Have you been, my young brethren,
Have you ever been to a graveyard,
To a large graveyard?
– Well, we are always in a graveyard.
The earth we walk on is a graveyard;
The water we sail on is a graveyard;
Yards and gardens are graveyards;
Hills and valleys are graveyards,
Each foot
Grave next to grave.
The monument of all times is a graveyard;
The books we read are a graveyard;
The history book of all lands,
Of the olden emperors, kings,
And the obituary of higher images
Of the chosen ones, of martyrs,
From as far back as memory goes;
It’s all a graveyard –
But a cradle too.
There is no name and no number
For all the stars high above,
And even less can there be number and remembrance
For the graves in the dear earth!
Millions were swallowed by darkness,
The pitch darkness of many a millennium,
Nobody remembers them still,
But a candle always burns for some of them.
It is either a candle, or the name is bright,
Or the deeds are ever-burning,
So that they adorn with their rays
The rows of the endless cemetery.
These graves,
Old, new,
They shine
For every generation –
When minds get engrossed in the past
For them not to get lost in the darkness;
When you plunge into the holy ancient times,
Both holy and cursed ancient times,
For your thought not to get you off your way.
They are harbinger fires,
Which reach from distant eons
In that long procession –
Shining a light for one another
With a stream which flows forth,
Striving toward a single goal, –
And so the bright beams
And so the bright traces
Of a single spirit of various ages,
A spirit which has no grave.
– It merely chucks the bones into the grave,
Shakes off the ashes which impede it.
For a faster progress, higher flight
Toward an elevated future.
He who turns around to look
With a clear eye and sight
At these bright graves,
History books in a long succession,
He must hear how,
Through centuries, through mist,
Grandfather to grandson, father to son,
Warrior to warrior
Loudly cried:
‘Where I stopped – you will go!’
‘What I couldn’t – you will do!’
‘Where I couldn’t – you’ll arrive!’
‘Whatever we owe – you pay it off!’
These are the words, these are the voices,
Which adorn the past,
Which penetrate through the world of darkness
From those shining graves,
Binding with a thunderous roar
And with a divine force,
Binding centuries together
And binding man with man.
[…]
