SUMMER SUN

I closed my eyes – and the sun that midday
Covered my cheeks, my lips – it gave
Me such kisses that memory, swirling,
Still surfs all my thoughts into waves.

I opened my eyes – from a sunny countenance,
Meeting me, issued your smile –
Later, alone and dejected, I wandered
On those barren sanddrifts awhile.

Many the days that passed, they changed nothing:
Seawaves still roll as before,
I close my eyes – my lips, cheeks still covered
With midday sun-kisses galore.

Now I remember – as I've always remembered
We were here together – we two;
I can't figure out, however, who kissed me:
You or the sun – or the sun and you?

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


TO THE UNKNOWN GOD

I sing You a hymn, Unknown God,
For me, though You're vanishing ages' lugubrious mystery;
You – a crossroad on wandering earth's orbit
Where my troubled thought returns now and then.

For some, You are stormy thundering revelation,
For others, the voice that breaks midnight's towering silence,
But for me – the ruins of a sanctuary, this earth
Where nature's teeming life reveals nothing at all.

For me, You are distant so many bright years, like a star
To whose miraculous light I am blind.
Perhaps your glance intermingles there with the fires, 
But here – I do not fear You, nor love You.

I, a dustmote of sun-consumed wastelands.
I know that You are; not who You are, how You are –
My heart, before the thought of eternity
That I seek for in galaxies, is silent.

It may be that only in earth's hollowed grave,
If I rise someday through the dews, a sunny blossom,
That here, among earth's fragrant flowers,
I will see my Unknown God.

Translated by Demie Jonaitis


AT THE MIDNIGHT

There is but one and only hour –
      The midnight gay,
When to the distant stars above
      You stop and pray.

Forever glowing silent skies
      Such joy impart,
It seems that all the stars descend
      Into your heart.

Entire existence blends to one –
      The azure blue,
Which like a calmly rolling sea
      Submerges you.

There is no sky, there is no prayer,
      There is no sin;
Whatever word your heart may say –
      Heaven will win.

Translated by Nadas Rastenis


THE SPECKLEDY FALCONS

The glow of the sunset was nearly to die
When speckledy falcons flew up to the sky. 
Despising earth's dreams, too deceptive to bear, 
They spread their long wings in the currents of air. 
"We mustn't return," looking earthwards they vowed, 
"While darkness its mountains and valleys enshroud. 
We'll have now no dreams and no shadows to shun 
Upon the bright roads leading straight to the sun. 
And when we catch up with the glorious dawn 
We'll snatch a bright lily from her brilliant crown – 
The dark rocks and fields by miraculous powers 
We'll turn into sun-spangled beds of bright flowers!" 
They fluttered their wings and so onwards they flew 
Still further and higher until they were due 
To feel the hot flames of the sun on their way 
And see the bright dawn of a new promised day.

The reddening skies in the east clothed in glow, 
The sun lit the rocks and the fields down below, 
But back from the sky, whether cloudy or clear, 
The speckledy falcons did never appear.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


MORTUOS VOCO

Now I depart. With benedictory grace
A world of silence summons me to go,
I feel the gentle shroud of endless space,
The Night that soothes and softens all our woe.
A boundless liberty, a perfect rest
Opens to greet the long-awaited guest.

   The dusk of twilight falls. I go
   To join my folk, to join my kin.
   Yet still I see the west aglow
   And hear in distant towers a din
   That calls me back. Sorrow and pain
   Suffuse my breast with gall and spite.
   Dusk falls but daylight's griefs remain.
   In angry heat my heart has bled;
   It has not learnt to worship might.
   I call the dead.

I summon every skeleton that lies
In grave-yard hill or valley, sand or clay,
Corpses in ditches, pits beside the way, 
And some in dug and tended graves; arise!
Come, legions of the venerable ground,
All you who fell beneath a torturer's blow,
You who in winter's starving desert found
Death's solace in the symphony of snow;
The countless men who chose to fight and stand
For the freedom of our land.

   The executioners tore your limbs,
   They gloried in your groans and sighs;
   Your agony pleased their drunken whims.
   While torches glistened bright and red,
   They tramped your graves with dancing tread.
   Disfigured and disgraced, arise!

Translated by Raphael Sealey


I CALL THE DEAD

But silence shrouds the grave-yard on the hill.
No corpse stirs from its damp and earthey cell.
Bare skulls of sleeping skeletons are still,
And what they dream, no mortal mind can tell,
As none can read the riddle of the pain
They knew, its origin, its cosmic goal,
But like this Night of silence and of bane
An endless secret hides their eternal role.
Still driven by an everlasting goad
The living limp towards the place of fear.
For every man must tread the selfsame road,
And now my time is near.

   Into the Night of dread I pass
   And leave for ever sun and day.
   But from the sod of weeds and grass
   Someone may stretch his hand and say:
   "Be my companion. We seek the place
   Where no one laughs, no tears are shed,
   The silent sanctuary of space."
   I call the dead.

So I depart. So I accept the blessing
Of a world of silence summoning me to go.
I mount the lofty bridge and onward pressing
Discern a scented Night of warmth, where slow
The stars in countless legions go their ways.
Beyond the narrow bridge's awesome height
My course turns sharply. Far ahead I gaze
And see my path in rays of brilliant light.

   The motherly embrace of Night
   Receives the wonderer, soothes his fears,
   And pitying his weary plight
   Gives sustenance and dries his tears.
   Long did I travel, long did I roam
   On roads the burning sun had tiled
   With heat and stones of ruthlessness.
   Now worn and tired. I come home,
   And Night says: "Stay with me, my child,
   For I know your distress."

   And so I stay. I dragged all day
   A heavy load of life and dread,
   Till like ripe fruit it fell away.
   I call the dead.

Translated by Raphael Sealey


THE LIGHTS ARE OUT

The lights are out, our revels ended,
The storm tore down the garlands rare.
Our song's unsung, our glass unemptied,
The lights went out when life was fair.

The lights went out, again our glances
Are fearful, sad. Silent we've grown.
For who will pray if there's no answer?
The lights are out – we're on our own.

The lights are out – we're both concealing
The dreams we deeply care about.
Mid visions fair and tender feelings
The lights went out, the lights went out.

Translated by Peter Tempest


TO THE EARTH

You, sinful Earth, possess such strenght and beauty!
Your flowers rival those of Paradise.
It's hues drawn from your depths rainbows are using,
It's from your breast that I my life derive.

Of sunset's scarf your dark brow you're divesting,
The warm spring night's intoxicating you:
I sense your throbbing heart, your fragrant tresses
That turn the head as meadow flowers do.

Red poppies at your feet were straightway swooning,
The reddish clouds above thinned out like mist,
The stars assembled and the moon stopped moving
When on that autumn night my lips you kissed.

You I embraced as no one could embrace you,
My turbulent desires in you struck root.
I'll rise, like a magic plant, to starry spaces,
But it's your life shall feed the growing shoot.

Translated by Peter Tempest


PENSIVE CHRIST BY THE ROADSIDE

Good Lord, how luminous autumnal nights are! 
How high vast heaven opens up above us!
The stars, those teeming stars, both large and tiny, 
So glittering, move me to tears, my Lord.

This is the time to go out on a high road:
On a smooth road one only can be footloose, 
On a smooth road on a bright night as this one 
Sweet youth may well indulge in lofty dreams.

But why do you, my watchful Lord, keep vigil
By the smooth road like silent human sorrow?
By the smooth road where you can see in daylight 
Only our woes pass by with heavy sighs.

Good Lord, is it indeed our restless dream life
That called you down from heaven to the roadside? 
Or are you just a vivid earthly vision 
Created by these bright autumnal nights?

Allow me at your side, our watchful saviour,
By the smooth road tonight to stay and ponder.
Those luminously bright stars high in heaven
So glittering, move me to tears, my Lord.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


BALLAD

These nights are so dark and frightening,
These thoughts are so grimly disquieting...

The wind is singing in birchgroves and in the woods.
The linden foliage rustles, the stout oaks boom,
But rising late is the moon,
Up late is the moon...

I'm dizzy and nothing I see but shade.
A chilly palm to your face you raised.
Down every highway the shadows crowd
Enveloping earth and sky in a shroud.

Down every pathway people run.
"Whither bound, friend, against the throng?"
"To welcome an unexpected guest
And she will unravel destiny's thread
From what's unknown,
Unknown, unknown..."

Moonrise. A hillock. A howling dog.
"Give me your hand, friend, let's be off!"
He offered his hand: my heart felt icy.

Through ruins he went, the traveller guiding.
Before them the crowd of shades gave way.
Beyond – just night
And the unknown lay.

Translated by Peter Tempest


IN THE AFTERNOON SUN

My gaze on clearblue heaven lingers,
But bitter is this heart of mine,
As if someone with muddy finger
Had stirred a glass of sparkling wine.

At heart I have a nagging feeling,
A pain I cannot localise,
As when you find yourself revealing
A secret sore to mocking eyes.

Deep in my heart much grief is massing,
Much bitterness and many a tear.
Oh, how I wish my heartfelt anguish
Would into darkness disappear!

Here, in the afternoon sun pausing,
I feel the heat searing my heart
And pangs of bitter anguish, causing
My breast and brain with pain to smart.

For evening shadows I am waiting,
The chill of dusk I long to know.
Then shall I rest awhile and, maybe,
My heart no longer suffer so.

Translated by Peter Tempest


IF ONLY THE GLASS WERE BRIMMING...

I've been drinking, how I've been drinking!
And my head's going round without rest...
As in this caressing autumn sunlight
I hold you close to my breast.

Your eyes are a hazy temptation,
The lips' glass is brimming with heady red wine.
Anyone of it partaking
Shall forfeit his reason,
Go out of his mind.

I wish to partake, to grow dizzy and love.
Let the mild autumn sun be undimming!
Soon the night will be here, starry skies shine above...
Why this tear?
Oh, if only the glass were brimming...

Translated by Peter Tempest


THE SNAKE OF LIFE

Repulsive phantoms beset me,
Clawing my heart.
The little man huddled inside me
Begins to smart.

Midnight. I'm still awake...
Luminal's no good.
Take Nembutal, Noxiron ... or just
Take over ... try on your left side lying,
You must get to sleep...
You must...

You need sound sleep...
For the coming day,
So you'll feel full of enterprise.
So you'll be – look, the east
Is already aglow
And I haven't yet closed my eyes.

If I take a few drops
From the vial
At the back of the drawer
Right here,
The nightmare of this night
May swiftly drop away...
Simply disappear.
My hand reaching out already
To sever the knot with a knife,
Freezes,
Quakes...
In my blood is embedded
Too deeply
The snake of life!...

Translated by Peter Tempest


TO THE PROMISED LAND

A peaceful pilgrim, today
To the Promised Land I travel
Through ancestral hill and vale,
Through field and pasture.

A frown my forehead creases,
My legs are weary and flag,
But on down the road proceeds
My knobby staff.

Clear patches of sky at night,
Sweet birdsong at dawn
And pledges of love
Held me in thrall.
I spurned death and welcomed life.
Now, like brother and sister,
They kiss and embrace
And accompany me
Through hill and vale.

Through field and pasture,
A peaceful pilgrim,
I carry my restless heart
To the land,
The Promised Land.

Translated by Peter Tempest


THE DANCER

A famous conductor
And an unknown dancer
Who came from somewhere to the great stage.

The Conductor:

I will play for you one single dance.
Memorize that dance
And don't look for any other.
And don't think of anything else,
Just dance and dance and dance.
Perhaps your head will spin
And the spotlights will dim –
Don't pay attention,
Just dance and dance.
And when the new dawn begins to break
You, too, will be another.
But today don't think of anything else,
Just dance, just dance
That one single dance.

The Dancer:

Good. We are both prepared.
Let them raise the black curtain!
Play for me Saint-Saens'
Danse macabre.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


A POSSIBLE FINALE

And they did
What they had threatened.
Swollen with festering poison
Like boils,
One horrible night
They exploded together.
From underground
On glittering streams of lava
Volcanos strained toward heaven,
Boiled oceans steamed in heat,
Continents crumbled like husks,
The seas no longer washed their shores, –
Sky ships with brave astronauts
In the black heavens,
Already condemned to death,
Flew like falling stars
And threw exploding atomics
To the ground
Where, catching the poisonous mists with his mouth,
In agony thrashed
The last man.

.....................

And no one no longer cared
That at the galaxy's far edge,
Bent out of its orbit,
Dead and cold,
Into the unknown distances flew
A small, empty planet.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


VIVOS PLANGO

(I weep for the Living)

You step like giants
Across abysses and mountains,
Dive across the oceans
And rise to the skies,
And dribble flames,
And vomit brimstone, 
And find no God on earth,
O living!

Some are like lords,
And others – chattel,
All are sons of angry fate,
The swollen spirit of vengeance.
And the mark of Cain is on your brows,
And that same horrible lot –
To ache amid deceits and lies.
And die cursing the azure skies.
Vivos plango.

Vengeful sons of angry days,
Misfortune's heroes,
You march, with thoughts of black coercion,
Truculent and fierce,
On all roads, in all directions,
Pierced with the fear of fate.
Chaste flowers shatter
Wherever your shadows fall.
Beneath your leaden feet
The patient rocks moan.

Your fetid breath
Inspires the spectres in graves.
In this earth's horror-filled hell
You tread inside immortal seeds
And bloom with the blossoms of deceit
And ripen with the poisonous stench
Of lies and hangmen's ropes.
Vivos plango.

You violate thrones
And trample altars.
Your laws exterminated
Sins and morals;
Crowns are in the hands of villains
And kings lie trodden in the dust.
And murderers condemn
The righteous in tribunals.
And the son does not weep
If he strikes his mother down:
Contemptuous man's torment
Is needless and hollow.
And the sun has burned out in the West –
Just mad lie and artifice.
Sparks flickered on the hillside,
A knight on horseback thundered by,
And the sickle rattled in the dusk.
Vivos plango.

The wide squares glisten,
Hot campfires flame,
Grey crowds have gushed together
To pay you homage,
Governors!

The priests have heaped their offerings
And now mutter your praises,
And prone in the dust of the streets
Babble a hurried prayer
And slavishly in ecstasy promise
To kiss your soles.

And the tyrants
And the executioners rejoice,
And the earth already glows red
With fires and blood,
And the crowd of slaves and whores
Celebrates the final knife slash
With a frenzied midnight tango.
Vivos plango.

And we, and we, who suffer,
The colorless millions,
In cities and villages,
Fearful or worried, –
Some oppressed in slavery,
Others skulking in mindless
Expectation.

And from the damp and dingy cellars
(And we, and we will moulder there),
Through the black and dismal night,
Someone curses his fate,
Someone asks to die.
Life vanished like a waterdrop
In the pit of grievous pain
Behind the iron-shuttered window.
Vivos plango.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


AT MIDNIGHT

There is a single hour that comes
amidst the night
when to the fixed white stars your prayers
take soundless flight.

How limpid, endless in itself,
lies radiant space,
as if the stars moved, in your heart,
each to its place.

In those blue vaults, all that has being,
out, up, and down!
Through their immense expanses, you
dissolve and drown.

Now prayer and sanctity have gone,
nor is there sin.
Oh, let the avid heart speak out:
Heaven will win.

Translated by Clark Mills


HYMNS OF PESSIMISM

1.

Eternal genius, wrathful giant, 
My life's black fate! 
For you my curse, for you my grief, 
For you my sorrowful twilight songs.

Why did you let me evolve from chaos 
Into a glittering spark of love's fire, 
Why did you condemn my duty-watches 
To silent solitude in the majestic night?

You embraced me in youth 
With the shadowed movements of your wings, 
You hid me from the sun's caresses, 
You seized me from love's kisses –  
Having created my world in a husk of shell, 
Be esteemed and respected!

The world's many-colored passionate realities 
Drone past in clamorous echoes –  
In my breasts, as in a story of the night, 
Glows the fireplace of my fantasies and dreams. 
Give me the deep dark dead of night, 
Oppress me with the black paw of sin –  
I sink slowly into the dizzying depths 
Of your powerful and wrathful condemnation.
 
2.

Ravenous boredom stripped bare my soul, 
Eternal anxiety emptied my heart, 
The sun and dustspecks gnawed out my eyes. 
I skulk alone in the crossroad squares 
Shunning my brother, father, and mother –  
The deceived thief of my own existence.

Love oaths and petty morals 
Are satisfied by the pale smiles of whores –  
There is no name for sin in their world. 
Oh my boredome, my ravenous grief, 
What will you now use to sate my spirit –  
You are my sin, my virtue.

Dying half my life on the crossroads, 
Exchanging stormy reality for dreams, 
I became a silent gravestone in the ground. 
Oh my boredom, my ravenous grief, 
I cry out for your painful expiation, 
I build you an altar in my soul.

3.

Like a hungry eagle from a crumbling nest 
I stare at my despised existence: 
I cannot drive from my soul the joy of the skies, 
The temptations of earth or this painful aching.

I know that before Him who rules the suns 
Quiver rebellious powers reduced to nothing, 
But my own passion, like a flaming whirlpool, 
And my enslaver – blind Necessity.
 
And so I burn like a midnight star 
That flames with the fires of chaos, 
But where is my earth, where are my heavens, 
And where is my sun-filled paradise of rest?

Only you, untried Unknown, 
Who frighten the ages into terrored darkness, 
Will shelter me like a vagabond son 
In the mansion of your murderous embrace.

Translated by Jonas Zdanys


FROM THE HYMNS OF PESSIMISM

Blessed be man's happiest unknowing:
Neither of death, nor his first days,
Nor his dark road, nor his unblazed going:
Nor his little joys, nor his sorrowing,
Nor what to curse, nor what to praise.

Yet always, through depths, you are making
My path, as I grope through the cave
Of dreams, mirages – lighting and breaking
My heart with hopes, till i, awaking,
See the cross and my cross-marked grave.

Then I may find life not worth dreaming,
Nor laughter, sacrifice, nor art,
While my mere birth, death, and redeeming
Will flame like God's own spirit, gleaming
Forever in the sacred heart.

Today I bow before the great
Unanswering, hungry for life's dance.
And ignorant of the laws of fate,
I seek out joy – and soon, and late,
Alone, to grave and cross advance.

Translated by Richard Robinson and Clark Mills


THE EARTH GROWS FRAGRANT

The earth grows fragrant in the evening shadows –  
So sweet the flowers' breath is and so light, 
And from the dreamland of a bygone springtime 
You come again to visit me tonight.

An anxious thought once more disturbs my spirit, 
A blissful joy is glowing in my eyes. 
Words fade away, only a distant echo 
Repeats your name, the name my heart still cries.

With my whole being I can sense your presence, 
To earth you bring the fragrance of a dream, 
You are a lambent light whose rays of wonder
Tonight into my sombre bosom stream.

Though far away you are, at this great distance 
You are as ever my longed-for delight 
Emerging like a fairy queen of dreamland 
Amid the fragrant shadows of the night.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis


From "SONGS OF A VAGABOND"

III

The sun shines bright, then comes the night –  
So many happy days are gone, 
But still I tread the road ahead, 
I do not halt, I'm striding on.

In solitude or in a crowd, 
With friends and strangers, old or young, 
In all my spells of joy and woe 
I do not halt, I'm striding on.

My own misfortunes I bemoaned 
And lauded love in many a song. 
Now I am silent and benumbed 
But do not halt, I'm striding on.

I live again the dreams of youth 
When all day long the bright sun shone. 
For many a mile with bliss I smile 
But do not halt, I'm striding on.

Now day is drawing to a close, 
The sinking sun will soon be gone 
And shadows steal into my heart, 
But I don't halt, I'm striding on.

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis

 
TWO SUNS

At one time, 
When at heart I bore 
The brightly flaming sun of youth, 
That other sun, 
Which up in heaven blazes 
And separates the day from night 
By streams of warmth and light, 
I scorned!

Today though, 
When my heart is dark and cold 
And barely I tell night from day, 
Towards the blazing sun on high 
I raise my arms and pray:

"O you whose generous warmth and light 
I see in every grain of life, 
Give me again 
Your warmth and light 
So that my heart may burn and seethe 
As long before, 
So that I may forget 
The chill of night, 
The gloom of night once more!"

The sun replied:
"If you do not possess
A sun that is your very own,
I shall but waste my warmth and light,
Your heart shall blunder
Nonetheless
In shades of night."

Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis

Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, poet, novelist, dramatist, translator, and literary historian, was born in a peasant family in the village Pilotiškiai near the city of Marijampolė in southwestern Lithuania. He studied at the Seiniai seminary and was ordained a priest in 1915; twenty-one year later, in 1936, he was relieved of his priestly duties and excommunicated for marrying one of his students, a step he anticipated in his famous and controversial autobiographical novel In the Shadow of the Altars (1933). Mykolaitis-Putinas studied at the Catholic Theological Academy in Petrograd from 1915 to 1917. Later he went abroad to study and continued his philosophical and literary education in Germany. He studied at the University of Freiburg, Germany, and was awarded a doctor's degree in literature in 1923 for a study of Vladimir Soloviev's aesthetic. From 1923 to 1939 he was a lecturer and professor of literature at Kaunas University. Later he taught modern literature at the University of Vilnius until he died in 1967. From 1924 to 1932 he edited the journal Židinys (Hearth) and in 1938 the journal Dienovidis (Noon). From 1934 to 1937 Mykolaitis-Putinas was chairman of the Society of Lithuanian Writers. His verse was first published in 1911. His first book of poetry, Red Flowers, appeared in 1917 and bordered on Symbolism. He established verse of a new kind in Lithuanian poetry with his book of verse On the Boundary of Two Dawns (1927) which introduced an element of drama into Lithuanian intellectual poetry. The themes of closiness to the soil and of the eternal nature of existence mark his verse collections. Lyrical and philosophical meditation on the essence of human existence dominates his poetry. Mykolaitis-Putinas wrote major studies of the history of Lithuanian literature, and Insurrectionists, an historical novel (1957). He is also known as a translator of Adam Mickiewicz's poetry into Lithuanian.