Poems by Dagny Juel Przybyszewska
De la musique avant toute chose (Paul Verlaine)
For Astrid!
Untitled 1 of 13
The halls of the soul are vast and dim
Where the star would burn like a wedding torch
It burned like an altar fire
Above the soul's tabernacle
This star my childhood saw
Shone softly 'bove hill's wide brow
Like pallid hands it covered
The phosphorous waters of deep
I put you on the welkin myself
I nailed your rays to the vault:
In your bright longing eye
Shook only my burning shackles
Oh, star! Yet again sink into my soul!
Oh, star! Please melt inside!
Untitled 2 of 13
Along the firmament eternity faintly turns
A voice speaks from the cloud
A voice speaks from the ground:
Eternity's well is the storms that sing
That sing a song of the cloud
That sing a song of the ground
That sing a song of eternity turning aflame along the firmament
Eternity brightly foams against the side of the cliff
Raises its arms its voice sounds:
Bolt and storm, ye sing my songs
ye are born in fever
ye are born in fury!
Untitled 3 of 13
The river is sluggish and dead
And full of dirty and clotted blood
The sails of the ship are fiery red
And over the mast there softly flits
A kindly spirit: A bat.
I grasp the leaden-grey hood of night
And taxingly pass through the dim-lit dale
And pour the goblet of blood, it empties
Over the dale's dense mists.
I carry the fiery sails of the ship
And nod to my grey companioness
I watch the river's blood drift past
And think of my night-mare's nails.
O dearest incubus of mine!
My heart-ache's child of woe
Your black wing's web will always catch
My multitude of dreams.
You stare into my brain, it's blank
As both squint up at the sun
Its golden flood is glistening, gushing
Over the river's blood.
Untitled 4 of 13
Two strong and pallid hands
Ignites the beacon flame
That in the winter night
Burns bright on summit high.
A memory weak and faded
With eyes now blind and tired
When day comes bright and vibrant
The beacon hid now, vanished.
But in dull dreams
Over deep streams
The sanguinary memory
Swims towards me mightily.
O never may you fade
You night-wild memory!
Your merciless, cruel hands
Held fast my dressing-gown
Beneath your tender hands
My braced heart escaped.
Untitled 5 of 13
Quiet! Quiet
The stars are singing a sinister song
Of one who took a final stroll
Through the rose garden…
Quiet!
Quiet! Quiet!
The candle is smoking, the flame is dancing, can you see?
The snow is sinking in my heart, can you hear?
So silently?
So silently…
Quiet, oh quiet!
A cherished voice is calling me…
The stars, you see? are falling now
Over my life.
Quiet…
Untitled 6 of 13
I'm standing on the shore, awaiting, afraid
Observing sails of white departing south
At eventime my own white glided home
A-trailed by singing shadowy flock of birds.
Just me now, standing lonesome watching
Quiet night-waves strike the cliff
Bewildered, I sense it trapping the angstglad
Wildly wistful chime of my heart.
I stand and stare, my longings lament
The cloud-veiled brow of the sea
Until there lands by my tired feet
Your ship so proud with victory's roses red
With victory's forceless trail of pallid dead!
Your sea-faring roc is travelling through the night…
Untitled 7 of 13
The wind is whispering warm through night's deep chasm,
The thousand crazed eyes do shortly shake,
The sleeping earth, while dreaming, moans aghast
It feels the kiss on its unwitting lips.
All golden leaves in a whirling dance!
The final play…
My golden hair: A flaming wreath!
And soon so pale…
The earth lays bare its broad hips
The seething streams flow forth:
Sparkling flowers
With rainbow sheen,
Blood and fire!
With fearful force
They reach for the glowing orbs.
The wind is whispering calm through night's deep chasm,
The thousand stars of gold do shortly shake,
The sleeping earth, while dreaming, mildly sighs,
It feels the kiss on its sealed lips.
Untitled 8 of 13
The clouds are in a restless rush
Above my days of joy
Above my summer's sultry night.
Becomes a dire, pending, blade
My yearnings now concealed
Their muffled screams will soon be quelled.
Becomes a bird that spreads it wing
And rushes, in my dreams,
Above my poppies, thicket-thick.
Untitled 9 of 13
Your well I drank of, deep I reached
One night the moon was grandly red
It burned between the gnarly pines.
I saw the eagle fly away
Alarmed by the moon in the eerie noose
Disturbed the water of your spring.
The power I drank, how deep your well
It turned to toxin, soured my veins
While lingering on the runic stone.
The toxin crept into my skull
Empowered me to solve the runes
The moon turned pale behind the copse.
And when the rosy sun did rise
The eagle's fledgling, mighty wings
Like fire spread across the skies.
Untitled 10 of 13
This hidden, frostbit ache, its hands outstretched thus tempting
me and all turns tense, the river is pallidly seeping
through the valley's landing, silent as the grave.
This name, forgotten, too notorious, loses its wilted
funeral wreaths, and grief shifts into dream while day
bursts wearily and night ignites revenge's flare.
Didn't you see in dreams the swans of white erase
the shadow of the sinister river, didn't you see
the flags of peace replace the grisly one of wrath?
But the flare of vengeance summons sorrow, though
And the highlands dream of blood.
To Zenon (11 of 13)
Sleep! Sleep!
Now those angry voices hush
which spoke too many words today.
The sun is setting over hill
The stars of heaven shine on earth.
Sleep!
Sleep!
Soon those brazen voices swell,
awake the storm above the green,
awake the storm in winsome realms.
Your frightened eye the storm pries wide…
Sleep long!
Untitled 12 of 13
When the blatant storm, by night, around the house
is wildly opening doors:
I watch as angst comes to the threshold, grizzled, callous…
Do I then possess
a satisfactory beheading claymore? No!
When the vengeful moon, by night, into the house
is sneaking, slyly opening doors:
I behold a hand outstretched, it's long and dead
Durst I, durst I shake it? No!
When the screaming sun, by day, into the den
is spitting golden cents:
Then the door slides open in resemblance of
a wild and gaping maw!
Untitled 13 of 13
On the goldbronze canvas of the sky
the wind is chasing dustgray painted ladies
I see them crowding 'round the scarlet orb.
I see them bursting into flames just then
Their flimsy wings ablaze and ashes snowing
all throughout the bottom of the vault.
Now a bilious bottle fly embrace
the sun's tremendous rose, it's slowly with'ring
all throughout horizon's twilit arc.
And evening winds are wailing 'round my ears,
the shadows stretching as the sun is setting…
What is that pounding in the quiet dusk?
What makes my heart so trembling now?
Epilogue
Somewhere distant, steady sunlit, there
convene my pallid dead in pleasant shrouds.
Their moonsick grins shall soon give birth to new
and everlasting peace for them and me.
Once, they rode along me on the stream.
The stream where life's enigmas glow, and they
atone for our speed, submerged below
that place where river runs into the sea.
In a distant, steady sunlit land
I'm sitting steady sunlit, watchful now
And feel the force of strength from deep inside
to conjure, for the pain of endless darkness,
in delightful dance around the ancient
pyre, a world brought home from Lethe's shore.
Most of these poems were likely written late 1896, early 1897. No. 13 and Epilogue was written in Tbilisi, Georgia 1901. They were first published in 1975. This translation is based on the text as published in 'Samlede tekster' (1996). Last updated: August 19, 2024. Contact info:
