BLUE SISTER, RIVER VILIJA

Vilnele, run to Vilija!
And, Vilija, to Nemunas' shore!
Convey this message: "We love life
But love our country even more!"

We battled hard and long – bloodstained
We come back to the battlefield.
In water pure our wounds we'll bathe
And with green silk we'll bandage them.

And, should you ask the stones what sort
Of men we are, they with one breath
Shall say how valiantly we fought
Our foes whose eyes were closed by death.

Blue sister, River Vilija,
Make haste, make haste to Nemunas' shore!
Convey this message: "We love life
But freedom we love even more."

Translated by Peter Tempest



ON THIN ICE

Spring summons the earth to a wedding
(But who will wed me?).
I hurry, on thin ice treading,
To the ceremony.

She's braiding her hair with violets
Of humble birth.
Will you remain barren much longer now,
Virgin earth?

I've got to go. My heart's aching
For sunny ground.
So over thin ice I hasten
The way of the drowned.

Don't say, if I die: "Too rapidly
She used up her strength..."
I ran to catch up with happiness
For the World and myself...

Translated by Peter Tempest



SPRING TOAST

Toasting the sun,
See spring twirl
Flower-cups in the air.
Would I could wipe from your brow,
World,
The furrows of care!

Translated by Peter Tempest



I'LL BE A FLOWER

You'll ride up, spring, one year,
Your bounty giving,
To find that I'm not here
Among the living.

Reining your bay, you'll see
Earth bloom that hour...
In meadows gay I'll be
A gillyflower.

Translated by Peter Tempest



MY LADDIE

Now who's been stepping through the rye?
Don't scold the cat. I'll tell you why.
It's my tow-headed little laddie
Who toddled by.

Drawn by the poppie's bright-red hue,
Himself a slender cornflower blue
Amid the tall rye stalks my laddie
Was lost to view.

They'll sing to him about the grain
For which the world knows grief and pain.
But it's beyond his understanding –
The rey's refrain.

For him earth's full of radiant light,
Gay butterflies and flowers bright –
A butterfly himself, my laddie
In flitting flight...

The flowers he admired so much
Have faded, wilted in his clutch.
He's crying now. Of flowers my laddie
Has had enough!

Translated by Peter Tempest



YOU WILL WAKEN

You will waken in the deep of night...
Woodland winds will summon you to roam
And the birch will wave at its full height,
Greeting swans and cranes returning home.

Meanwhile spring will strew the sky with stars,
Off will all the gates and fences blow.
Through the gaps in cracking snow-drift bars
Soon a blade of grass will peep and grow.

Spring advances, eager for a fight,
Flooding streams, announcing winter's fall.
You will waken in the deep of night...
Listen to your homeland's springtime call!

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



WHY IS EARTH SO SILENT?

Mother, why is Earth so silent?
Silent day and night,
Not to sun or stars complaining
Of her grievous plight.

Not complaining, calmly making
Her eternal round...
Grim when drinking blood, breath-taking
When gay flowers abound.

Dust to dust... The ever silent
Dead with shrouded eyes
Shall in woodland berries ripen,
In fair dust-clouds rise.

My dear child, I cannot tell you
Why Earth makes no sound.
This I know: life shall continue
As long as Earth goes round.

Translated by Peter Tempest



BY THE SPRING

Nettle-bed tulips line...
Who shall say no?
Willow and birch entwined
By the spring grow.

Apple-tree listening
In the warm dusk.
Pale sky, stars glistening,
Every breeze hushed.

Thus little sister gave
Solace to me...
You're not a swallow grey!
You're her, maybe?

Come from my land, maybe?
Once more, please, trill!
That spring, that apple-tree,
I see them still...

Translated by Peter Tempest



DANDELION

Dandelion, dandelion, flower miracle,
why do you lean on wind at the field's edge?
Where, where will you lay your white head down?
And where drowse, as the late evening darkens?

Wind rises, blows, tousles the locks
and tears the white locks from the snowy head:
over the faultless earth, autumnal field,
carries the dandelion's fluffed white seedlets.

Dandelion, dandelion – oh, my own flower!
I grieve now for your little head bleached white
as I grieve for my new youth, so scattered
by time and wind, at the field's edge.

Could I but change into the field's gray sand,
could I but settle slowly, cold as stone,
the Nemunas above me flowing, flowing...

Translated by Clark Mills



LILACS

A time before I could be.
These lilacs bloomed.
Soon, again nothing of me.
They will bloom on.
From sun, from wind,
their petals fall,
strewn like sand
over my all.

Translated by Mary Phelps



FRIENDSHIP

Let prophets curse, this world despising, 
Until their bloodless lips turn blue! 
My friendship – like the sun arising, 
Like longing – I extend to you.

In pitch-dark night we often blunder 
The clouded skies seem never bright. 
And yet I cannot help but wonder: 
Why is the earth so full of light?

It's not the sun that we so cherish 
That every morning brings us light. 
It is the dawn of our great friendship 
That fills us brimful of delight!

It keeps this world and us still going, 
It keeps all songs alive and gay. 
For friendship's sake do streams go flowing 
And forests sing their roundelay.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
 


SPRING

Sweet spring! 
The lilac soon will burst in bloom. 
The stream again strikes up a tune. 
The southern breeze is flying high 
And driving clouds across the sky.

Sweet spring!
The birch-tree twig awakes in bud. 
Its rising sap is my own blood. 
A thrill of freedom long concealed 
Sweeps like a wind across the field.

It sails the sky on white cloud-pillows, 
It sways upon the weeping willows, 
Then darts with swallows through the field 
That thrill of freedom now revealed.

The bell a hundred times will ring 
Of love and joy, delights of spring: 
Be gay and happy, earthly brother!

The wind-winged heart is leaping farther: 
It shuns lone paths across the fields 
When to that freedom thrill it yields.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


 
HOMELAND

Despoiled and blood-drenched by the foe 
You rise before my eyes. 
Many a hundred miles I'll go 
To see your stirring skies.

When blossom from your apple-trees 
Or leaves in autumn fall, 
I'll go to you, though on my knees 
Through rain and cold I'll crawl.

Today the heavy clouds of war 
Enshroud your lovely face... 
How are your towns I see no more? 
Grim ruins take their place.

You wring your hands in grief and pain: 
Where are my sons, my loyal guards? 
In empty homesteads chill winds reign 
And moles dig up the yards.

Over the Nieman night drags on 
But it shall not last long. 
I'll come to you one day at dawn 
To soothe you with my song.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



I'LL RETURN

Down the Niemans ice will flow. 
Buds will burst in glee. 
Wait for me, as long ago, 
By the apple-tree.

In the yellow fields of rye 
Summer waves adieu. 
Moonlit nights will fill the eye 
With bright drops of dew.

Autumn winds again shall bite, 
Strip the apple-tree. 
In the dark and stormy night 
Come and wait for me.

Frost will draw upon the pane 
Tulips, camomiles. 
Through the bitter winter's reign 
Wait for me with smiles.

If as ever you love me 
And love me alone, 
These cold trenches here can be 
Cosy as my home.

When I see you at my side, 
Feel again your breath, 
Shells and bullets I defy 
And escape from death.

Don't take off your golden ring, 
Don't cut short your plait, 
I know not what fate may bring, 
You, my love, must wait.

For the fallen they will mourn, 
Flags half-mast will fly... 
Don't believe them... I'll return: 
I must live, not die.

Sticks will bud and start to grow, 
Even stones will stir... 
Wait for one as long ago, 
Now and evermore.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
 


* * *

When after nights of frost the lilacs bloom 
The nightingale can't help but burst out singing... 
Though all around us smoking ruins loom 
And far away a cannonade is ringing.

Although the fumes of death and gunfire shroud 
The ash-grey fields, forsaken and unploughed, 
Yet shall we build new roads and sow the loam 
And joy again will visit my old home.

Fair summer dawns will rouse us from the gloom.
With labour will the land again be swinging.
The frosty nights are gone, the lilacs bloom,
The nightingale can't help but burst out singing...

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
 


A SONG OF LIFE

My life is a windstorm, unleashed and unbounded, 
It sweeps like a falcon expanses of field! 
My life with the echoes of spring is resounding, 
My life is a mad dream I'm destined to yield.

And yet I love life, full of vigour and fire,
As much as a wild meadow flower loves spring. 
I love joy of life with a burning desire 
And like only youth can to joy blindly cling.

O earth, my beloved and bountiful mother!
You dress up in flowers, at times in blood too.
Who'd change your sweet charms for the Garden of Eden? 
I dread to imagine my life without you!

I love you, big world, ever bustling, beguiling! 
You'll tear me, perhaps, like a beast of the wilds. 
I'll die all the same at the sun broadly smiling, 
And sunbeams will shine in my eyes.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis



GRANDMA'S TALE

Our winters are hoary,
White on white wherever you look.
Long tales they tell us toddlers,
Evenings, in the parlor.

About a blizzard that gets you lost
And braids the sun clipped off.
The swan pumpkin
Bound for desert lands.

About wolf and white bear
And spells that devils come up with.
Waters splashing
Up from silver wells.

About the third son Jonas,
The proud horseman he is.
And Eglė, the watersnake's wife,
Whose children changed into trees.

And how the grieving orphan girl
Came empty-handed back,
How the pines wading big drifts
Found no way to climb out.

Thumbkins sleep in the drifts.
There are goldfish under the ice.
A witch will run across the snow
Without leaving tracks.

Good-natured as the orphan girl is,
Her stepmother stays mean ...
As Grandma nods off, so
The story stops short.

Translated by Vyt Bakaitis

Born in the village of Kiršai (her real surname was Bačinskaitė), Salomėja Neris completed her secondary schooling at Vilkaviškis. In 1928 she graduated from Kaunas University, where she studied German and Lithuanian languages, and educational theory. For several years she was a teacher. Taught at various schools in Lithuania until finally settled in Kaunas. Her verse was first published in 1923. In her first verse collections, Early in the Morning (1927) and Prints in the Sand (1931), a romantic view of the world was expressed with emotional sighs and notes of lyrical tenderness. In her verse collections, On Thin Ice (1935) and I'll Become a Flower (1938), lyrical self-observation is combined with aphoristic thoughts with an Impressionist-like fragmentariness of imaginery. Salomėja Neris is the most popular Lithuanian poetess.