Thus sang the burning stars - Otakar Březina

Each second that passes, ever within our places

In the mystic dance of the worlds

We revolve in the cosmos.

In the lustrous spheres of spirits we burn with a living

Beauty.

Around our heads,

In aureoles

Golden tresses are sparkling,

Extended like resonant lassos

In the flight of the whirlwind.

Into our faces glowing in ecstasy,

The ages breathe coldly

And faint from the joy of our flight,

By the sheen of a grievous pleasure o'erpowered,

With a cry that unendingly soars,

Harmony-laden, exulting,

We sink, in our mystical dancing,

And in our blood, as if buried in roses,

We perish.

Sisters shall rise in our places,

White-shimmering,

And in the song that the twilight eternally wafted,

In billows ever increasing,

Into spaces afresh and afresh they advance.

In a nebulous dust that arises,

The mystery's gleaming advance-guard.

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Otakar Březina [Václav Jebavý] (1868–1929) Czech Republic

Translated by Paul Selver

Source: An Anthology of Modern Bohemian Poetry, translated by Paul Selver, Henry J. Drane, 1912