Sándor Kisfaludy: TWO LOVE SONGS

I.

My Muse, oh, thou who filled of yore

The world with weeping, let it now

Vibrate with songs of golden joy,

Till east and west the echoes flow.

Oh, stream that drank my bitter tears

Drink now the tears of my delight;

Oh, wind that bore my sad laments,

Blow thou my gladdness in thy flight:

For Love, since he did oft behold

My pain and my fidelity,

Hath raised me to that realm of gold

Where he with Psyche dreams throughout

eternity.

II.

The reapers had laid low the final swathe,

The length’ning shadows ont he greensward

sank;

We wandered through the long, sweet meadow-

grass,

And paused upon the river’s rippling bank.

Then heaven was laid shining at our feet,

Even as heaven shone on us above,

Even as heaven glowed within our hearts

Illumined by the sacred sun of love.

SÁNDOR KISFALUDY (1772-1844), the descendant of an ancient and noble house, was born at Sümeg, and, after completing his education in 1792, became a soldier. A year later he joined the Imperial Guard in Vienna, and enjoyed the literary and artistic society of the capital, the while eagerly studying foreig literatures. In 1796 he fought int he French War, was taken prisoner at the siege of Milan, and sent captive to Provence, where the memory of Petrarch inspired him to write. Onleaving the Army in 1799, he married Roza Szegedi, the inspiration of the love-songs which laid the foundations of his fame. Petrarch was Kisfaludy’s model and master, and most of his poems are inspired by love, though later he found themes int he ancient glory of Hungary’s nobility. Essentially a nobleman and a poeet of the aristocratie type, his latest works met with scant appreciation, and he died, a lonely and disheartened old man, in 1844.

 

Forrás: MAGYAR POEMS. SELECTED AND TRANSLATED FROM THE HUNGARIAN WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. BY NORA DE VÁLLYI AND DOROTHY M. STUART. – LONDON, E. MARLBOROUGH AND CO., 1911.