epub

Janka Kupała

The deserted palace

Thy lord enfeebled long since ceased to understand

The lessons of great Sigmund's age, the years of anguish,

"Partition" drove him forth in foreign shade to languish,

Counting the fir-trees back at home on his own land.

 

And there at home, raised, furbished by so many hands,

The seat of noble generations flowered and vanished,

Bricks falling from thy rotten ceilings, lone thou standest,

And in the cracks the busy spider spins her strands,

 

The hungry "servitude" drives cattle in the park,

From year to year thy walls are veiled in superstition,

In thy wastes, fiend and coven dance in wild volition,

 

In every nook and cranny creeps destruction dark,

Gnashing its teeth: "My power and might rule here, so mark:

No life shall enter 'gainst my veto's prohibition!"

 

1910

 



Пераклад: Вера Рыч
Крыніца: Janka Kupała. Sonnets. Mastackaja litaratura, 2002.