh through falling tears, you shine.
In you a ploughman sings, even in winter’s gloom,
For he has poured life’s blood into new skins, like wine.
And in my final hours, my weary head bent low,
You will give me a tender mother’s kiss, I know.

You, the past, and my world,
Youth and loves, gondolas, and Venice in the sky,
Appear to me as visions still, like sleep, a wave, a lovely flower,
Among masked revellers that have called for me.
Only, I am no longer as I was, nor is Venice, tinged with blue,
But like crumbling ruins, ghosts, and standing tombstones,
Which are all that’s left of us on earth, among the grass,
Saying: “Here lies a Pasha! – Here a beggar! – Here a dog!”
And cry in French: “Tout passe.”
And in our tongue: “All gone.”

But you stand on the river’s wide expanse, and stay
Firm, raised up like a shield, above the fertile plain.
You spin the lighting into thread, and sing your lay
Unceasingly, like distant thunder heard again.
You suffer no mere heart hurt and woe like mine:
You gaze is straight and silent as a warrior’s glare.
You turn into tears, like rain, into the rainbow’s shine
And like a far pine, cool me with your scented air.
And when the beating of my weary heart shall cease
Your blossoms, falling like soft rain, will give me peace.

Lisbon and my journey
In the world, castles in the air and ocean-foam,
Appear to me as visions, while my candle-flame trembles like a leaf.
And I bring my homeland into dreams, my dreams, my dreams.
Only, men and women, living people, are no longer there,
But powerless, weak, melancholy, and ghostly beings,
Who say that they are not beasts, that it is not their fault
That life has never given them a single thing.
And whisper: «Não, não, não»
And in our tongue: «No, no.»

But gently, in the silence of the night, you breathe
To reach the stars that mark the Sun's path in your sleep.
You listen to the throbbing of your heart beneath
That beats like stone in Kalemegdan's sombre keep.
As tiny ants, to you are all our miseries.
You cast down in the dust those precious pearls, your tears.
But then, above them, does your azure dawn arise,
Which I had gazed on my young and happy years.
And when my failing heart falls silent in my bed
At last, on your soft pillow shall I rest my head.

Finistère, and her form,
Marriage, kisses, a storm that was so violent,
Appear to me as visions still, like butterflies, poppies, ears of corn,
While, out of the past, I hear her footstep light.
Only, it is no longer she; it is not her smiling voice
But that of a cormorant, with wild black wings,
That cries out that all happiness must drown beneath the sea,
And murmurs to me their words «tombe» and «sombre»,
And shrieks their words «ombre, ombre!» -
And our words «grave» and «darkness».

But, gliding, you set forth, like an eternal swan,
Away from death, and blood, upon your way to light.
For me the day sinks in the river’s depths, is gone,
But you arise with dawn, all shimmering and bright.
Somewhere in the Sahara I shall stand, alone –
That desert where the ghostly caravans pass by.
But, as a mother kneels by her dead Tuareg son,
So you shall give me consolation till I die.
And though they break my soul, my lance, my leg, my arm,
I know that you they cannot, cannot break or harm.

All human life, a hound,
A withered leaf, a seagull, aroe deer, the moon upon the sea,
Appear to me as visions in the end, of sleep, of death,
That comes to all the actors on our stage, all, one by one.
Only, those things, and I, were never anything
But seadrift, transient, whisperings in China,
Which murmur like a heartbeat, ever colder, ever quieter,
That there remain no Ming, no yang, no yin,
No Tao, no cherry trees, no mandarin,
Nothing, and no one.

But you shine still, through all my troubled sleep and pain,
Unceasingly, through gloom, and dust, and countless tears.
Your blood, like dew, has fallen on the plains again,
To cool the breath of all those whose quietus nears.
Now I embrace you and your steep stone crags once more,
And Sava, and broad Danube, flowing slowly by.
The sun is rising in my dreams. Now shine! Flash! Roar!
Your name rings out, like lightning from a clear blue sky.
And when your ancient clock strikes finally for me,
Upon my dying lips your whispered name shall be.

Translated by G.N.W.

Sumatra

So careless, light and tender now.
Imagine: how quiet snowy
peaks of Ural may be.

If a pallid countenance lost
in a dusk brings sorrow upon us,
we know that in its place a stream
blushedly flows!

A love, a morning in unfamiliar lands
around our souls tightly bends,
with endless peace of blue seas,
in which crimson coral beads
glow like cherries in the homeland.

At night we wake and at the Moon
and its sliver arc we smile gently,
we caress distant hills
and glacial mounts so tenderly.

Translated by Emilija Cerovic Younger