Evening Song - Elisaveta Bagyrana

Тhe rosary of my human days
         Is coming unstrung, has come unstrung.
       Slipping unstoppable
     Through my weary fingers,
        Are its black and white beads.
              And it’s all the same -
       light or heavy,
         empty or full,
 

It’s all the same.
              They will be swallowed up
         Bead by bead
     By the unsolved mystery
     Of eternal infinity...
         Yes, I am sad -
 

As anyone headed toward
the end...
           But I do not rebel,
          Nor am I afraid -
                  I am grateful:
 

I was born and I lived on this
       Millennial land of ours.
           And the sun warmed me
       And I tasted her sweetest,
       and her most bitter fruit...
 

And I have rejoiced, and I have suffered much -
       yet I never cursed thee,
          I blessed thee instead -
                     Life!

---

Elisaveta Bagyrana [born Elisaveta Lyubomirova Belcheva] (1893 – 1991) Bulgaria
Translated by Rada Georgieva
Source: On Art and its Histories