SONG OF MIST

The smooth oar lifts no spray,
The soft breeze dies away,
There's joy in store today.

The waves a silence binds,
The rowboot softly glides,
The road of mourners winds.

If but a sigh you'd spare!
Did you not hear, or care,
When storms beset me there?

From yearning I was lost,
By gales my heart was tossed, 
In mist my dreams were crossed.

The oar slips through the air,
My heart weeps in despair,
Unheeded is my prayer.

Translated by Peter Tempest



* * *

Time exists not in my castle –
Passing hours I do not count...
Dying, reborn, once more dying,
I discover no way out...

Centuries possess my castle,
Fleeting breath of loneliness...
Door of steel, chill bricks, a gjastly
Atmosphere of cruel death...

Door of steel... I hammer, hammer...
Echoes ever fainter groww...
Rocks the sea is gnawwing vanish,
Souls too disappear below...

I don't know when dawwn is peeping,
When stars blindly swim in space...
Blind am I ... the window seeking...
Centuries are every pace...

There's a distant bell ... it summons...
Day is coming ... so they say.
On my knees I'm waiting humbly:
Shall the wwalls of steel decay?...

Translated by Peter Tempest



AUTUMN VIEWS

I

We went walking in the morning just before the sun was rising.
Sad the orchard, sad our thoughts were, sad too
				was the autumn morning.
Pining spruce and motley lindens, as if frozen stiff, were dying.
We wwent walking in the morning just before the sun was rising.
Hand in vain a hand was seeking, hearts were deaf,
				not sympathising.
Vainly was a heart's fire kindled – that day there was 
				no sun rising.
Sad the orchard, sad our thoughts wwere, sad too
				was the autumn morning.


II

You were scared of the leaves' voices, of the sound of leaves
				in autumn.
I was freightened of your glances, like an arrow hard and icy.
Though we both at heart were wishing for one endless
				dream enthralling,
We were sadly weeping, feeling our fond wishes intertwining.
You, scared by the sound of leaves, the final sound
				of leaves in autumn,
Plucked a flower from my garden, underfoot you trod it wildly.
Witnessing how hard and withering, like an arrow sharp,
				your gaze was,
Like an ear of corn I trembled, corn a random sickle grazes.

Translated by Peter Tempest



INNER CITY
(An Excerpt)

1

Streetcars grind thunderbolts on asphalt
While crowds writhe and cars snarl.
God's been held over from bygone ages
Nailed down inside the gates and churches.
Girls go half-naked by prevailing streetcode
With shrieking cold shakes and occasional seizures.
Sometimes an orphan is driven to tears
By writhing crowds and snarling cars.
Streetcars grind thunderbolts on asphalt.

2

Smudged streetlamps once glazed the cobbles
To bright gems in brilliant strands.
Youngbloods blindly bead in on old age:
Now you don't have to die or grow old,
Cruising these streets according to code
Without cursing the city for all it's worth,
By way of drugstores and newsstands,
Bright gems set in brilliant loops,
Fuming streetlamps no glare can dent.

3

One vast roaring smokescreen for a mob to soak in,
Where the poor slob sucks on his beer,
Too close for comfort to all the bare
Bobbing smooth legwear on her:
Just barely, poor guzzler, more than he can bear
Getting a stray whiff in dollars and cents
Though there's no place for him even
To ease in next to her at the bar,
Where fumes snuff the whole roaring scene.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Born in a peasant family in the village of Baibokai, Balys Sruoga attended a secondary school in Panevėžys. In 1915-1918 he studied at the universities of Petrograd and Moscow and in 1921-1924 did Slavonic studies at Munich University where he received the degree of Doctor of Philology. From 1923 to 1943 he lectured on Russian literature and theatre history and ran a drama seminar at Kaunas and later Vilnius universities. During the World War Two Sruoga was held at the Stutthof concentration camp from 1943 till 1945, being one of 47 Lithuanian intellectuals arrested as hostages. After the war he was a professor at Vilnius University. His poems first appeared in 1911. Two volumes of his verse were published – Sun and Sand (1920) and In the Paths of the Gods (1923). Influenced by Russian Symbolism, he introduced in Lithuanian poetry Verlaine's kind of verse in which the predominant note is one of free play of emotions and understatement. Sruoga wrote historical plays of a lyrical nature, as well as a book of reminiscences of the Stutthoff concentration camp, Forest of the Gods, published posthumously in 1957. He also published studies in the field of folklore, the history of the Lithuanian theatre and Russian literature.