PG 1595 .E9 P3 Copy 2 MOUNTAIN ROSES Selections from the poems of MITCHUN M. PAVITCHEVITCH (ONE OF THE FOREMOST SERBIAN POETS FROM MONTENEGRO) Mitchun M. Pavitchevitch MOUNTAIN ROSES Selections from the poems of MITCHUN M. PAVITCHEVITCH (ONE OF THE FOREMOST SERBIAN POETS FROM MONTENEGRO) RENDERED AND EDITED IN ENGLISH BY WOISLAV M. PETROVITCH Author of "HERO TALES AND LEGENDS OF THE SERBIANS", "SERBIA: HER PEOPLE HISTORY AND ASPIRATIONS", ETC. NEW YORK, N. Y. 1918 hf em MAY I 1918 5 at PUBLISHED BY Jos. A. Omero, Publisher 4 Greenwich Street, New York, N. Y. COPYRIGHT 1918 BY . Jos. A. Omero TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Wilson's Song 13 The Song of the Dusk 14 Serbian's Lament 15-16-17-18 From the Cicle of "Monteuegrine Types" 19 Yole Piletich 20 Stoyan Kovatchevitcl . 21 Mournful Reminiscences 22-23 Our Heroes Lazar Pecirep 24-25-26-27-28 Petar Mrkonjic ; 29 MITCHUN M. PAVITCHEVITCH A LYRICIST OF MONTENEGRO. Montenegrins are not only good warriors, as the world has finally acknowledged; they are natural, born poets. The entire Serbian race, of which the Montenegrins are the most florishing branch, is endowed with a powerful gift for epic poetry. There are several volumes of heroic national songs in which, like in the Iliad and Odyssey, the unknown Serbian bards, or minstrels, have glorified, from the earliest Middle Ages to this day, the deeds and feats of some favourite national hero or some important historic event. The whole nation participated in that enchanting occupation and we Serbians are as proud of our epopee as the Hellenes of their Iliad. In my opinion the zvord genius has been ridiculously abused by all nations, for the only possible genius is a people, not an individuum. And it is because the Serbian epopee has been composed by the Serbian people that it can justly be called ingenious. There is hardly any Serbian illiterate peasant to be found, in the remotest village of Serbia, Montenegro, Herzegovi- na, Bosnia and other Serbian-speaking countries, who could not tell the story of our favourite hero Kralevitch Marko or some other knight, and tell it in a beautiful de- casyllabic, blank verse. Hence it is small wonder to knozv that our present poet, Mitchun M. Pavitchevitch, can alsp sing in that pleasing and easy meter, for it is innate, inherent in every Serbian. Although self-taught, Pavitchevitch is not an illiterate bard, like most of his countrymen; on the contrary he is comparatively a very learned man. Therefore his epic style differs consider- ably from that of the average Serbo-Montenegrin mins- trel. Follozving the sublime example of one of the greatest poets of the Serbian race, Prince and Bishop Peter Petrovitch from the Niegosh, who has become immortal with his Gorski Viyenatz {Mountain Wreath), a drama in decasyllabic verse dealing with almost all principal problems in philosophy, our young poet Pavitchevitch has composed many a song in that very meter, not only because he thought it more appropriate 'for his philosophic and didactic subject matter but also because his thought is less hampered by that meter than it would be by any other in which his lyric subjects are treated. In his song "Serbian's Lament" the poet pours cut his ire at the envious, malicious and despicable bureau- cracy of his country and Serbia. He is a true son of the Montenegrin soil-tiller and zvarrior and although himself a high governmental official and a national deputy, the artfulness, duplicity and dishonesty of the officials, whose minds hare been poisoned by vices and shining corruption of the European large cities, appear to his pure and simple heart uncommonly vile and he feels keenly a sort of "mal du monde" when he says: {< The world is but Hell of shameful battle "In which lawly hungers and screams sadly "In which vices triumph over virtue "In wHich heart to cold stone is converted, "In which life of highest knightly spirit "Putrifies through stings of flies the smallest. Like every true Serbian from Montenegro he awaits patiently and strives ardently for the "Great Aurora" that will down for all the Serbian-speaking lands, dreaming of the union of all the Serbians, Croatians and Slovenians into one independent state. In all his patriotic songs Pavitchevitch has shown but an average Serbian patriot with his innate love for liberty and there is hardly any- thing in those songs that is not common to all true lovers of the native soil. It is in his lyric songs that he shows all the might of his torrential verve which can hardly be excelled even by the greatest lyricist of the Western Europe. Though somewhat razv and unfinished in his manner of treatment he reveals art and conceals the artist. When Pavitchevitch is possessed by a true emotion he is inimitable, unattainable in beauty and subtleness of ex- pression and in originality of rhetoric figures. Neither the darling of roses, Saadi, nor the tremulously sensitive Shelly could favourably compete with our Mitchun in exhuberance and opulent delicacy of thought in verses like these {depicting the usual thing called "Sunset") : "When the Sun pours out the last jug Of blood and flame that give life . . . ." or (speaking of his lady love who is young) : " .... I shall plunder the jewels of thy youth". Ovid, himself, would grow yellow with jealousy if he read these poems and Sapho — had she been Mitchun' s con- temporary — would stab the poet and spit venom at him if she knew that some of his verses had not been addressed to her. In his "Song of the Dusk", zvhich I consider the finest he had ever sung, there is more of that quintessen- ( tial requisite for any zvork of art — genuine emotion — than in the zvhole of "Boston and Giulistan". From the seventeen little volumes of Mitchuris poetrv several have been translated in French, English, Bohe- mian, Russian, Roumanian and other languages and it is to be hoped that some day my esteemed friend and Ame- rica's foremost poet, Under wood- Johns on, may trans- versify our real poet Mitchun as he has done, years ago, in co-operation of Mr. Tesla, with our skillfidl versificator Jovan Jovanovitch-Zmaj. My rough and verbatim trans- lations are really intended jnst to interest Mr. Johnson or some other gifted poet of this country to dip in the treasure of the Serbian poesy. W. M. Petrovitch. New York City, January, 191 8. 10 WILSON'S SONG. Boils, overpours the heart and blood rustles hot ! . . . And every atom of my being vibrates. . . . Why should my country with mournful brow Look on and linger, while her children in chains are dying ? I can hear the agon}' of dying millions Under the dull sword of the maddened beast And the heavy echo of the funeral bells Amidst the giggling and screeming of the hungered [Lucifer. While the Old World is perishing and sobbing Under the hoofs of reinless stallions, It seems that every cry of his heart Resounds along our manors. Enough of pain and offenses ! Enough of mean silence that destroys souls Wherefore should we endure the false idol And let him murder us secretly ? To the battlefield of honour, freedom and right ! For battle will resurrect our dead And bring a new epoch to the mankind ! . . . Our battle is the ire of the God-Man Against the Antichrist of the twentieth century And a cup of bitterness for the German Empire. II THE SONG OF THE DUSK When the Sun pours out the last jug Of blood and flame that give life And when stealthily the milde crepiscule canopies Our village in which passions sleep, I am waiting for thee, weary but awake In the dark room of the old cottage, Dreaming that, drunk and half-mad, I shall plunder the jewels of thy youth. And thou didst come, like the Goddess of Night With black ribbons down thy marble shoulders Like a lost ghost in the glooming solitude Frou-frou'd thy vestments of silk. While out of doors the dew was sighing Through bosoms and hearts overpoured boiling blood, The disordered hair was carressed and kissed And mightily beat two capricious hearts. And quiwered thy crimson lips Before the end of a tempestuous passion And like the wave that breaks against the rock So were scattered the dreams fall of delight. 12 SERBIAN'S LAMENT Woman never man has been, o, never (And Christ himself by men is condamned) Falcon never has been crow, o, never Nor coward knight fit for bloody duel. Let very pearl be trown in the dirt : For it's jewel in the empr'ror's crown. Men at Moon shoot with their accursed rifles And old witches hiss from ashes snake-like Satan himself is not what men make him Truth must vanquish lie, the cursed falsehood ! Most beautiful rose in bush is hidden From the spiteful hand of rascal children. When the mighty thunder sounds and lightnings, Fiever shaken are both pines and bushes. Rut true hero knows not for tears, weeping; Cowards crawl to feet of ugly murder'rs T have always scorned the spiteful anger For my bones are made of steel the hardest. Weak men alone condescend to begger But the strong one beareth Cross on shoulders. Fable tells us : "Man is sacred being" ; But from science: "He's but beast the wildest". I myself would rather trust to Darwin Than to Moses, darling son of Bible. Howe'r this be o, co-suf 'ring brother Know that glory grows but after burial. 13 Through snow-storms of tragedy and evil Have been rushing 'gainst my sweet ideals Thundrous storms have given all their buffets Have been falling from tops of rock cliffs. \ es, but never has my soul, the proud Knelt, o never, under painful burden Standing firm like tree of God's plantation. On the traces of my wretched ashes, Will shine justice of God the eternal But my spirit will fly high above them, There where never room for devil has been. All the blows of men and of Destiny Will be scatter'd 'gainst the Forum of Truth. Soul but whispers, pen but flies the slender Hour has struck now for Shame to be known. This world is but Hell of shameful battle In which lawly hungers and screams sadly, In which vices triumph ower virtue In which heart to cold stone is converted In which life of highest knightly spirit Putrifies through strings of flies the smallest, In which truth and equity of all men Slumbers under wounds and chains so heavy, In which Cross holds the blood-cover'd poniard And protects the crimes of crudest magnate. Cato himself, if he were arisen, Would fall in dust before mighty Caesar Would spit at his honest plea of sometime, From his Caesar would receive the medal. In this world of lies and cursed mishaps I know not who drinks nor who pays, brother, To whom to-day empr'or's scepter's given 14 Him to-morrow they send to the madhouse Those who to-day crowl in mud the dirt' est Are to-morrow glorified in marble. Demagogues cry with full voice their rages : "We are offsprings of scientific progress". Wild beast, slaughters his young in the cradle And swears he's not animal the fearsome. Wolf's neck they have with a bell distinguished To him mild sheep as gift have been given For their leader hare has been elected Fierce hyaena for their saint approved. Maybe will they for his deads so "humane" Build a chapel to that Caligula, And crucify Socrates the savant "'Cause he leadeth this word to the gallows !" Cicero they will call the greatest dullard And Nero will they call the greatest Roman. One day thou wilt see: the very donkey Wearing medals won in bloody battles, And the justest dying under burden While the villain burdens him and beats him. Diogenes all his life has, they say, With a candle searched far true man, alas ! Even to-day in twentieth cent'ry, Would he not find this man's very shadow ! my Serbian, my beloved brother, Thine own children in their chains are suff'ring 1 can hear them groan and cry so sadly Under numb'rless sufferings and shaking. The whip from Hell strikes thine chest so fragil. Men have burried thine liberty cherish'd All are strangers, those who thy hearth ravage 15 And thy sacred rights are torn and trodden. Thine lov'd daughter wears sad veil the blackest With thine sceptre others are now swaggering. Suffer, carry, all these pains and troubles ! Destiny's whip ruins all and scatters. Hark at Ocean ! Is he not then murmur'ng ? But Time dries him. Who, can do like Time does? 16 FROM THE CICLE OF "MONTENEGRINE TYPES" Drago Obrenov. O carven, my home, my hearth ! 'Tis in thee that I await the purple of the Great Aurora And hope for the hour of near Resurrection Which is to come to my forests, Which are overflowing with despair and darkness. Endure, o brothers, my fellow rebels ! In our sky that's full with icy rays Will flutter the Eagle of Cross and Freedom. And our land '11 once again be our parent ; All the Judas shall we inter for ever And our own graves shall be incensed By the sons that are born and coming like a tempest; Over the ashes of our skeletons Their brows shall be kissed by. Victory. 17 YOLE PILETICH my cherished hills of eternal rocks, On whose breast darkest thistles grow, (Never in ye white herds had grazed) 1 know your wishes, your stories ! From my very cradle am I bound to ye, Every foot of ye do I cherish mightily For, 'tis within ye that my enchained forefathers Died silently on rigid ropes. O, my beloved mountains, ye monuments of terror, 'Tis on your hoar heads that I have elevated Baricade which is stronger than the very sky. Let no winter freeze your bosom again, Ye shall never again be stricken by vermilion showers ; My people must have its own crust of bread. 18 STOYAN KOVATCHEVITCH When the silent crepiscule falls Upon the mountains and rocky summits And the most belated bird from the bush Flies to its warm nest : I, overloaded with burden of years, Bent in twain under my black straka* Stricken by the thought about my son, Am shedding worm tears on the naked rock. In my broken breast and heart I feel the pain and sorrow And the dark thought wakens in me : That I shall perish shamefully — If Death should knock of sudden Now when on all sides Battles are raging, guns aroaring, Should I be burried by women ? ! And the old warrior's shaken by sobs Alone, in the densest darkness. Tis morn The grave-diggers Have dug the sire's eternal dwelling ! *A kind of narrow and long shawl worn by men over shoulder as an ornament. 19 MOURNFUL REMINISCENCES.* The day was heavy, livid and gloomy. The sun was dead and the sky burst in tears before the dark fate of my people. . . . But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel this Lead-like and eternal night was falling. The sea blew a mighty and mad sigh like a gravely wounded warrior ; its tempestous waves mourned with their furious uproar, the infernal destiny of my people. Yet, the stone-like hearts of the killers of body would not hear nor feel The lightnings shone, the thunders burst asunder over our frost-clad forests. Centuries-stricken firs and mapple trees bent their heads down to the blood-stained ground and sobbed with the pain of an arrowed falcon. And the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. Lovcen has been turned into a half-dead aligator from whose jaws a volcano of ire and vangence errupted against the underground cells of the merchants of Venice and debauched aristocracy. The soul of a deeply offended people wept. But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. A long flock of ravens — nuncioes of evil omen and death — fluttered about the gigantic monuments of our ♦ This song in prose is considered by the Serbians en masse as the author's finest production. It is really his farewel poem when he left Montenegro for America, and reminds somewhat the elegies which Ovid, Dante or Hugo wrote in exile. 21 glory and our legendary past, and, with their despair- stricking crowing warned the evil masters against demol- ishing of national shrines. But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. Thousands of ghosts of our great heroes wandered through the misty air and, through the mouth of the greatest of the great, sang: "Do not sacrilege the hills of our ashes !" * But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. Below the Serbian Olympus was uttered the horrible cry of the Mother whose bosom has been rent asunder by her own child. From the Eagle Rock, with clipped wings and disordered hair, fled the shrieking oreads to lands foreign and unknown. But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. In the old hut the demented mother, uttering hellish shriekes, smothered her own babe that he may not become a slave. But the stone-like hearts of the murderers would not hear nor feel. Every atom of my being moved with horror. ... I shed tears of a man who has for the first time felt the weight of human evil .... With clutched fists I rushed out from the darkness in search of daylight, that I mav no longer hear the mournful song of my rocky mountains and enslaved forests. But, alas ! I still discern the faint accords of the despairing tune of my crucified country, I hear the grinding of teeth, the heavy agony, the curse and anathema of my people who is buried in one grave. 22 OUR HEROES. Lazar Pecirep I. In the distant hut the fire is dying, Lazar slumbers on a rock covered by his struka Under his head lay his yatagan and his clear-voiced gun And in his sack by his side a gruesome relic : a Turk's head. From the summits of the snow-covered Kopitnik In flocks were falling snow-flakes And through the dark Velestovo a wild screaming : Tis hungry birds that flutter and mourn. Around the sheep-fold wanders the spaniel, Guarding the herd from Turks and wild beasts, And, spying silently, keeps his master Pecirep And the mare, till the Aurora. And while the branches crack under the ice And the melted snow is falling from roofs Down to the depth maybe of the destroyed soul Like gains of burning pains and sorrow. Haiduk* Lazar from his hard bed is rising Through the night sparkles the flint And to! the flame licks already the sooth-covered chains And on the hearth dry branches crack. * Free-lancer, or guerilla worrior. During the Ottoman misrule in the Balkans the Haiduks were the only control orer the atrocities of the Turks. 23 II. 'Tis morn. . . . The sun in the net of darkness With shamefacedness like an orange in the branches, Has hidden his visage in the morning mist Only now and then throwing a ray upon the soil. Velestovo is sinking amidst the mountain gorges Amidst the rocks white homes are peeking And from the precipices circles of smoke drive on 'Tis the shepherds who are making the fires of the The bony old men wrapped in their strukas Tell the story of the battles and campaigns Burying their thoughts in the glorious past They still dream of fresh insurrections. Lazar leads his herd in the mountain slope, While a lost bird sings somwhere her song To the mountain summit, forests and liberty While in Lazar s head thoughts are swarming: "'Tis upon the stone that my mother bore me 'Tis upon the stone that 1 live for ever 'Tis stone that gave me the name of 'King of the Rock' 'Tis from the stone that I drink the remedy-carrying wate "This stone is bathed in an oceaen of blood . It is the monument of my forefathers and the Holy Cross So ! the ancient blood is still running from his stone. This stone has been defended and kept by the point of sword. 24 Thus the haiduk in a trance thinks and dreams And moved from his stony arm-chair, But in the mountains, over the rocks and branches One armed Turk after another is leaping forward. To their encounter goes Lazar alone, without a simple comrad Behind a rock he crouched, hid his sun-burnt face Spying the band, dispising and scorning death. But behold ! The evil-doers Turks emerged. Cocked his flint-lock on his opanak's tops * Upon his yatagan his right hand fell And with the left he fired his thin musket And he shot the leader Tale of Onogosht. While charging his musket he fired his two pistols In the midst of the haughty usurpers And lo ! two more chif tains fell And the forest re-echoed with cries of agony. Over tree-trunks and rocks the Turks are fleing Half -dead with terror as if thunder-stricken, While the haiduk peacefully cuts off the heads of the three And driving his flock, sombre and bloody he steps homeward. Above the blood-stained Velestovo the san is sinking And rotting in the abys are the three Turkish corpses While at Nikshitch three Turkish spouses shed tears Cursing bitterly Pecirep, the fierce haiduk. *Opanak is a sort of home-made foot-ware in Serbia and Montenegro with a pointed top. Lazar, having lost in a duel his right arm, had the top of his left opanak split in two in the shape of a fork to support his flint which he fired with left hand and kept up his fight against the Turks. 25 III. On the mountaint summit juicy trees are budding And through their trunks new life beams Through the gorges and neck-breaking holes The shepherd's song issues from his two-tubed flute. Lazar gathers a band of thirty forest giants. Who are eager for battle, blood and vengence Through the hills, mountains and forests Thirty comrads boldly fly like hurricane. The first crepiscule descended from the Krnovo mountain And in the manor of Pelevic the early fires burn While triumph the rows of pines the company faced ; And Lazar's soul was tormented by thirst for vegance. And like an angry tiger he rushed in the manor Two bulas* were saved by the thick darkness Shouts and cries broke the air, the bloody drama started And a stained yatagan embraced Beca's two sons. Through Velestovo at the break of the Dawn Thunder-like muskets roar, the song re-echoes Lazar avenges his brothers : Rado and Bogdan While Beca Pelevic at Niksic sighs. ♦ Turkish women. 26 IV. Over the range of Kopitnik, the forest dwelling Where spectres with fairies dance in a ring Lazar was lain one day Eager for breath and freedom. And while the snn is dying behind the rocks And the forest grass spreads luxuriously its perfumes Lazar, covered with his black struka On a stone, under arms was resting. Beneath his feet one stone rolled after another The point of haiduk's sword pricks his back From Velestovo the Turks drove his herd And Lazar bound is conducted to Gacko. Over Lipnik ravens are fluttering Over Gacko rin^s of smoke are rising Lazar's face dark as midnight Is liked by the flames of Janissaries' fires. From the wrecks and ashes grass has grown Thither oreads come every night To visit the haiduk's grave While Gacko still slumbers under the foreign yoke. 27 PETAR MRKONJIC* Thou art come like a hurricane, with the face of a saint Under the load of pains that agonize the soul And like a marevelous, gigantic image Fluttered over the battlefield with thy big heart. That was the moment of a swallen tide Of dolors and doubts, when souls freeze A day of summer sun, storm and winter When we rushed through death : to the grave or victory. The bones of thousands giants were cracking And the hurricane of infernal fire was boiling Over Serbia : mother of silent heroes. While thy word, from the sombre rock "Forward, heroes ! . . . like a midnight storm — Thundered and was the triumph of the terrible struggle *This is the name of King Peter Karageorgevitih under which he led the insurrection in Herzegovina. 28 MITCHUN M. PAVITCHEVITCH 404 West 23rd Street, New York, N. Y. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 002 630 669 3 *