My translation of Deštník z Piccadilly, my favourite poem by Jaroslav Seifert (Nobel Laureate in poetry and one of the best Czech poets). I started it a few months ago and took a hiatus when I misplaced the original collection. By the time I found it it was finals season at university and I was not feeling particularly romantic. It may have been translated before and my version may not really approach the towering heights of the original, but I quite like it.
He who is lost in feeling
should fall in love
perhaps with the Queen of England.
Why not!
Her face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
If, however, he asks
for a date in Hyde Park,
he can be certain
of waiting in vain.
If, however, he is even a little sensible
he will wisely say to himself:
But of course, I know,
It's raining in Hyde Park today.
When he was returning from England,
my son bought me on Piccadilly Circus
a walking umbrella.
When I need to,
I have above my head
my own small sky
which may be black,
but in its taut wires
can stream the mercy of God
like electricity.
I open the umbrella, even when it's not raining
like a canopy
above a book of Shakespeare's sonnets
that I carry in my pocket.
There are moments, however,
when I am terrified
even of the brightly lit bouquet of the cosmos.
Regardless of its beauty
it menaces with its infiniteness
which is all too similar
to the sleep after death.
It menaces with the chill and emptiness
of its thousands of stars
which lie to us at night
with their light.
The one they named Venus
is simply monstrous.
Cliffs still boil there
and like gigantic ocean waves
mountains rise up
and flaming sulphur rains.
We always ask where hell is.
It's there!
What use, though, is a frail umbrella
against the cosmos!
Anyway I don't even carry it.
I have my hands full
with walking
clutched tightly to my Earth
like a night moth in the daytime
to the rough bark of a tree.
All my life I've searched for the Eden
that used to be here,
and traces of it I found
only on the lips of a woman
and on the contours of her skin
dewed with love.
All my life I've yearned
for freedom.
Finally I've found the door
through which it is possible to enter it.
It is death!
Today when I am old
once in a while a lovely woman's face
passes through my lashes
and her smile stirs my blood.
Shyly I turn to look at her
and I remember the Queen of England
whose face is on every stamp
of the ancient kingdom.
God save the Queen!
Oh yes, I very well know,
it's raining in Hyde Park today!
