I Want No Weeping at My Grave - Stanisław Wyspiański

1st
I want no weeping at my grave,
except my wife’s lamenting brief;
I need no tears of yours and save,
oh save yourselves the bogus grief.

2nd
I want no moaning of a bell
nor all that mourners’ gloomy yowling;
oh, may the wind and rain raise hell,
and to my funeral come howling.

3rd
A lump of earth, if you’re so bound,
hurl down before it’s through, and may
the Sun illume my burial mound,
and ever burn the withered clay.

4th
But maybe there will come the time
when I feel weary of my rest:
I’ll wrack the tomb and out will climb,
against the sun I shall contest.

5th
And when you see me then in flight,
my form aglow and out of reach,
require me to forsake the height,
but use the words of my own speech.

6th
So I can hear them, as of yore,
when then I pass a starry lane –
and maybe I’ll take up once more
the strife that used to be my bane.

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Stanisław Wyspiański (1869–1907) Poland
Translated by Jarek Zawadzki
Source: Selected Masterpieces of Polish Poetry, translated from the Polish by Jarek Zawadzki, CC-BY-SA, 2007