Otakar Březina: A Study in Czech Literature

Front matter

A STUDY IN CZECH LITERATURE

P.

4 ’ . E. C. 4.

Preface

On several occasions during the past few years I have published translations from Březina in various English periodicals, while my “Anthology of Slavonic Literature” and “Modern Czech Poetry” both contain representative extracts from his works. But the circumstances under which these translations appeared precluded the possibility of providing an adequate surveyofBřezina’s artistic achievement as a whole. The purpose of the following essay is to provide such a concise but systematic introduction to Březina’s work. In order to obtain an independent impression of the subject, I have, as far as possible, avoided studying the numerous Czech commentaries on Březina. I must, however, state my indebtedness to the volume published by Dr. Josef Staněk and Dr. Jaroslav Durych in 1918 on the occasion of Březina’s fiftieth birthday. It contains a quantity of biographical and critical material which ought to be made accessible to all who are interested in Březina. I must further express my gratitude to Messrs. Kegan Paul who have permitted me to reprint a number of translations from the two above-mentioned volumes. With regard to the translated extracts, the rhyme and metre of the original have been preserved, except where it is otherwise indicated. The bibliography does not aim at completeness, but includes only those books which I have actually consulted.

London, February 1921.

P. Selver.

Bibliography

The latest editions of Březina’s works are as follows:—

Básnické Spisy (Tajemné dálky, Svítání na západě, Větry od pólů, Stavitelé chrámů, Ruce). In one volume, Manes, Prague, 1920.

Prosy I. (3rd edition, Odkaz, Prague 1919).

Nová česká poesie, ed. by Dr. Arne Novák. (J. R. Vilímek, Prague, 1908).

Česká Lyra, ed. by Fr. S. Procházka. (Unie, Prague, 2nd., enlarged edition, 1913).

Výbor básní Otakara Březiny. (Pestrá knihovna, No. 26, Alois Hynek, Prague, 1910.)

Březina, Sova, Dyk. Výbor z lyriky. (Světla No. 1., ed. by Miloslav Hýsek, Jan Laichter, Prague, 1912.)

Úvod do studia Otakara Březiny, ed. by Dr. František Tichý. (R. Promberger, Olomouc, 1919.)

Výbor básní a prós Otakara Březiny. Kruh četby No. 4, ed. by Emanuel Lešehrad. (Alois Srdce, Prague, 1920.)

The handbook referred to in the preface is entitled:

Otakar Březina 1868—1918, by Dr. Josef Staněk and Dr. Jaroslav Durych (Nákladem tiskařské a vydavatelské společnosti, Přerov 1918.)

Chapter 1

I

Otakar Březina was born in the year 1868 at Počátky, a small town in southern Bohemia. His real name is Václav Jebavý, the now more familiar pseudonym having been adopted for literary purposes. (An equally striking example of pseudonymous fame in Czech literature is that of the great Jaroslav Vrchlický, who in private life was Emil Frida.) Březina, a school-teacher by profession, has published five volumes of poems,—“Secret Distances“ (1895), “Dawning in the West“ (1896), “Polar Winds“ (1897), “Temple Builders“ (1899), and “The Hands“” (1901), together with a series of prose essays, “The Music of the Springs“ (1903).

Březina’s most subjective writing is contained in his first volume. Thus, the opening poem, which significantly begins with the words: “O strength of ecstasies and dreams …“ provides such autobiographical lines as:

“Scantily in my life I breathed of friendship's fragrance“ — — — — — — — — — — — — “I ciphered life's account in solitary session, And to the flower-bed of my dreamings I retreated: More in the thought than in the deed was my transgression, And phantoms I adored and blurred forebodings greeted.“ — — — — — — — — — — — — “My springtide was a mournful, elegiac song“ — — — — — — — — — — — — “My memories are colourless and parched“ — — — — — — — — — — — — “Poverty's acid savour did I taste betimes“

— — — — — — — — — — — —

while in another poem, after referring to his mother who:

“… passed through life as in sad atonement; Her day was void of fragrance, colours, blossoms, lustre. Only parched fruit of life with an ashen savour … she plucked from the tree of time“

he speaks of himself thus:

“I am the pale blossom of thy chill blood … — — — — — — — — — — — — Life’s harsh savour was imprinted on my lips by thy kiss, And sorrow has remained as thine heritage in my soul. — — — — — — — — — — — — And my path is mournful, even as thine before; My day is void of fragrance, colours, blossoms, lustre; Only parched fruit of life with an ashen savour … do I pluck from the tree of time.“

In “The Secret Distances“ the poet seeks a refuge from the sorrows of reality. But the collection is not altogether homogeneous in character. On the one hand there are a number of poems which mark the ending rather than the beginning of a period in Březina’s inner development. This applies in particular to those verses which testify to moods of excessive introspection, resulting in such images as:—

“In steely, contracting circle the horizon narrowed… Gloom ripened. Darksome brotherhoods of forests I beheld, bowing earthwards,

As in a chorus of prayers for the dead. The coverlet of heaven was lowered Above my head, as if crushed and stretched down by twilight“.

(Anniversary).

Such a passage as this produces the impression that the poet’s flight from reality has distorted and blurred his scale of values, which, however, in his later volumes were to undergo a gradual adjustment.

On the other hand, there are poems which may be regarded as the true starting-point of Březina’s mental growth. In them the poet looks forward rather than backward, and indicates, although often in a rudimentary manner, the speculative and objective tendencies of his subsequent work. Thus, in the „Evening Prayer“ he expresses his desire to attain clairvoyant powers which will enable him to penetrate mysteries:

“Holy one, descend upon the dim lamp of my gaze, Pour fresh oil in it, and enkindle comprehension; With the ray of my glances let me behold, a myriad miles removed, The dusk of ancient ocean-forests and summits of ecstasy; How crystal is joined unto crystal within the bosom of rocks, How lustre of colours gushes through fabric of blossoms, How life, which slumbered in the bosom of matter, Is roused to unending bloom and eddy and ferment of existence.“

This suggests an outlook in sharp contrast to poems which reveal a preoccupation with death and suffering:—

“At bedsides, in dusk of forebodings, many a time, I know, Before thy conquering gaze has my gaze been laid low. — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

To far-hidden, unknown cities, pale and bewildered it went In gloom and polar nights with journeyings mute and forspent. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — At bed-sides, in dusk of forebodings, many a time I know, Before thy conquering gaze has my gaze been laid low.

As a sleep-walker lured from his bed, pallid, fettered and dumb, My dream do I follow, and me an Unknown’s promptings benumb.

And in wearied hands of my days, aquiver before me arise Lights of funeral torches enkindled by thine eyes.“

(Gaze of Death).

Moreover, this early collection includes two poems, “Fragrances of my soul’s gardens“ and “Grief“, whose form and style give a very definite foretaste of the plastic rhythm and pregnant imagery abounding in subsequent volumes. The former contains these typical lines:—

— — — — — — — — — — — — — “Fragrances of my soul’s gardens, Fragrances upraised from flower-beds concealed by a myriad nights! Fragrances of palm-groves and expanses of lilies in bloom, Potions that soothe in moments of expiring twilights, Gentle waft of cooling breath upon the sweat-covered brow Borne from shores of silent rivers, which flow into bays of Death. O, salutation soaring on the wind from distant oases, O, resonant hymn of invisible waterfalls Behind bluish mountain-ranges of the promised land O, fragrances of unapproachable isles behind misty drifts <>Of radiance, colours and shapes—

Beneath your clouds have ranged throngs of my perished dreams Like processions of wearied pilgrims unto miraculous wellheads Upon sacred hillocks and unto cathedrals!“ — — — — — — — — —

The following is from “Grief“:—

“In my soul I have grief of one fettered to a bed, When victorious summons of chimes is aquiver from the topmost tower… — — — — — — — — — — In my soul I have grief of a captive upon the day of Maytide festivities, Grief of a lover by the church-portal upon the day of espousal, — — — — — — — — — — — — — Grief of one weakened by searching for dreams at earliest azure of daybreaks, Grief of gazes wearied by vain tarrying before departure, Grief of withering countenances, which never were flushed with kisses, Grief of a stranger, stirred by artless embrace of a Yule-tide song, Grief of the musical instrument, hung above the couch of a dead master, Grief of blossoms which none plucked and dedicated in vases upon the altar, Grief of radiance which burned away in a lonely lamp And which none placed into the bed-chamber of lovers…“ — — — — — — — — — — — — —

These two poems represent, as it were, the first wider illumina- tion of the darkness, the first signs of thaw in the frozen depths.

The concluding poem of the volume, “Art“, expresses Březina’s lofty conception of the poet’s calling, and a humble interpretation of his own creative powers:

— — — — — — — — — “Beneath a vault aloof, upon a tiny shrine, Where o’er a marble city towers thy metal fane, Eternal One, durst I, marred with blood-lusts of mine, <>My mass for Thee ordain?

“And soak the bread of life in wine of rapture, on The altar table, which conceals in hallowed stead ’Neath roses of my dreams and lights of orison <>The relics of thy dead?

“Or will thy body yield marvel of blood, perchance, Vine-like, in golden goblet, heavy for my weak hands, And with angelic lustre wilt thou light my glance, <>Born amid twilight lands?” — — — — — — — — —

While in the following lines he shows himself already conscious of the artist’s eternal unrest and travail, the “grievous stir of the unborn“:

“Upon my pyre of days I bid Thee: Torture, burn; In sorrow’s prison-house blanch Thou my face as snow.“

Březina’s poetical technique, as exhibited in “The Secret Distances“ may here be briefly discussed. Out of the thirty poems in the book, thirteen are in alexandrines, whose austere and melodious cadences are but imperfectly conveyed in the passages quoted from “Art“. It is especially difficult to reproduce the effect of the sonorous feminine rhymes, in which Březina draws fully upon the ample resources of Czech word-structure. Such combinations, for instance, as nessál,—klesal, nezaplálo—málo, vstala—jala, embody verbal forms which have no analogy in English. This metrical regularity has been largely superseded by less rigid rhythmical schemes, and Březina’s last two volumes contain no alexandrines at all. As far as style is concerned, the abundant imagery which is so typical of Březina’s diction, is already present. A parallel may here be drawn between the development of Březina’s ideas and the medium in which he expresses them. His rapid successions of metaphors are not so effective in the sombre verses of “The Secret Distances“ as in the maturer poems, with whose warmer flexibility of movement and profounder range of thought they blend far more organically.

At the beginning of his career Březina’s name was associated with the group of poets, to whose official organ, the “Modern Review”, he was a frequent contributor. In its deeper aspects, however, Březina’s personality has little in common with the “Modern Review” poets. The melancholy temper of “The Secret Distances”, for example, bears only a superficial resemblance to the communings with death, horror and perversity, in which J. Karásek ze Lvovic, a prominent representative of this group, has so freely indulged, and in Březina’s later poems the divergency becomes still more pronounced.

Chapter 2

II.

The idea underlying the “Dawning in the West“ is elaborated in the title-poem of the volume. Březina refers to the time when:

“…the swelter of noon is long ago ended. Wearied the blood-drunken dream, and in purer accents it plays. Our prison’s glimmering bars with crackle of fire are rended…“

The poet’s conception of death has undergone a change, which is implied in the symbolic use of the word “dawning”. This modified conception of death is still further expounded in “Wine of the Strong”, as follows:—

“… our death shall be as death of the purified. Like to a passing From rooms sated with fragrances into a church on Palm Sunday. Like to embarking upon a vessel amid flutter of banners and playing of music; Like to departure of soldiery unto conquered regions, when garlands are flung to them from the windows. Like to the joyous response of the choir to the priest’s words, bedimmed with mystery…“

But Březina’s second volume, like the earlier collection, is not uniform in texture, and there are still a few subjective and retrospective poems which recall the tone of the “Secret Distances”. The continuity of the two volumes is, indeed, obvious. Thus, the opening poem, “Morning Prayer”, at once suggests a comparison with the “Evening Prayer”, from which a quotation has already been given, and the contrast between the two poems is significant. The “Evening Prayer” is in alexandrines, while the free rhythm of the “Morning Prayer” is an admirable example of Březina’s rhetorical dithyrambs, which become so specially effective in the later stages of his development. Such a passage as the following:—

“Unto my voice grant music well-beloved of gleaners, like noontide chimings, And unto my song silvery cadences of streams amid fields, in season of thirst. Grant that my steps may arouse from weariness joyful expectation of brethren, And that unto my greeting hasteners may respond graciously. Grant that even in foes’ wrathful glances it may be mine to revere radiance of thy secret, And unto adversities they dispatch against me I smilingly declare: Ye my toilers! But if I merit not that my wings be upraised by strength of my vision, Let my penitence be upraised by strength yearned for by my frailty. Give my soul courage of silence when thou hast declared thyself in tokens, And unto my gardens roses enough, when arises the season for twining of garlands.

Make that my truth be like unto a missal, That each, even the rejected and dying, find his prayer therein. And if eternal sunshine be mirrored in my word, may it cast ecstasy’s gladsome flush upon brethren And their yearning’s blossoms be turned towards eternal focus of ripening. Vouchsafe that in my smile’s radiance pollen from my fields may fall upon neighbouring seed-plots, And let breath of my sorrow congeal into crystals of balm for them grown infirm with seeking. Fill my solitude’s muteness with wing-rustle of brotherly spirits, And let moments of my joyousness as fragrant rain quiver above sleepless couches,

Like a harp-melody for solace of one in distress. Vouchsafe that my ponderings be as springtide winds, which carry rhythm unto coming song-tunes, And as tempests which force the farer to turn back from pathways of death.“

with the spacious movement of the verse, and a later extract from the same poem:

“… deadly stillnesses, wherein throb hammers of thine hidden workshops, Where thou fashionest future planets under begrimed vaultages, Till, as sparks from thine anvils, worlds flake to dizziest heights“

are typical of Březina’s maturer diction and terminology. They suggest, too, that the poet’s earlier prayer is already being fulfilled.

Reference has been made to the change in the poet’s attitude towards death. The same applies to his preoccupation with evil and suffering in general. Sorrow is interpreted as an impetus to philosophic speculation, as a means towards comprehending the mysteries of life. In the “Legend of Secret Guilt”, which must here be quoted in full:

“Flash of my coming hours illumined this moment in dreams And bloomed in my festive halls with every lustre ablaze, My coming springtides and hidden graces rippled in tuneful streams, I was dazed by lips, with breath that beguiles, with laughter that gleams, And eyes where awaited me muteness of rapture glowed there with yearning gaze.

But vainly I strode where quivered, in rhythms that dumbfound, Life’s chant. The shadow of one before me and after me wended, Flitting from hall unto hall, bright blaze at its coming was drowned, Mirrors grew dim, yearning trembled and music’s conquering sound As if thrust into lowliest octaves with silent anguish was blended.

O my soul, whence came it? And how many centuries has it passed Haply through souls of my forefathers, ere unto me it came? On how many marriage-tables as a requiem-cloth was it cast? On how many rose-hued smiles came its chill and earthen blast? And in how many lamps did it blanch amid salt and essence of flame?“

Březina introduces his characteristic theory of an inherited and unatoned curse by which life is haunted and complete happiness rendered impossible.

It has already been pointed out that the “Dawning in the West”, compared with the “Secret Distances”, marks a decided modification in Březina’s technique and diction. The tendency towards less restricted verse forms is evident, and scarcely one quarter of the poems in the second volume are in alexandrines.

Chapter 3

III

This tendency towards freedom of form becomes most pronounced in “Polar Winds”, and it is accompanied by a corresponding organic development of the poetical style. The majestic element in Březina’s work is no longer confined to a few isolated examples, but the whole book is pervaded by a mature wealth of imagery and imaginative power which show the poet’s clairvoyant and pro- phetical faculties gaining an ever greater momentum. More and more he reaches altitudes of comprehension, in terms of which no personal sorrow can become articulate. As in previous volumes there is the same diversity of subject-matter, but each type of theme is treated on an equally ample scale. A few instances must here suffice. Thus, the problem of human sorrow here becomes the subject of a poem entitled “Martyrs”, in which various categories of suffering humanity are depicted with wonderfully penetrative insight. The introductory lines may be quoted as an example of the manner in which Březina suggests the whole visionary atmosphere of the poem:

“Earth breathed into nights of the happy, fragrance of vineyards was borne amid their dreams, Age-old time-pieces in cities struck midnight, forests and waters slumbered; Only souls of the disinherited watched mournfully By their blood-red fires.“

This dream-like decorative setting is a device which now becomes more frequent in Březina’s poetry. Thus, the poem entitled “The Town” opens thus:

“In dusk of strange light I beheld a town. And the sun Pallid and void of radiance hung above it, Naught more than a star amid stars.“

Perhaps the supreme example occurs in the “Song of Sun, Earth, Waters and Secret of Fire”, a striking invocation of the elements, in which scientific knowledge is harmoniously blended with a strong poetic phantasy:

“The anchorite’s eastward-facing windows Crackled, molten with approaching fire-glow of day! On pallid faces was kindled splendour of blood And drunken with scaling the summit, the heart was chanting its song Of sun, earth, waters and secret of fire.

Sun! Deadly to eyes that are fixed! Fire-laden fountain of thirst! Rigid, but in illusion approaching! Rigid, but in illusion departing! Casting and feeding on shadows! Dallying with night-time! Silent art thou! Dost thou remember that outcry, borne throughout ages, When life at the first was astir, perplexed by thy radiance, And rigidly bowed in ecstasy of amazement was reeling from darkness? When burden of thy smile roused winds of earth and souls And when a myriad ethereal wings, held fast by gleam of thy lustre Beat at thy lattice, resounding as unseen harp-strings? And when through stillness of forests uprooted, ages of expectation, Flew forth the first mournful tune, craving deliverance, And in love and thirsting chanted thine annals, Glittering Captive-Holder, In Captivity!

Earth Roving through ages! Shackled by prompting of an eternal glance, that by day encompassed with radiance Opens itself at nightfall and in greenish depths phosphoresces And rigid in un unknown motion is suddenly aflash with myriad sparks,

And haunts thine every movement amid thy dance through spaces of worlds! Vessel, enchanted within a single circle, thou floatest through ages, And hours, perplexingly silent mariners, Guard thy numberless strangers, Yearningly from the deck gazing into distances In treachery musing on liberation; Age upon age in a single circle through ages thou floatest, But billows thou flingest in a myriad circles surge up to the marges Of dawning years.

Waters! Mirrors of heights, where age-long star-images have faded, Treacherous, ye that have kissed life with myriad kisses, And captivity of earth ye concealed with beauty, and ye at noon-tides have been Bath and wine of the sun, and thousandfold heaved by its ardour, Afresh and afresh ye returned for solace of earth! From roses and violets and dew ye wove fragrantg arb of mornings…“ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —

Here the resources of Březina’s imagery produce effects both of rhetorical impetus and lyric delicacy.

The altruistic and humanitarian phases of Březina’s poetry are expressed in the “Prayer for Enemies”, while “Summer Solstice” is an example of a lyrical intermezzo, strangely coloured, however by Březina’s symbolism. The dainty beauty and tripping measure of these lines form an effective contrast to the more epic breadth and philosophic depth which Březina’s poetry has now acquired. It will be seen that Březina’s poetry as a whole forms a synthesis of varying elements. This diversity should be emphasised, as, owing perhaps to his strongly individual style, Březina is sometimes represented as a poet whose range is narrow. This opinion results in a misleading attempt to reduce each of his volumes to a distinctive formula, although, as it has already been demonstrated, they are by no means of a homogeneous character.

Chapter 4

IV.

On the whole, the “Temple Builders” may be regarded as less transcendental in character than the preceding volume. The title-poem opens with one of those preparatory strophes, familiar from the “Polar Winds”:

“We saw uncounted multitudes, Through overcast majesty of things Sadly they ranged. Souls knew not one the other, as if each from a different world After secret wreckage had sought refuge upon earth. And dreamt of their losses,”

Then follows a passage rich in beautiful lyric cadences:

“… solitudes amid magical forests, above which the sun Like a bird with golden wings unendingly furrowed spaces; Through all creation soared its song exalting life in accord, Miraculous creative morning-tides in gardens of earth and ocean-valleys, In azure prairies of earth and water:

It sank athirst ocean-wards, and quaffing thereof aroused tempests, In amethyst caverns beneath sunset glaciers it sought slumber amid nests of mountain-roses And its visible dream, dalliance of myriad kindred suns,

Dancing to rhythms of mournful music, arose through infinities Radiant with love. Night set blossoms telling of their balm-potence And ecstasy which slumbers in grapes and the poppy…“

In the course of the poem, Březina presents a vision of mankind, embodying those who:

“... dreamed of cities, which dominated regions. Of toil’s delight, Hammers’ festive chiming, taming. of fire, transports of contest, Journey-signals, peril’s delights, pride of bestowers, Daring of hands which fling secret nets over nations, And of words which fall like garlands of pitch upon hostile cities,

Of eagles’ pride upon lonely mountains, whose whirling pinions In swiftness of flight seem unmovingly rigid as if metal-wrought, With potence of glances piercing twilit creation star-like.

Of rapture in destruction, cyclones’ triumphal journeys over lowlands, Forest-conflagrations, icy polar whirlwinds, of elements’ demoniac laughter, That with clanking of sundered chains flashingly plunge into chaos.

Of seekers’ tragic thirsting, a chase with secrets for quarry On paths of unnumbered worlds, merging into a single world, Perplexedly coursing the ages, lurking on ancient burial-places…“

the “disinherited“ who as

“… ants, swarming from crannies, Slaves creeping through life as in forbidden gardens, Passed mutely around us. Dreamless their wearied souls…“

and the “elect“, the “Temple Builders“, who

“…alone of all, Knew one the other by tokens. Like promise of other heaven and other earth They saw horror and splendour of things. In fulness of unnumbered shapes They felt first bracing of thy creative breath, Asparkle from all highest tracks of beauty…“

By this classification of human beings, the poem becomes part of a series, the other chief components of which are “Martyrs” in the “Polar Winds”, “Prophets” in the “Temple Builders” and “The Frenzied” in Březina’s last volume of poems. The poem “Prophets” is an apotheosis of those who

“Unto cities, whose towers and palaces shall one day quiver In earthquake… Shall arrive, unperceived, thine envoys, Conquerors of thy kingdom.”

and of whom Březina says:

“And most secret thoughts of their own, terrified by omniscience, Shall they hear above them chanting in starry firmaments, Beneath them in fiery and secret muteness amid depths of earth, Antiphonies of lustre and night-time.

Of thee do they speak and thy glory, Of the curse resting on the brotherhood of souls And sundering speech of the builders; and their love

From age unto age roves above earth, Like summer from settlements, whither vertical sunrays endlessly beat. New fruit is yielded by trees of the earth, Engrafted shoots from their secret gardens; But their hopes, apt for such lofty flights and song-tunes Build their nests on a level with earth, Like nightingales. — — — — — — — — — — — — — — Too slowly earth revolves for them, too slowly do mornings arise, And too long do noontides repose in shadow of trees Amid reapers. They crave to soar with speed of light through the ages, To possess a thousand hearts with whose blood to nourish their ecstasy… — — — — — — — — — — — — — — All souls to gladden with wine which yielded them such festive Sorrow and rapture.“

The messianic tone of these verses forms a contrast to the poem entitled “With Death converse the Sleepers…“, which opens thus:

“Lo, the hour wherein the grievously sick even more are afflicted And love achieves omniscience. Over all oceans and continents a thousand voices soar unto us, Wherewith as with psalms of a single choir brethren to brethen respond.

Sunset-blaze ended, with death converse the sleepers, and our cities Are hushed now. Earth is a lost shore amid an unbounded ocean And above it a chilled firmament, canopy of an opened basalt cavern,

Which fire has parched up. Only thine oceans’ voices lament therein And their surf-ridden waves beat upon it through tragical stillness And mockingly sparkle from gloom with drift of delicate gold, Washed from islands of countless distant worlds Beyond reach. And we here thy captives!”

The insoluble riddles of earthly suffering are enunciated with elegiac symbolism:

„And if our suffering craves secret justice, Wherefore speaks it not clearly to our souls? Who wandered before us, And graved signs in the bark of thine ancient forest-trees, Which we comprehend not? And concealed wolves’ dens with blossom-sprays? Wherefore sound prophets’ words like hallucinations Unto our ears?…“

The poet lapses into a desponding realisation that life is still beset by sorrow. But this mood of despondency is induced by his share in the collective sorrow of creation, not by a personal emotion resulting from isolated self-analysis:—

>>“… We know that a curse has lighted on all. >>Birds of the heights And reptiles of earth tremble before mightier ones. Age-long war Is waged by nations of insects. Even in plants’ purest domain Is contest and decay, wherein fragrant moonbeam delicacy Succumbs to onslaught of barbaric power. With simmer of contest Life bubbles in its ardour…“

“Grief of Matter” and “World of Plants” in this volume form examples of Březina’s personification of the inanimate, and fusion of science with poetry. Thus:—

“World of plants. Motionless the trees dream of their journeys Through age-long change of guise. Saps of earth blissfully trickled to them from darkness And sweet to the sucklings was radiant milk of the sun. … In depths blazes Memory of fire... >>Though all manner of insects may come. Even them awaits here toil, and both the loathliest And the loveliest are equally greeted by moon-pallor And passionate flush of blossoms.—O my soul, afar from us Life flows here… As in ferment it simmered through fire of tertiary ages. In its mirror Beheld morn and eve their colours’ glory, secret reflex Of eternal loveliness…“

Finally, the monologue “I am like to a tree in blossom” represents the more lyrical aspect of Březina’s work. It is as melodious as a dance-measure, irregular but not arbitrary in rhythm, and very effectively conveys the idea of earth become articulate:—

“I am like to a tree in blossom, chiming with insects and bees; I am calm, I am gay; Blood is a sunrising, where amid fire bathes the day become young; I have scattered fragrance in corridors of light, where my lovers pass on their way And every secret of night-time in woman’s lap I have flung.

But jealous, I will not, when I slumber by night, foredone with embraces of spring,

That thou shouldest pine for my sisters’ ethereal beauty, with the dalliance-lure of its call: Amyriad years have I stored up my riches, e’en as the dower of a king, And unto them who crave after naught do I bestow it all.

Theirs is my love with the goad of its fierceness, Languor with calm of the tomb, Depth of my gaze, from which glitters Star-clusters’ eddy of doom, Draught of my moments, where light of eternity Flickers in utter defeat, And swoon of caresses, Evil and sweet…“