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From “Roumanian Poems”
From the Roumanian of George Cosbuc.
HUNGRY and naked and without a home am I. | |
| My shoulders, you have charged them with loads, | |
| And you spit at me, and you have beaten me, | |
| And I have been to you a dog. | |
| Wandering landowner, brought by the wind, | 5 |
| If you have an understanding with Hell | |
| That we shall be dogs to you, beat us more! | |
| We will endure loads, so will we endure want, | |
| Bridle of horses, yoke of cattle: | |
| But we want land. | 10 |
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| A piece of corn bread left from yesterday, | |
| If you see it in our home, you take it away. | |
| Away you take our boys to the war, | |
| And our girls—you take them too. | |
| You curse our dearest and our holiest things— | 15 |
| No pity have you, nor faith! | |
| Hungry, our children are dying on the road; | |
| And we submit out of pity for them— | |
| Our lives would not be such dreadful things | |
| If we had land. | 20 |
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| The cemetery that was ours in the village, | |
| You wanted it for wheat; We, behind the plough, | |
| Ploughing—O God! it is too dreadful— | |
| Out come bones—oh, what a sin! | |
| They are the bones of our own flesh and blood— | 25 |
| But what is that to you? | |
| You took us out naked from our homes, | |
| In frost and wind you took us; | |
| Even as you took our dead out of their graves. | |
| Oh, for the dead and for their sake | 30 |
| We want land. | |
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| We would like to know, we long to know, | |
| That our bones shall lie still in the grave, | |
| That children of yours will not sin | |
| With us when we shall be dead. | 35 |
| Orphans and all who are dear to us, | |
| If they should wish to weep on our graves, | |
| They would not know what earth we lie in, | |
| Because even for a grave we have no land, | |
| And we are all Christians, | 40 |
| And we want land. | |
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| You have put seed of wheat in the field, | |
| But we have buried here our forefathers and fathers, | |
| Mothers, sisters and brothers. | |
| Away, you heretics! | 45 |
| Our land is dear and holy to us, | |
| Because it is our cradle and our grave. | |
| With hot blood always we have defended it, | |
| And all the waters that moistened it | |
| Are but tears that we have shed. | 50 |
| We want land. | |
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| We have no time even for praying, | |
| Because our time is in your hands. | |
| We have still a soul in our breast— | |
| It seems you have forgotten. | 55 |
| All of you have made an oath | |
| That we shall have no rights, no words to say. | |
| Weapons and tortures when we protest, | |
| Loads and chains when we move, | |
| And dull lead when exhausted we cry | 60 |
| That we want land. | |
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| We have no strength, and we can’t go on | |
| To live always a life of beggary | |
| And of tortures put upon us | |
| By the bosses brought by winds— | 65 |
| Oh beware, you God Almighty, | |
| That we ask not for land, but for blood! | |
| When the time shall come that we can endure no more, | |
| When hunger shall rouse us all, beware of us! | |
| Even were you all Christs, beware! | 70 |
| Even in your graves! | |
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