Dániel Berzsenyi: ODE

Oh God, beyond the highest power of man

To comprehend or to conceive, we know

Thee but by inward thoughts of bounded span,

And, even as the sun’s life-giving glow

Illumes the universe, we feel Thy might

Yet cannot narrow itt o our dim sight.

The utmost heavens, star-systems without end

Revolving round Thee, and the smallest worm

Invisible int he dust, alike proceed

From Thy great hand; Thy law is the vast norm

Whereby creation and all things that be

Adjust their difference and equality.

From the dark void Thou hast created, Lord,

A thousand species varied beyond ken;

Numberless planets perish at Thy word,

Dissolve to dust, and whirl to life again.

Thy wisdom measures time’s deep rivers still,

Zenith and Nadir do thy praises fill.

The tumult of the tempest, and the flame

Of fringéd lightning, do Thy works declare;

The dewdrop and the blossom both proclaim

Thou didst create all that is good and fair.

I kneel before Thy throne with ardent awe;

Would I were chainless andmight nearer draw

Till the blest hour when, from my fetters freed,

I may adore Thee even as Thou art,

I will seek what is good as my best meed,

Treading my destined road with steadfast heart,

And striving, while my strength sufficeth still,

To love Thy law and to obey Thy will.

The darkness of the grave serene I see

Looming before me: though ’tis rough and cold,

Why should I shun what is ordained by Thee?

Although it must at last my limbs enfold,

The vision gives my waiting heart no fear,

For also there I know that Thou art near.

DÁNIEL BERZSENYI (1776-1836), born at Egyházas-Hetye, enjoyed but a brief sojourn at scholl, and afterwards helped his father, a man of education, in agriculture. After his marriage, some specimens of his work reached Kazinczy, then the leader of the Hungarian literary world, who at once descried Berzsenyi’s genius, and encouraged it. The best representative of the old classical scholl, he studied and imitated Horace, and his Odes int he Horatian style have never been surpassed in Hungarian. Berzsenyi’s latter years were embittered by the censure of critics, and by broils with his best friends.

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.

Mihály Csokonai: TO HOPE

Bright apparition, born of mist

In heaven’s dome aloft,

Thou hast our tortured foreheads kissed

With laughing mouth so oft

That we,

Deceived and blinded, give our lives to thee.

And we, as to an angel guide,

Before thee ever bend;

Still dost thou near us softly glide

In likeness of a friend,

Until

We learn that thou art false and fickle still.

Why with smooth lips didst thou beguile

My trusting heart, and why

Didst thou betray me with a smile

And lure me with a lie?

Alas!

I did believe thy promise soothfast was.

My garden thou didst brightly spread

With pale narcissus sweet,

A merry brook my saplings fed,

Flowers laughed around my feet:

Spring came,

Crowned with a thousand buds and winged with

flame.

And every morn my thoughts took wing

As ’twere a nimble bee,

Untom y roses fluttering

With new felicity.

And yet

I still had food for longing and regret.

The love of Lilla* did I crave,

The crown of all my hope,

And heaven that treasure to me gave:

A golden dream did ope

And gild

The future with sweet promise unfulfilled.

My fragnant roses all are dead,

My rippling rills run dry,

My lusty trees their leaves have shed,

And sombre is the sky.

Ah, me!

The good old world no more will merry be.

Buti f, O harsh and ruthless fate,

My Lilla thou hadst left,

My song would still speak gladness great:

Though of all else bereft

With her

Sorrow could ne’er my hopeful spirit blur.

No cares had darkened the clear sky

Nor veiled the sinking sun

If she I worship had been nigh

But I am left alone

Eheu!

With her all riches callous would I view.

Since she is gone, Hope cannot stay,

For I in shadow dwell.

For liberty I long alway

And for the solemn bell

That will

Proclaim my freedom when my heart is still.

No blossoms dance along the mead,

The voiceful grove is dumb,

The phantoms of the world recede,

As death’s dark heralds come.

To you,

Visions of vanished Hope, I bid adieu.

*The poet’s beloved, who was forced by her parents to wed another.

MIHÁLY CSOKONAI (1773-1805), was the son of a surgeon, and born at Debreczen. Having early lost his father, he received the rudiments of his education from his cultured mother, and began to write poetry while still at scholl. He soon abandoned his studies, however, in order to seek at Pozsony, where Parliament was then sitting, a moble patron who might encourage his literary aspirations. This quest proved fruitless. On his homeward journey he met Julia Vajda, the „Lilla” of his famous love-songs, but she was compelled by her parents to desert the hapless poet and marry another. Ranging from comic narrative to the deepest philosophic speculations, the works of Csokonai are varied and original; buti t is by his love-songs and drinking-songs that he is best known.

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.

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.