Laza Kostić

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Laza Kostić (Serbian Cyrillic: Лаза Костић) (1841–1909) was a Serbian poet, prose writer, lawyer, philosopher, polyglot, publicist, and politician, considered to be one of the greatest minds of Serbian Literature.

[edit] Poem

[edit] Santa Maria della Salute

Forgive me, O Holly Mother, I pray

For mourning our mountains, stripped of pine,

Those woods that became, despite our dark day,

Part of Your Mansion, a Holy Shrine,

And, Source of Mercy, forgive, as you may,

This, my earthly sin, this guilt of mine.

Repentant, I kiss the hem of your dress,

O, Maria della Salute, Blessed.

Is it not better to bear Beauty’s weight,

Hold up your arches, solid as rock,

Than to feed the hearths of the world’s hot hate,

Burning to ash the heart and its bark,

Than to sink like a ship, rot at a gate,

Like the devil’s own fir tree or oak?

So much lovelier the eternal rest

O Maria della Salute, Blessed.

Forgive me, O Mother, I’ve borne such hurt,

Much sin I’ve repented and renounced.

All my young heart had dreamed is but naught,

Ripped up by the waking world, denounced.

All that I yearned for, all hope my youth bought,

Crumbled to ashes, dusty accounts,

All in fulfillment of some malign jest,

O, Maria della Salute, Blessed!

Poisons, corruptions have hurt me within,

Yet I’ll injure no man with my curse.

Whate’er I’ve suffered, from lash or snake’s sting,

I’ll have no man bear the blame or worse.

The power that broke this spirit’s bright wing,

Choking its breath as it flew on course,

Sprang from this mad head, this mind of unrest,

O, Maria della Salute, Blessed.

Then my secret nymph stood there at my side.

Oh, such a sight had my eyes ne’er seen!

From the black darkness, a poem in her pride,

Broke dawn’s glory in a dazzling sheen,

Healed in an instant all my wounds beside,

Yet left deeper wound, sharper pain.

Now how could I bear this joy in my breast,

Dear, Maria della Salute, so Blessed?

She looked on my face, and none has yet seen

Such a shine that sparkled from her eyes.

On a frozen landscape the light of that mien

Could warm mountain tops, melt snow and ice.

Now my heart’s every wish was there to glean

Sorrows and sweetness, gall and fresh spice,

Hunger and thirst and the wants of my breast

Eternity be yours for this bequest,

O Maria della Salute, O Blessed!

Was all of this splendor for such as me?

This prize like a miracle mine?

All these golden fruits, now ripe on the tree,

Indeed all for me, in life’s decline?

O rarest fruit, you, so sweet to see,

Why were you not ripe at the harvest time?

Forgive me, for I’m a sinner confessed,

You, Maria della Salute, Blessed.

Two forces struggled for mastery in me,

Mind against heart, against flesh’s yoke,

How long did they fight in this awful way,

Like the tempest against the old oak?

Finally passion grew weak in the fray,

And the grooved brain made its last attack.

You’re the hinge of the mind; you hold it fast,

You, Maria della Salute, Blessed.

My mind consticed, compressed my own heart;

I fled its pleasures, mad in my flight.

Oh, how I fled, so hurt at the start.

Cold rose round my sun and quenchead its light.

Stars darkened, and tears burst from heaven’s part;

‘Twas the world’s end, Judgment’s awful night,

The crack of doom, the world’s trial at the last,

O, Maria della Salute, Blessed.

All broken hearted, my mind scored with fears,

I hold her memory a holy shirine.

Now in later years, whene’er she appears,

It’s as thought God’s face were here, Divine.

Within me the ice of agony thaws;

Throuth her I see; all knowledge is mine.

Why are our wise minds perplexed and distressed,

O Maria della Salute, Blessed?

In sleep she comes, all silent, refusing

The loud rabble-cry of my desire.

When she will speak, the time of her choosing.

At her command she holds strange power,

And all around her, in clouds suffusing,

A heavenly pattern of charming hours.

And my path to her is thus paved and pressed

By Maria della salute, Blessed.

We hold one another as man and wife,

Without unhappiness, without care,

Halcyon days, which no fever of life,

Our passions cooled by heavenly air.

She’s older now, and there is no strife;

The past is as mute as unsaid prayers.

For here my own age is blessed by the best,

By Maria della Salute, Blessed.

For us our children are poems I have made,

Timeless traces of our elation,

A written text, neither sung, nor e ’en said,

Only the soul’s ray’s penetration.

Only two known where the secret is laid,

Rare is heavenly revelation.

It’s what rapturous prophets have expressed,

O Maria della Salute, Blessed.

When the time of my doom comes round at last,

When I break my head ‘gainst life’s jagged stone,

My dream will be born with Death’s rattling brass;

Then I’ll hear ringing cry, "Come home!"

From nothingness into glorious grace,

From limbo to the Heaven’s fult bloom,

To heaven and into her arms so warm.

Then that yearning will rise within my breast,

And my heart-strings will quiver without rest,

And the moving stars in the skies above,

Both the men there and gods will gaze aghast,

We’ll alter the path on which the stars move;

We’ll melt in our warming sun all the frost,

Till the dawn’s red glow lightens every cove,

And all the ghosts are by love obsessed,

Dear Maria della Salute, Blessed!

[edit] References

• Biography (Serbian)
• Selection of Works (Serbian)
• Poems (Serbian)